Trend The Consequences

Yesterday was the beginning of a brave new blog; Trend The Consequences. 

Following the daring adventures of 2 fashionable hopefuls, every week a current or future trend will be analysed from the buying experience through to the walk to BK at 3am.  No detail will be spared so expect excessively long posts but also expect to come out of a reading session completely in the know for your next style move.

There's a good chance that my attention will be so focused that I may do posts on here at an even slower rate. 

Becoming a Vegetarian

Thanks to a deceptively displeasing victory by the England rugby team yesterday I decided a suitable gesture of my gratitude was needed.  I also wanted to honour All-round-good-guy Billy Twelvetrees and his ability to be responsible for everything good and bad without ever meaning to be near the ball.  So to satisfy both these urges by dulling my world I thought I'd try to live as a vegetarian.

This was the wrong move as it turns out. It is impossible to quell any Twelvetrees based desires even with tasty meat and to think tofu alone could do this was poor judgement.

Wikipedia tells me it is made by coagulating soy juice

At Tescos a few days ago I insisted that I needed to buy some tofu, this should have been seen as a warning sign in the first place as I never buy food for use beyond the current day.  On Saturday evening I deemed some form of batter was the best way to serve it.  I was limited to a recipe that just used egg for the batter as I was missing most ingredients needed for tempura.

These beautiful silken slivers were shallow fried and I was feeling pretty good.  Maybe the best I'd felt since arriving at livelounge on Friday. Definitely better than the crushing disappointment of seeing Johnny leave the club minutes later in his usual self righteous fashion.

After this I thought I'd fry up the remaining eggy juice which turned out very bad 

It tasted like fried omelet and it was

The tofu, well it tasted like a block of bland more jellyish egg white in some fried egg.  I read tofu is versatile but that just means it's able to be bad in many situations.  In fact I just saw the boy 6 nations advert and I'd say they are equal in badness.

Today things are back to normal (sorry about the tomatoes)

The worst news is I still have half of the tofu block left.  I will probably have to use it raw in a sandwich tomorrow :(

If after reading all this you feel inspired to try some yourself Amazon happens to sell tofu and recipe books

The Professional Recommendation

A sausage maker butcher guy on Sunday Brunch just said you shouldn't pierce sausages!  That's good news for my credibility I think but I can't remember what I have written previously, but why did he reveal his answer in under 1 minute rather than over a 5 part blog post?


Also, interestingly, Blogger doesn't have "blog" as a correct word in its spell checker.

Gin and Tonic Stir Fry

Possibly because I wanted something to write about yesterday I pushed the boundaries of common sense and basic decency.  Because my kitchen is so understocked with pretty much and items when I was attempting to cook dinner last night I just used whatever I could find in the cupboard along with some shoddy looking chicken thighs that I bought for some reason.  So a fairly bland stir fry was on the cards, the only excitement being that I used the food processorto chop the onion and pepper, this all changed when I got the gin out to prepare a gin and tonic...

The first thought I had was to add some gin, the sauce was looking dull and uneventful, I was confident the gin would maybe change this, potentially for the worse.  I added a few drops and was briefly rewarded with that unpleasant smell of gin.  Thinking that was still boring I then added a fair glug of tonic which produced a hiss from the pan and to my horror everything started foaming in a way that makes you think you're an idiot, thankfully the foam dispersed and I was left with basically no benefits.

I went to sample the food with some concern that I'd screwed myself over and had wasted my time with the awkward chicken thighs.  Thankfully when I tasted a bit of chicken and noodles the only thing I could taste was the excessive levels of fish and soy sauce that I had added.  If anything the gin did nothing and the tonic even less.  The salt overload nearly destroyed me.

Gin and Juice Do' Saturday

As we all know, the "sport" section of this blog is pretty limited, if it's not about basketball it's meaningless guess work and if it is about basketball it's more meaningful guess work.  The NBA Draft was on Thursday and as little happened of excitement it now means that the Internet is boring until November and there will be pretty much nothing for me to write about, especially as I need the actual sports journalists to comment on things first before I can get the rehashing on.  I could do some kayaking but that is unpleasant and is well covered by Stuff the Consequences.

So what's the point of all this?  Well tonight is Gin and Juice Do' Saturday, again little point to this post except that I ate steak in preparation.  It was nice as well but that goes without saying, nothing bad has happened in this kitchen since last week when my wild mushroom omelette was the worst food ever.

The no carbs wasn't on purpose but my gnochi were past fresh.  All cooked and eaten while topless, but to compensate I was wearing pants and trousers (no socks).

 

 Oh look it's gin and juice

We're Through - FA Cup and Liverpool

So I'm attempting to type this on my phone as my new internet isn't activated yet and won't be for an increasing amount of days every day :'(  it won't be a long read.

The title is a little misleading but as ever in an egomaniacal lifestyle that's the intention. The reference is to a handy phrase used in work to stop and forget arguments - which I am usually enjoying.

This evening is the FA cup final between Liverpool and Chelsea, and while excited I am also emotionally dead to it.  This season has been dire reminding me of a few years ago when liverpool's play drove me to basketball (although I don't recall if that season was bad and may have been the year they got to the champions league final and lost). 

I'm confident recent results won't effect this match at all, based on how much more awful Liverpool have become since they won the league cup earlier in the year.  A quick word to Chelsea, drogber seemed nice on graham Norton last night but hopefully he's sad tonight.

So all in all I hope Liverpool win tonight but even if they do I'm still saying we're through for this year.  Luckily that doesn't mean its over for ever just that this year is written off and forgotten and a fresh start will hopefully be coming soon.

There we go, a sports post for the first time in ages.  Also finale of homeland tomorrow and I'm going to miss it and with no internet what the bell am I going to do?

More sausage science Part 2

Given the backlash the previous 2 posts about sausages have caused ("chipolatas don't count you idiot", "why would I look on twitter for you stupid posts?" and so on) I thought it best to conclude this mess once and for all.

This time using COOP Butchers Choice Cumberland sausages so that I definitely fit with the proper sausage crowd but also not fancy so as to be thought of as too exclusive to represent to the real eater.  Eight sausages, a variety of puncturing, and the results weren't stark.  In fact they were pretty boring.

Here's the proof:

What ever you think the setup was here you're wrong.  It's clear to see the 4th from the left is the most bent followed by the one on the far right.  The crazy thing is that the 2 on the left were the unpunctured sausages, the 4th from the left had 3 punctures!  Madness.  The one on the far right had 2 holes in the middle.

From this I am concluding that I won't bother puncturing in the future and to show my conviction to this school of thought I didn't this morning.  I also conclude that it is probably the grill pan and the sausages position and rotation half way through that has a bigger impact.  That or the COOP sausages are generally bend proof.

Very good, now that's out of the way I hope to get back to something none sausage based in the distant future.

More sausage science

I recommend checking the tweets.

I didn't feel it deserved a whole blog post, unlike this.

Piercing Sausages - Needed or the Dirtying of a Clean Knife?

After a decidedly important discussion following stark revelations recently I decided to perform an experiment on the effect of piercing sausages before subjecting them to the devastating powers of my grill.

My belief has been for a while that puncturing ones sausage isn't necessary unless wanting to optimise the sausages health giving qualities.  An alternate opinion, and one I used to have until my Dad told me off, was that holes are required to stop explosions, although after dialogue it seems explosion means a bit of skin rippage and not a full on splattering of meat all over the kitchen.

The only way to test all this was to cook some chipolatas, 7p reduced from £1.20 to £1.13!  6 were lined up, 2 were left alone as the control, 2 were pierced once and 2 were pierced twice.  The results weren't stark...

Let's have the photos do the talking

Knife strikes are marked with the blue crosses, let's try not to focus too much on the state of my grill pan precooking :-p

So what was the outcome?

As we can see the 2 best sausages are the ones that had 2 pierce points, the 2 with piercings at one end of the sausage are buckling away from the pierced end and the 2 without and had major structural damage - no dangerous explosions though.  But what of the taste?  Well the extra fat retained by the non pierced beasts led to no noticeable change although I didn't actually check which ones I was eating.  

All in all the main thing to gather from this experiment was that saving 7p paid off in the no illness I suffered at the untrustworthy hands of their unfreshness.

Lunch at The Felin Fach Griffin

For a change of pace a bit of food.  The Felin Fach Griffin, near Brecon, is a place I visited a year or so ago and was very impressed with the set evening meal, the main problem encountered on that visit was that I had had lunch at 4pm and so by 7.30 I was still quite full.  The courses that followed were all very generous and there was unlimited soda bread which resulted in an unfinished pudding.  Returning in January for the set lunch I was sure to only have a smallish breakfast but was still concerned, turns out I needed to be.

We arrived at 12.50 for our booking at 1, I had in fact promised to be there by 12.30 but failed quite badly.  The restaurant is very inviting and as you walk in there is a large fireplace, sofas and a small bar offering refreshing jugs of ginger beer and elderflower.  At 1 we were taken through to eat and brought a huge slab of slate with the dangerous soda bread stomach filler, I made the mistake of getting very involved with the bread although it didn't cost me dearly until the evening when massive stretching pain and bloatedness struck.  For starter I had rich and buttery potted shrimp with toast, again a dangerous amount especially when I was allowed to finish for someone else as well.

 

 The other starter was a pleasing mushroom soup, the sensible choice for unbloated preference.

For the main course we all opted for the venison stew.  The sauce was intense and meaty and while looking quite simple the dish was exceptionally flavoured.  I did find the tiny carrots annoying as they needed the tops removing but they tasted good and are grown in the garden outside the restaurant.

Pudding presented me with problems, the one I wanted had nuts and the one I ordered also had nuts.  Didn't think about the cheese option but maybe I should have.  I had to do a swap of puddings to the one that only had almonds, this was some sort of apple and custard cake and was very nice, quite light in fact so was probably the needed selection.  The pudding I ordered but had to trade was a sort of treacle tart but more moussey and covered in nuts, I was given a small sample to try that was clear of nuts and it tasted incredible so I was a little disappointed in the whole situation.  I guess I could be happy for the person who got my tart but it was hard when I was eating a fruit (healthy) pudding that still required chewing almonds. 

yum

yumyum

All in all a very nice and good value meal, only £18 for 3 courses with excellent service, food, ambiance and wine.  The owners also run 2 places in Cornwall which I may visit if I ever go that far away from Wales.  So the main thing to conisder is you should go but you should resist eating al;l the soda bread as they will keep bringing more until you die.

Felin Fach Griffin 

Blogs

Well it's been even longer than usual (although feel free to check that stats and prove me wrong) since my last blog and as this particular post is a farce time is still passing before the next awesome blog post. 

There is actually a lot lined up, the problems exist in the "Words in mind to on screen words via keyboard type letter usage" process system.  In fact the only reason this is happening is because I uploaded some photos to Facebook for the first time in around 9 months and felt mild motivation - though not enough to do something proper as the subject matters require and deserve proper thought.  The other problem is the 4 things I want to talk about are all food related and so I need some sport to intertwine into the harsh tapestry that is I'm Not Injured.

Here's a teaser

Back on the slope

Hit it big this eve

In a fitting twist I fell over on the button lift during the session and ripped open the inside of my trousres exposing the majority of my right thigh to the world.  Other than that smooth skills on show to the no other people on the slope with me.

Cheese on Toast

It's been ages since anything new was put on here so to get it going again I'm going to look into one of the classic dilemmas, is cheese on toast less healthy than a cheese sandwich?

My answer to that is; no, quite the opposite in fact. 

There are 2 ways of looking at the scenario, the first is equal amounts in each, 1 slice of bread and some cheese used for both the sandwich and toasted version, the second option involves 2 slices of bread for the sandwich dooms and 1 slice for the toast.  In the second option the 2 slices of bread dooms it immediately.  So we will go back to option 1, equal amounts of ingredients.

With the sandwich there is the cheese and the bread, maybe folded and eaten cold.  For the cheese on toast the cheese will be melted and the bread will be toasted and overall the food will be hot.

When the cheese on toast cooks the grease from the cheese starts to ooze out, this while looking unhealthy may allow some to dribble off putting the cheese on toast ahead of the sandwich straight away in the health stakes.  After the initial seepage you can tilt the toast and let more dribble off or as I do in work wipe it with a paper towel.  I would likely be dead now if I didn't follow this practise.  Secondly the toasted bread of the cheese on toast should crumble more during handling meaning less bread is eaten.  Next is that I usually put chilli on cheese on toast thus boosting my metabolism to an inhuman level.  Also reading a discussion on the the topic I read that small quantities of charcoal on the toast is good for digestion.  Finally hot food is nicer than cold generally so is better for mental health.

Overall a decisive victory for cheese on toast (and that's without even considering that it's more likely you'd use butter or lard with the sandwich).  Obviously though with current electricity prices maybe using the grill so much isn't a wise choice so it depends whether you value financial or actual health more. 

Feel free to present me with any arguments in favour of the sandwich.   On and Gin' Do Friday are back according to their blog :-O

The day food went too far (in a good way)

There are times when everything works out perfectly, in September this year this was the case.  Although this was a while ago it's only now I've finished digesting the full gloriousness of the most outrageous and boundary breaking bit of dins ever consumed, by me at least.

So we were in Cosmo for Chris and Dani's leaving do, last time I had been there I was a year ago.  That time I had to sneakily hide drinks on the floor of the club we went to as people wouldn't stop gifting me with when I had zero available volume in my body.  This time I started a bit slower and even had some of the curries but after pudding things got silly.  We noticed that the cook stuff guy had no queue and headed up.  Turns out he was feeling generous as he treated me to 2 pieces of incredible sirloin steak and 5 scallops!  Due to the excitement this generated and the wine the next stop was the pudding area where a terrible looking custard and red pudding was put on my tray. 

Back at the table we proceeded to combine the magnificent meat and shellfish with pudding.  Scallop and grape was pleasant, steak dunked in pudding was good and steak juices squeezed into custard with scallop and melon was genius.   Imagine the meat flavours soaking up into the white melon flesh all sandwiched with scallop and MSG.

Yum

Right, X Factor - could do with Marcus for financial reasons and to prove my vision. 

Basketball free agency starts tomorrow which is also very good.  By the end of the week many a team could be ruined.

NBA is back - the year is saved

But not until Christmas!  The main thing here is that long term greed was met with short term greed to allow a deal to be reached so that chump fans like myself can follow something again.  This means a return to staying up till antisocial hours and coming top in fantasy leagues again.

It's likely this year Utah will be awesome as I want them to be and if they aren't they should get a good pick in a sweet draft so for me alone it's win win.  In reality they will probably be around mid table but with exciting young men to watch and good uniforms.


The less glamorous alternative

The best Oolong website

Having been out trying to Christmas shop the past 2 weekends I've found most of the time is spent distracted by things I want to eat and drink.  Last weekend my main achievement was pot roasting a pheasant to a mediocre standard.  This weekend I went crazy hunting for oolong in any tea shop I came across -  I actually found some in House of Fraser but it was over 5 pounds for 15 bags - and buying currywurst from the German sausage tent.

Here's a link to a brilliant website about oolong tea, http://oolong.co.uk/tea/.  It's worth reading for a couple of reasons; it will give advice on how I expect to be hosted; about half way down the page is the maddest thing ever, The Oolong Tea Song, I can relate bit to much to the lyrics - it hurts.

Away from food, Sophie from X Factor was performing in Cardiff last night but I didn't go to see her :(  Rebecca Ferguson performed on X Factor :) Rebecca singing another song.  Also my 2 bets are still alive with not many weeks remaining (££££).

Football

Liverpool beat Chelsea, yay!

It was good although the Drogba free kick was too much like a goal and made me instantleigh lose faith in Liverpool until I realised it didn't go in, then I was back to tense but bored.

There's meant to be some sport (discussion) on here.

Success

Yay St Louis Cardinals won the World Series in comfortable fashion in the end. 

Apparently it was the most exciting World Series in many a year.  In my attempts to be in on it I watched the 2nd innings of game 7 but through a combination of too tired and nerves decided it was best to sleep and find out in the morning.  Unlike all the other teams I trust my happiness to St Louis seem to deliver when it wasn't even expected.  It's Liverpool's turn now :)

They've only gone and got Oolong!

After months of no oolong tea I finally have oolong tea.  Tescos (again!) stopped selling Twinings Oolong a while ago and since then I haven't been able to enjoy the delicate lightly sweet satisfaction and refreshment a manly cup of oolong brings.  Yesterday though I had a whole tea pot full, and it was very nice.  The tea menu at the Park Plaza afternoon tea service said it was one of their favourite oolongs, if this means they have tried bad stuff and discarded it it doesn't seem fair when I would be happy with any.  So if you want some go there, it will cost about £20 pounds but you get champagne and other stuff if you aren't happy enough with those two items.

Crazily enough it turns out Amazon sell Clipper Oolong and some twpsin has given it 3 out of 5 stars thinking it would make them slim, they also didn't like the taste, but it's probably worth getting some.  Says on Amazon that it has been made famous by it's celebrity drinkers (Gin Do' Friday I presume) which actually makes sense, I recall watching the Drunken Master 2 where Jackie Chan asks for some to drink and knowing it was the drink for me.

Equally excitingly is that the World Series has gone to 7 games, and though I won't be likely to win on my MVP bet of Jon Jay it has been an amazing series and I could even watch a bit tonight when I get in as it's Friday :)  I'm sure I won't though as the tension will be too much and I am a wuss.  Unlike in the Euro 2004 shootout I won't be able to go sit in the garden for this as I don't have one.

Chili Manliness Part 2

So on to the proper sized Bhut!  Before getting into the eating we should appreciate the beauty of the chili, it started off all green but during the past week has slowly become a magnificent shade of traffic light.  I'd say if you're going to get packs of these chilies from Tescos for anything it should be to scatter around your home as art(similar to what you could do with cocktail sausages), turns out eating them still isn't that exciting.

A brief diary of the usage of the pretty large, almost tree sized!, chili above:

• 1/3 used in a salmon stir fry, 1 finger chili chopped up raw on top with coriander.  This was reasonably hot.
• 1/4 used on a pizza, this was just above mild.
• 1/4 was chewed raw by me  (the after shot of my bite is shown below) to see if it was worthy, I got pretty intense striking pain on my lips and tongue for a minute or so and I considered the end, but this came and went quickly enough to remember that the pain Western Balti chilies give my stomach is much worse in the medium and long term.

• 1/3 used in a beef curry today, medium heat in the mouth afterwards, but again this was mostly from other sources of pain - a finger chili used in a relish and the Tescos spicy poppadoms were both worse.

All in all a more promising but ultimately over hyped specimen.  As I think I said before, the next one will ruin me, at least then my 90p will have been spent on a good chili and not just on developing the phrase "the hottest" that was used on the packet (6 chili symbols! crazy considering it's usually out of 5).  I will also add scotch bonnets from Tescos (I'm afraid I don't use other supermarkets) were just as hot as this and provided a much more distinct and interesting flavour.

Brief World Series news, St Louis are now trailing 3-2 in the series in spite of winning game 3 with 16 runs :(  Pujols may only have 1 game left which would I guess make me uninterested in baseball for a while again.  Next game is Wednesday night and I won't be watching it as I'll be asleep.