Foody things from 2013

Once again, i've got a backlog of posts from the last few years that i've neglected to actual post.

This last year I've found a few things food related which don't really need a whole post to themselves and have kind of ended up straggling as a non-entity. So there are a couple of posts coming about some of the slightly random bit of food stuff I've found in the last year. I might make it a regular thing for those bits that don't fit anywhere else.

As a regular at Costco, I've many times sampled their in store hot dog and soda for lunch. For £1.50 it's a bargain and you can refill the cup after while you wander about, or leave, either way.

Recently (read sometime in autumn '13) the Reading branch started doing a chili-cheese dog. 50p extra per topping, so in essence still a bargain, but with great toppings, come great problems.

Sometimes, they can get a little more generous then usual, not that i'm one to turn down a plentiful meal, but it does sometimes become tricky to hold. Even when cut in half, napkins are required.

In the same vein as before, both of these are from imgur posts and by extension of that, reddit. but imgur is where I found them, so that can have the credit.

The first was pretty simple, why dunk oreo's in milk, when you could just have a bowl of oreo's and milk, like you would cereal. they do soak up pretty fast and in fairness they do also make an oreo's cereal. But as that's hardly widely available in the UK, this is an acceptable, and delicious substitute.

The next is somewhat more radical. Sweet potato fries, and Nutella. Yes, that's right, read it again if you need to, I'll wait.

It works, it sounds a bit mad, but it really does work well, my parents were skeptical too, then we made it, and once the Nutella melted slightly and was more dippable it worked even better.

The potato was sliced fairly thinly into chips, shallow fried in the pan (they probably need more time to crispen next time) and then have a good sized teaspoon of Nutella dropped on top. The picture was taken about half way through the bowl. Like I said, they were good!

I'll probably do a proper write up on these sometime this year, there were a few things I'd change if/when I do it again.

And finally, Showing just how long ago this was (I've moved twice since I had this kitchen). What do you do when you've got a load of odd bits and pieces of lunch and snack food. Have all of it!

Granted this was for 3 of us (I think) and it was good. Plus it's actually pretty healthy, at least in comparison to the last few things i've posted. Probably worth doing again

Smoker advances

Another post from history, last time I used the smoker, while it was cooling down the lower saucer cracked, and then shattered into 3 bits. Somewhat annoying but not 100% unexpected.

The solution fixes two problems with the smoker. The first is that the fire is a bit higher, hence further from the saucer and less likely to be badly affected by the intense heat.

Secondly, the pot feet lifting the saucer create a gap around the whole circumference of the fire tray allowing loads more air into the base of the fire. This should (when properly supervised and fueled) keep the fire burning more evenly and effectively.

The first firing was pretty good and using a bigger joint (2.25kg, instead of about 1-1.5) it took around 6-7 hours to almost completely cook the pork shoulder. It was  still a little pink/juicy in the very middle so we finished it in the oven for half an hour, which was probably a bit too long. The flavour was good too, using mostly applewood, and some oak when we ran out.

Not Quite the Healthy New Year

It's a new year, and I should probably make another effort to keep updates coming more regularly. So what with New Years being all about healthy eating, here's something that's not, on pintrest. 

One sheet of ready made puff pastry, because new years eve is no time for making pastry when you could be doing anything else at all. Roll it out just over a foot square, ish. Or more or less, whatever, i'm not a cop.

The original has a large bar of chocolate, but it seemed like a much better idea to use Cadbury's Caramel, but the bar is a bit smaller than the one in the video, so...

...Improvise! Splitting the bar into three strips filled out the pastry much better, but then what to do about the large gaps? Marshmallows. Always marshmallows.

Cut in at an angle and fold the ends over to hopefully stop the contents leaking everywhere.

Slice the sides in strips and fold over in a lattice, alternate sides, then egg wash the pastry.

Bake it for 10-15 minutes at 180C and then see how it looks, if it's not golden yet, give it a bit longer.

Impressively very little leaked out, although it was fairly fragile, getting it from the tray to the plate was a bit trickier than imagined, but it survived.

It was everything I wanted it to be, and the caramel and marshmallows were the right decision, as expected.

Would I make this again, yes, would I probably die early as a result, yes. Would it be worth it? Yes.