Pat The Baker 'Slimbos'

These cropped up on my radar about a month or so ago but my initial delight at how good they looked was scuppered by the 'Slimbo' label combined with a presumably low calorie content. Admittedly I had no idea how many calories a slice of bread should have but they only tend to draw your attention towards these things when there's very little of them. Turns out 100 is roughly the calorie content of a sneeze.
I hesitated to purchase them on these grounds on a number of occasions before finally making a move on them last week.

Right let's get down to brass tacks:

• Pat markets these as 'tasty white bread squares'. He ain't lying. Tasty they are.
• Topped with sesame and linseed? Yup. Give 'em to me. Delicious. There's also a couple of other varieties which I'm sure are just fine too.
• Each square is about equivalent to one single small slice of bread.
• Each square splits into two so the sandwich will basically contain half as much bread as normal, and thus half as much of those tasty bread carbs that help maintain my sanity.
• If you are on a diet and have a modicum of self control this is a good thing. 
• I am neither on a diet nor a possessor of a detectable amount of self control.
• These are most definitely not marketed at the likes of me.

Upon initial inspection these things didn't look like they'd withstand the construction process of a normal sandwich, I felt a little reinforcing could be needed.

Rashers, rocket and cheese were on my agenda that evening and with the necessary strengthening of the bread in mind I decided to up the cheese stakes by doing a combination of, which is absolutely phenomenal, cream cheese topped with grated cheddar instead of any butter or mayonnaise. Prior to this I gave the 'Slimbos' about 30 seconds in the toaster just to give them an extra bit of back bone before spreading the comparatively stronger (to mayo/butter) cream cheese on top.

I have a rule which I like to pretend is real. That rule is the six rasher rule. Any more than that would be downright piggery. The truth is I haven't figured out a way to fit more than six rashers onto my grill and anyway there's usually 6 in the packs that I buy so I can stay on that high horse until one or both of those factors change.

I decided the six rashers split over three Slimbos would be the sensible way to go.

I threw the rashers under the grill, split the Slimbos in half and toasted them for 30 seconds each, spread each side with the cream cheese and sprinkled both generously with cheddar cheese.

Apologies for the shitty photo but what I did next was I heated up the oven and waited until the rashers were nearly done, at this stage I put the Slimbos into the oven so the cream and cheddar cheeses would melt together. This is where the magical cheese alchemy starts to happen, cream cheese and cheddar cheese are just fine but if you don't melt them  together you're not gonna have super cheese, and believe me you want super cheese. I find it helps to look into the oven window singing that Spice Girls jam '2 Become 1' just for a little bit of moral encouragement. A couple of minutes should do the trick, you don't want the cheese turning brown, just a nice warm melt will do.

Bam, out of the oven, I threw on plenty of rocket on one side of each Slimbo, put two rashers on each of the rocket piles and closed them over.

Delicious, I can not find any fault whatsoever in the taste of these, they're lovely and exactly what I'm after in a bread except for the lack of 'fillingness'.
I was not completely full after three of these and usually two (three) rasher sandwiches will have me stuffed.

I think doubling them in size would make them into something special, they'd have all the handiness and perfect proportions of normal slices of bread with the flavours and textures that come from a seeded roll...

Pat The Baker, my good friend, let me appeal to your good nature, please, pretty please with rashers on top, for all the people like me, you're onto a good thing, you can make it happen, let us walk into our local shops and see the shelves bending under the weight of your next revolutionary product...

Pat The Baker's FATSOS

B.S

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Not One Bit Of This Was Smart...

Due to the economic cluster fuck that's enriching our lovely little allotment at the moment I have found myself in the enviable position of no longer having to live by the previously con-straining and creatively stifling norms of 9-5 life and the constant gnawing of the well worn snooze button.

Or to put it in almost football like terms; The Boozey Swine. He sleeps when he wants.
And as such I eat when I want.
Like I did last a few weeks ago with this fine mess.
Wednesday night, a few sociable pints in good company that blossomed into a few cans (with levels of sociability at this point diminishing at a fairly predictable rate) followed by the uphill 2 mile 4am walk (a generous verb given the circumstances) to the home place, and without getting dramatic my denim jeans/denim jacket ensemble didn't really afford me adequate protection from the elements.
Add to all this I'd probably in the previous 24 hours, given my hectic schedule, eaten nothing but a bowl of cereal.
I was understandably tired, hungry, cold and emotional so the usual defences that I'd conditioned into my brain to stop, for the love of God, cooking/eating at awful hours like this had easily been anesthetized.

The Serious Shit/Disclaimer:
I'll never be one to advocate cooking in this condition, especially when you're alone. The sudden warmth and comfort of a house will send your body and brain to quickly prioritise sleep over food regardless of how hungry you are and the 18-22 minutes that the average pizza takes to cook is more than ample time for your body to switch off.
Luckily this hasn't happened to me, but I know of a number of people who've ruined food and more importantly ovens after falling asleep and I even know of one person who burnt their kitchen down after a chip pan fire.
If you really must cook in this condition (and really have a bit of cop on and don't) leave it to appliances that can shut off on a timer and set a countdown alarm on your phone. Let's not see a good pizza wasted.


It's a weekly ritual of mine to scour around the sauce aisles of the local shops looking for new products that might have a positive effect on my life. My sauces of choice of late have been getting hotter and spicier by the week as I've been finding it harder and harder to re live the glory of that first buzz.

Now this is being published partly in the hope that it'll sufficiently put me off ever doing it again. Clearly the combination of ingredients I used to make the following sauce had little bearing on flavour and all on how much heat I could create with absolutely no consideration on what state it was going to leave me in the next day.

I just went through the kitchen and took out everything with a bit of heat in it, of course I did have a little sense and blended everything with some mayonnaise, I'm not a complete maniac.
So I ended up with some ground Black Pepper, some ground Jamie Oliver, Jalapeño Hot Sauce, Habanero Ketchup, English Mustard, Mayo, Paprika and Cayenne Chilli Pepper.

I used it as a crust dipping sauce for this lad...

Cooked the pizza and slightly over cooked some curly fries...

Get a close up on that shite....

Mixed up it looks a lot less offensive...

There's no point describing the taste unless you want me to say it tasted like a box of matches. My insides didn't cool down for about 2 days after it. Do not do this to yourself, I did so you don't have to.

The pizza, which I've had without the lava is delicious, well worth a few quid. For a much nicer crust dipping sauce I recommend a combination of the 'Heinz Green Jalapeño Hot Sauce' and the 'Hot-Headz Habanero Ketchup' cut with some mayonnaise... You can even arrange it into an Italian flag, perfect for pizza!

Boozey Swine

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Curry, Cheese and Coleslaw Chips

I'd been hearing murmurings for a while about the existence of this variation of chips but I'd yet to see it on a menu in any of my local chip dealerships, and as far as I know (I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong) no Newbridge chippers offer coleslaw as a topping so I had to assemble this myself.

I've already covered in great detail the topic of Curry Cheese Chips so I'll avoid repeating myself only to say that like any sandwich you must give plenty of consideration to what the optimal temperature of each ingredient is, ie coleslaw will turn manky if it's let sit on top of hot chips and hot curry for any length of time. To combat any issues proper assembly and immediate consumption is in your best interests.

This was made on an evening when one of my scavenging hunts went particularly well; some oven chips left in the freezer, good white cheddar and coleslaw in the fridge and some curry powder lying around too. You want to prioritise the layering in this order: Chips, curry sauce, cheese and finally coleslaw (more cheese on top optional and recommended).

The addition of the coleslaw really ups the poshness of this dish. You wouldn't be ashamed to serve it to the mother in law or a local politician should they drop by for a friendly chat.

I think this would work even better with some of those spicy curly chips but I'd none at the time. A very satisfying dinner that leaves you feeling quite a bit healthier in body and mind than you would after regular curry cheese chips.

Boozey Swine

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'Curry Beanz' and 'Fiery Chilli Beanz' from Heinz

I was feeling adventurous during the week so I decided to let shit get a little wild down the bean isle. Considering the fact that until recently the only previous variation of the standard beans in tomato sauce that I was aware of were the ominous, ever present and gag-inducing 'Beans with Pork Sausages', expanding my bean horizons hadn't BEAN on the agenda. Sorry.

Heinz recently released a new line of flavoured beans including 'Cheddar Cheese' and 'Garlic and Herbs' but the 'Fiery Chilli' and 'Curry' varieties were the only ones that appealed to me. Cheese and beans just like sausages and beans are all well and good together but they should never become accustomed to each others company prior to meeting on the plate.

First up in the taste test were the curry beans. Ordinary beans, being the versatile little demons that they are, go down well any time of the day. I knew I'd have to be a little more choosy about deciding when and where these buckos were going to sit in my food schedule. I opted to place them on the late evening menu with a plate of chips and a batter sausage courtesy of my local and highly recommended 'Cooks Cabin' takeaway.

Best chips in Newbridge and on more than one occasion they've had a delivery at my door less than 10 minutes after I made the call. Top quality all round. 

First impressions of the beans is that they're a little salty. The curry is quite nice, good flavour if nothing out of the ordinary and just the right amount of kick of heat. The recipe still has a tomato base so it's not going to be out of anyone's comfort zone. All in all I approve.

The plan for the fiery chilli beans was supposed to be a nice fried breakfast with all the trimmings centering on the chilli beans and how they'd accentuate the eggs in particular.

This plan got slightly changed when I arrived home at 4am carrying a guitar in my left hand and the contents of 12 cans of Tuborg in my stomach and not much else... 

Sure you know how you'd be...

I did try my best to present this well and I don't think I did too bad considering the level of inebriation I was engulfed in at the time. It would also appear that the drunk version of me really likes pepper.

The chilli beans did exactly what they're supposed to; the usual tomato beans with a great belt of heat. Simple and to the point. Another job well done.

I still had a half a tin of each variety of beans left over so I did the decent thing and gave them the send off they deserved. 

Another plate of chips from Cooks Cabin, split in 2 with a wall of onion rings down the middle. Curry on one side, fiery chilli on the other, topped off with a little grated white cheddar cheese.

An absolute feast.

I will be buying these beans again, I find it unlikely that I'd be delving into the other flavours but these 2 will do me just fine for now. I you're feeling a little fancy you might also want to try the Heinz 'Five Beanz' variety (apologies for the crap photo), I had them a little while back and are essentially a posher version of the regular beans, the addition of other bean types adds a lot to the texture but not a huge amount more in taste. Nice overall.

There, I made to the end. And not a single fart joke. 

Probably because the last thing you'd be doing after eating as much beans combined with curry and chilli as I've done in the last couple of days is making jokes. 

Boozey Swine

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Buckfast Ice cream.

You wake up on couch on a sunny Sunday morning after a heavy night on the juice, you see some of your associates strewn around the room and the offer of ice cream for breakfast is casually mentioned by one of them, you jokingly suggest putting some of last nights leftover buckfast over it as a sauce, before you know it you're handed this. It's only a shot glass, not enough to get you drunk but more than enough to guarantee that  any lingering respect your relations may have had for you is gone down the very drain that the buckfast should have went. 

Buckfast, for the uninitiated, is a Tonic Wine / (currently) legal crack substitute made with love (presumably) from Calpol, green diesel and the tears of angry badgers by the monks of Buckfast Abbey in Devon (and not Scotland as I previously thought,  the Scots, like ourselves just have a particular appetite for it.)

A small drop of it over a little vanilla ice cream wasn't bad at all in fairness, although I think that says more about me. 

Do yourself a favour, drink the aul Buckfast in moderation and amongst friends, and consider this a desert, not a breakfast; I'm not a fan of funerals.

B.S

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Brown Bread avec Waffle and Egg

Brown bread I'd like you to meet your new friends, waffle, fried egg, ketchup and pepper; You're all going to get along just fine.

A quick, cheap (you probably have most if not all of this stuff in your house) and utterly delicious snack.

Apart from the insisting that you fry the waffle (don't grill or toast it, put in the effort) there's nothing to say about this. It's simply perfect, take away nothing, add nothing.

TRY IT; TRUST ME ON THIS ONE LADS.

B.S

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2am Fridge Raid Victory

The fridge was exceptionally good to me tonight... Chicken, stuffing, coleslaw, cheese, tomato, mayonnaise, mustard and ground black pepper... There ain't a nightmare in existence that's gonna make me regret eating this at 2 in the morning.

Marks & Spencer's new bakery are responsible for the bread, I'll be investigating their produce thoroughly.

I'll have the Andrew's Liver Salts and the rosary beds beside the bed in case things get nasty.

B.S

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