Late Night Fast Food: A Plea For Reason and Sanity

The system is broken and we don't even realise there's a problem.

Green to me means go, proceed, etc... This is confusing.

Let me bring something to your attention.

Two occasions in the last month have made me realise that we can do better as a society.

The first time was one night when I was walking home at approximately 1.20am, not hungry or looking for a snack, just listening to a few tunes when a car pulled in beside me and in a panicked fashion the driver asked me was there anywhere they would get food. This being a Tuesday or Wednesday night I told them they'd have to make do with whatever they could get from the 24 hour garage. She pleaded "But is there no takeaways open?!?!", my heart sank a little as I had to crush that last little ounce of hope she was clinging to.

Only one week later I was in a strangely similar predicament, this time I was starving, but I already knew the answer. At least my brain knew, my stomach wanted to believe another story. Leaving work just after 1am, a Wednesday night, I knew there was nowhere open, that 4 packets of crisps and a loaf of whatever bread was left in the 24 hour would be my only solace.

Crisp sandwiches are exceptionally difficult to construct on the walk home.

But what the gut wants, the gut wants: Fried Chicken. I emerged onto the Main St. to some kind of shit version of Las Vegas. The place lit up like a bonfire of cheap neon.

I knew the chippers were closed. The chippers knew the chippers were closed. Were they dressed accordingly? Not a chance. If I see lights, I think open for business. Chippers would claim they leave lights on for advertising. It's a sick and twisted act of temptation; shining a light on what you cannot have, illuminating the empty chasm of your stomach.

Chippers you're doing yourselves absolutely no favours. Here's a simple rule of thumb;

If it's late enough that you're closed, anybody who is out in public wants fast food. 

Your brightly lit beacons of disappointment are pissing people off. Nobody sees them and thinks "oh, maybe I'll get food from there tomorrow"...
Their only thought is "Chicken skin. Now".

Now I'm not one to go ranting about this seemingly trivial problem without presenting a solution. And my proposed solution is twofold.

1. The Traffic Light System.

Chippers want to advertise at all hours of the day and night as is their right and are highly unlikely to change that policy after hearing the ravings of a guy with a nickname like mine. What I propose is a lighting system, just like traffic lights. Green for open. Red for closed. Maybe even an orange light to signal that they're on their last orders and you better get there sharpish. Their name is still illuminated, just in one very clear colour.

Just so we're absolutely clear: THIS IS  ALL WRONG.

That solves that problem. If there's a simpler or more rational way to fix this issue I'm all ears.

This has no relevence to this story other than it being a tray of sauces that looks like a traffic light.

2. Rotating Mandatory Takeaway Opening.

Just like pharmacies rotate which ones open late at night or on a Sunday, chippers should be made do the same as a form of service to the people of their respective town. At a quick count, just using Newbridge as an example, I can think of at least 8 takeaways on the Main St. that if they took it on a one week rotating basis they'd each only have to open late (until 7am the next morning, when hot deli counters start opening) about 6 weeks a year. Hike up the prices 10, 20, even 25% to cover staff and security costs, we wouldn't care. The business generated would be minimal, I know, but think of the smile that'd be put on the face of the person coming off the late shift in work who can't face another Pot Noodle sandwich or the happy drunk stumbling home from a few late cans in a mates house who wants the last mile of his journey home to be spent trying to solve the puzzle of how to dip a large battered burger into a tub of curry sauce. It'd bring happiness to the hearts of everyone involved. Again in conjunction with the 'Traffic Light System' identifying which chipper is on the late night opening would be simple. 

Lets not stop the Traffic Light System there though, put it into play within bars and niteclubs for people who, unlike me, aren't so acutely aware of last order times.

I'm only trying to make this country a better place for all of us. If you agree with what I've said please forward this not only to your local Chippers & Takeaways, but now in this time of elections, send it to your local politicians imploring them to put this system into law where it rightly belongs.

B.S

Giz a like or a follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

Chocolate, Banana and Raspberry Milkshake

I had a few "Monday Pints? Be Grand" last night. Now while I was far from suffering from a hangover, my tastes were a little off kilter this morning. So after the chicken curry, chicken balls and chips that I had for breakfast I was in the humour for making a milkshake at home. One of the by products of the few pints, while I'm still not conceding it being a symptom of a hangover, was having absolutely zero interest in reading instructions on how to make a milkshake or measuring out the quantities involved...

So I gathered up what I had....

...and fired 'some' of each into the blender...

I've made a terrible mistake.

I immediately knew I had put in too much milk so I compensated by upping the ice cream, chocolate and raspberry content. It eventually ended in me adding 3/4 of the entire tub of ice cream to bring it to any sort of a milkshake consistency. 

Glass 1...

It was quite nice, considering I had to drink the best part of a litre of the stuff. 

Next time it'll be less milk and I'll be making it later in the evening so I can justify firing a few lashes of Bailey's into it. That'd be the business.

As a quick aside I've been making a few smoothies lately...
Milk, plain yoghurt, a banana and frozen blueberries. It's a quality drink.

A drop of Bacardi will give it a lift if consuming after 6pm. 

Now I've tried this lad with a spoon of peanut butter thrown into the mix and while not bad I feel it best to treat peanut butter as you would a fine whiskey, ingested only neat, unsullied by the creations of God or men.

B.S

Giz a like or a follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

'Beans & Peas' Fish and Chips Burger

Credit where credit is due; England, you do a fine chip and your near insistence to pair them with mushy peas is one I commend. If only there was a sword and an elderly lady big enough that the entire landmass of your country could be rewarded with an honour, albeit with the usual disregard for health and safety present at these ceremonies, for such a feat...

I'm just back from a quick midweek visit to Manchester to see that sporting institution that have been inflicting hardship on me for the last year and being that I was in a tender state from the previous weekend I ended up medicating myself with a load of shite food. A lot of which consisted of chips and mushy peas.

Still in the humour for this brand of shite when I got home and being as predictable as a politician, I thought SANDWICH. Ok, well, I've called this a burger but it's all the bleedin' one.

I wanted something with a little more kick than just Fish & Chips & Peas in bread though...
I decided to add beans into the mix.
A process which would also answer the question of whether mushy peas and beans would make the absolute world-explodingly amazing combination that I'd always hope they would.
But I was never going with plain beans. I'm too far gone for that shit now. Beans for me have to at least have Tabasco Sauce and cheese mixed through them. I've wasted so much of my bean eating life not eating beans like this that to even think about it brings my mood down. No point crying over plain beans though. I decided to take it up another notch and add scallions to the beans as well.
Because SCALLIONS.

I went with a bit of Donegal Catch Cod and some skinny French Fries for the main event in the burger and in keeping with the English theme I got some Marks & Spencer's burger buns. I've said it before, they do the best mainstream bread rolls available in Ireland. I used 2 buns for this and tried keeping them from tearing apart, but it in the end it made little difference.

Clockwise from the top left you can see I loaded on the beans, which were dosed up with about 15 drops of Tabasco Sauce, a quarter block of cheese and 2 finely chopped scallions. A good dose of rocket was put on as a bed for the cod and the other side was given the mushy peas and chips treatment before it was all closed up.

It goes without saying that you're not going to just stick on about 10 chips for this, and you'll have a load of beans and peas left over so...

This was good. This could open up a whole new avenue of dirty fish burgers to me. I had contemplated putting some Tabasco or cheese into the peas but having not tested this before I wisely left it to the beans to shoulder that burden and it worked great. I'll super charge mushy peas another day. 

Traditionalists might not agree with my choice of skinny chips but there was method to my madness. Using large hand cut chips in a burger or sandwich doesn't, in my experience, work when there are other ingredients fighting for your attention. The potato is a loud and obnoxious creature, who while having very little to say wants to be heard over everyone else. Small doses are key. 

I've very little to say about beans and mushy peas. They work. It's beautiful to witness. I plan on being the awkward third wheel at many of their future dates. 

All in all I was very impressed; the bread was delicious, I just gave it a little toast so it'd stand up to the pressure, the rocket balanced everything out in a position where I was contemplating a third sauce, but it didn't need that. Scallions first appearance in a beans jersey went very well, a solid performance and definitely one with a bright future in this game. Purists would argue that I should have had a proper chip shop slab of fish but I found the variety I used much more up to the task, great strength and an optimal batter to fish ratio for sandwich use.

At the end of the day this was a very convincing win. My insides are the only injury but are expected to make a full recovery and be back in light training by Tuesday morning.

Boozey Swine

Giz a like or a follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

Hot 'n' Cheesy Scrambled Eggs w/ Garlic Rashers

I spent the last 3 weeks travelling the four corners of Germany with my band Knoxville Morning and with all due love and respect to the wonderful people of that country, they don't, in my humble (and most likely narrow minded) opinion, have a bulls notion about how to prepare a decent breakfast.
We soon gave up on trying to find a morning meal with any semblance of familiarity and resorted to waiting for brunches or lunches from the trusty Turkish Kebab Shops which are in abundance throughout Deutschland.

After I got home, a couple of days ago, my body was, strangely enough, craving some healthy food which it was almost entirely starved of over the course of our long journey. After a 24 detox consisting of about 2 fields worth of vegetables I was ready to get back on the wagon.

I woke up this morning craving all the best flavours and I knew I had the ingredients at hand to make something special happen. I wanted bacon and eggs. But I wanted loads of cheese too. I knew I'd garlic and that had to go in there. AND HOT. It had to be hot, but with loads of flavour... Tabasco Sauce was the lad I was after.

I immediately had a fully formed picture in my mind of what was going to happen. I wasn't sure it would work, but I had the hope and boundless optimism that only a man about to dip his toe into the weekend could have.

I gathered my ingredients:

• 3 Rashers
• 3 Eggs
• A Clove of Garlic
• Cheddar Cheese (to be grated)
• Creme Fraiche
• Tabasco Sauce
• Hot Chilli Seasoning

I heated up a frying pan with some olive oil and crushed the clove of garlic into it. Then I cut the 3 rashers into strips and fried them up until they were nice and crispy.

While all this was going on, and I'll spare you the unattractive photos of it, I made the scrambled eggs. Simple.. 3 whisked up eggs into a hot pan with melted butter and stirred constantly. As the eggs were just about cooked I added a handful of grated cheddar cheese and a couple of teaspoons of creme fraiche and stirred them through until they melted.

Serve it up in a bowl like so, sprinkle some chilli seasoning and drizzle some Tabasco sauce over the eggs and your done.

This was the nicest, tastiest, most satisfying breakfast I've had in as long as I can remember. I've often added some grated cheese to scrambled eggs but the addition of creme fraiche knocks it up about 5 more levels, they were the creamiest most delicious eggs I've ever had, and it all worked perfectly with the little kick of the chilli and tabasco. 

The balance was perfect. 

Now the rashers and garlic combo... I don't know why this isn't more mainstream, maybe for the fact you can rule out getting a shift any time in the near future if you consume this, but I can tell you it'll be well worth it.

Spectacular is the only word for the explosion of flavours going on throughout this dish. 

This whole endeavour only took 10 minutes to make and about 40 seconds to eat. 

I think for Lent I'll give up eating anything other than this for breakfast.

Giz a like or a follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

B.S. x

The Sausage, Egg and Cheese Cure.

After I'd spent about 6 solid hours trying to quench the indigestion that was brought on from a skelp of pints topped off with a 24 hour garage 'Salad' sandwich (duly stuffed with a packet of crisps), my weary body informed me that sausage sandwiches would be the requirement of the afternoon.

I'm fussy of late when it comes to sausages, I like the good quality ones but none of those apple or red wine infused excuses, I've yet to meet one of them I can get on with. There's no need for that messing. For this I used plain Nolan's (of Kilcullen, Co.Kildare, naturally) Sausages. They're the business. Cue roars of "Have you not tried Superquinn sausages?!?" Yes I have. Settle down, they're lovely. They're like Willie Nelson, Michael Collins and The 2nd (Bale) Batman movie all rolled into one. But they're a little hard to come by in my part of the world, and until I put them side by side and am proved differently I'll argue that Nolan's are just as good. End of.

Fry up them sausages, like a good lad!

I hadn't planned on on this particular variety of sausage sandwich, which on appearances might appear to be a homage to an item Mickey D's pedal on their breakfast menu (with the manky rubber egg disc thing), but Easi Singles were on a special offer and well, what are you gonna do? At first I wasn't going to risk an egg in this too, but sure fuck it, it's Christmas, may as well.

I'd seriously advise not going for a higher class of cheese in this beast, melted processed cheese and good sausage meat together is, if you haven't already tasted it, aces.

One and a half slices on each. Cover every inch. No Fear.

Right, with your sausages nearly done, toast a couple of slices of bread then cover them in cheese slices and slide them under a grill for a few minutes till the cheese starts to bubble and gets that nice, enticing, plasticy, cling film sheen that makes you question whether you unwrapped the cheese in the first place.

Yes, I did take a bite out of a sausage before it went into the sandwich. 

This is where you have to take a little care. Everything needs to be hot, but, crucially, not boiling hot. Don't be afraid to let the toast sit out for a couple of minutes, that cheese needs to cool a good bit from its molten level before it hits your mouth. A burned mouth is very uncool, pun intended. It's best to only fry the egg only when the cheesy toast is out and cooling down, you want the egg landing on the sandwich straight from the pan so it's as fresh as possible. Lash the sausages on one side, the fried egg the other. Close it up and you're away. 

Like I always say, "an egg yoke the consistency of a nose bleed is what you're after"

Give it another minute, there's no rush, let the cheese get to know the sausage and egg before its timely end.

Dig in and savour it. It's delicious. Rich is the word here. A really rich flavour, the gooey cheese mingling in with the sausages in a not unromantic fashion, just beautiful. And the egg? It's like an extra 10 euro credit, topping up the richness level. The boring white part joining forces with the gluey melted cheese to form an amazing taste and texture. It's a party.

Now at some point you will get the distinct feeling that maybe you've "gone a little too far, this time". Don't mind those thoughts, it's only The Fear trying to put the spooks up you. You finish this sandwich and you'll finish The Fear, for the day anyway. 

I tested this in my normal capacity by immediately making and eating a second one just in case the first was a fluke or if I was just letting my emotions get the better of me. It wasn't and I wasn't. Don't eat one (or two) of these on a work day, there'll be no 'joie de vivre' to take on the world after this. You'll be resigned to the couch for the day with a 2 litre bottle of fizzy drink and a large Turkish Delight, but it'll be some day.

For more of this brand of shite on a more frequent basis like or a follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, you'll feel all the better for it.

Beans à la Boozey

Being absolutely devoid of the energy it would of taken to drag myself across the road to the shop this afternoon I was utterly relieved to find both bread and beans in the house so worst case scenario I wasn't going to starve or (even worse) have to resort to weetabix.
Feeling a little fancy and having been given the advice a couple of years ago that beans were something you could "fuck absolutely anything into" to make them better I decided I deserved better and so would test this theory out.
With what, at first, seemed to be limited resources at my disposal I managed to find a shallot (a red onion that went to Newbridge College), cheese (red and white cheddar), a couple of rashers and some black pepper, cayenne chilli pepper and chilli flakes to give it a bit of life. We were doing ok. We. Were. Doing. O.K. 

I started this adventure by sticking a couple of rashers under the grill and throwing the beans into a saucepan. I initially thought I may have been a little hasty with the beans as they heated up very quickly but I turned the heat down and let them simmer which made them really tender and soft and actually worked really well with this concoction. I chopped up the shallot and fried it in some olive oil. Well more accurately I burned it in some olive oil, I don't worry about things like that though, it was grand.
With the rashers crisping up nicely under the grill I stirred in a mix of red and white cheddar (if this wasn't in the house an easy single would have been going in) along with the slightly over done shallot and a good dose of the chilli's and pepper. Next I finely chopped up one of the rashers and stirred it in too and transferred the lot into a bowl and topped it all off with some more grated cheese and the other rasher which I cut into strips.

Mega.

Not that I have any problem with regular beans on toast, I love the stuff, but the substance I tasted couldn't have tasted further from them. With a very small bit of effort and few basic ingredients (a regular onion will do in place of the shallot) a simple tin of beans can be turned into an absolutely spectacular meal (The flavour of the crisped up fat from the rashers hitting you every couple of bites is unreal). I ate this with 4 or 5 slices of well buttered brown toast and the belly was well and truly happy and content for the rest of the day. 

Giz a like or a follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

B.S 

Tangle Twister Daiquiri

Let's skip the bit where I analyse my life and point out how a man of my age needs to get a drivers licence, tax, insurance, a mortgage, a strimmer, an Xtra-vision card and a collection of hobbies that don't involve making alcoholic versions of my favourite childhood ice pops. Those boats have sailed. When I'm faced with a Monday evening on my own in early September in a landlocked county in Ireland this is the type of shit that's gonna go down.

Tangle Twisters.
I won't now, never have and may God strike me down if I ever do drop the 'Tangle' from this, the most wonderful Twister, as much as HB would like me, and the rest of us, to. Because, by Jaysus, you'll be fairly Tangled after this Twister I can tell you. Ha... Haha.. No?.. Sorry, I've drink in me.

I'd been thinking about my next cocktail move after my Jägerbomb Ice Cream and decided that instead of ice creaming up a drink, I'd alcohol up an ice cream. If you get me? You do. Grand. We'll move on.

Well we'll move back a little bit first I suppose, a bit of history...
I first encountered a Daiquiri, a strawberry one to be exact, while on a skiing trip with my friends Ciarán and Rob in New Hampshire in late 2005. We were staying in a motel 5 miles from the middle of fuck all and quickly realised the place up the road, The Indian Head, had much better facilities than the ones we were living in. Every night after we'd left the slopes (the variety of slopes I was sticking to weren't unlike those of The Curragh Plains) we'd head up the road to The Head, shoot some pool (as they say in The States), drink beer and inevitably I'd get the notion to get a cocktail.
Even though this was the time of the Celtic Tiger and we were all going around wiping our arses with pesto laden half pounders and lighting our farts with tenners, Strawberry Daiquiris weren't the everyday feature of the Irish pub/club cocktail menu that they are now. This was all brand new to me and I was in love, I didn't care that they weren't cool or manly, I wanted an alcoholic slush puppy to go with the bottle of piss American beer I was thoroughly enjoying.

Which brings me back (or forward, I'm remarkably confused) to the Tangle Twister. A tube of frozen Strawberry (the best fruit) spectacularness, wrapped in a load of  pineapple (the 2nd best fruit) ice cream and pear (the somewhere between 3rd and 7th best fruit, my ranking system is in its early days) icepop.
Every ingredient here is a prime candidate for daiquiri-ing.

After much thought and consideration I decided this set of ingredients and tools would serve me best; fresh strawberries, tinned pears and pineapples(just to avoid the hardship of pealing those pricks), a hand blender and a few other bits. And of course the obligatory Rum.

The first thing I did was pour a large rum and coke just to make sure the Bacardi hadn't gone off, it hadn't, then I  trimmed the hedges off most of the strawberries and threw them into the blender.

I topped them off with some caster sugar and 3 measures of Bacardi rum (that may have been excessive) and blended it all up till it looked like something you'd find in a butchers drain.

Nice.

Contents poured into a plastic container and ready for freezing I moved on to the pear tangle.

This time into the blender went a couple of tinned pear halves (with some juice), a fair aul swig of a decent pear cider, 2 measures of rum, another dose of sugar and a lob of green food colouring to bring it up to a shade that would bring a tear of joy to Derek Warfield's eye.

Do as with the strawberry solution...

The next job is is to make some soft serve pineapple ice cream. 

I let some vanilla ice cream melt a bit then I added in 3 rings of tinned pineapple along with some of the juice (I had planned to buy some cream for this part but I got distracted in the shop), then I thought I might as well fire a couple of measures of rum into the ice cream as well because, sure, you know, fuck it, we're partying now lads.

I should mention that I tasted everything immediately after blending to see if I got the balance of ingredients right. More rum was the general consensus. 

Now in the interest of "waste not, want not" I decided to soak some of the remaining fruit in a combination of rum and pear cider for a little while.

I then drained off the excess alcohol and put the 4 containers in the freezer for a couple of hours...

The excess fruity cider rum combo I drained off from the fruit made a nice little appetizer for the main event / reward for all my hard work thus far...

I sipped away on this along with most of a bottle of cider and a rum and coke and the following 2 hours passed by in what seemed like a flash...

I got lucky with the timing, they were solid but hadn't turned into cement-like blocks of ice. I gave each 10 seconds in the microwave and they were easy to mush up with a spoon without going too watery.

I used one of these icing syringes (which I duly broke in the process) to dispense the ice cream layers. 

The pear and strawberry layers were layered in with a spoon.

Serve with a side of rum and cider infused frozen fruit and you're all set. Spoon or straw, it's your choice. Not suitable for children or adults with any responsibilities... Each of these contained about 3 and a half shots of rum not including the alcohol suspended in the veins of the frozen fruit, the double measure in the coke, the majority of the large bottle of cider and the rum/cider/fruit juice bonus cocktail... so be careful, no driving, don't even watch a Fast and Furious film after this.  

Good Night.

Giz a like or a follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

B.S.