You Don't Bring Desert to a Barbecue

Apparently- you don't bring desert to a barbecue. 

Trust me- if you turn up to a 4th of July Barbecue with disposable pie dishes covered in tin foil- you will get told that you don't bring desert to a barbecue. 

This. Is possibly. Not the best. Time. To tell someone this. 

Ya know- with the them just having turned up with dessert and all. 

I mean- at least they haven't brought a melon for once (cause that's what my parents usually and infamously did) (and at least they had a different reason for turning up late). 

But it's okay- this was dessert that went on the barbecue (cause what else do you take to a barbecue? Apart from a melon- and why would you do that cause you only then have to cut it up at the hosts house and then isn't that a pain?) 

And FYI- desert that goes on a barbecue goes down very well. The three trays we bought weren't enough. 

And it was MY plan to take desert to a barbecue- ha ha ha!!!

So I thought I'd recreate those tinfoil pie dishes.

The original dishes were chopped fruit coated in butter, sugar and cinnamon- with a lot of emphasis on canned peaches (that was obviously what we had in).

This time tho- I didn't want to make dessert.

Because you don't bring dessert to a barbecue.

Veggie-dog Barbecued Peach Relish

Makes Enough for 8 Veggie-dogs

1 can of Peaches

1/2 a small Red Onion

Marinade

2 T Sriracha (or other hot chili sauce)

1 T Soya Sauce/Tamari

1/2 t Dijon Mustard

1 T chopped Jalapenos

Directions

Chop the canned peaches into bite sized pieces. 

Whisk together the first 3 marinade ingredients till well combined- then stir in the chopped jalapenos. 

Chop the red onion into a fine dice.

For Barbecue Method: 

Combine the peaches, onion and marinade in a disposable pie dish, cover with tinfoil and place on the barbecue until caramelized slightly and 'piping hot'. 

For Grill/Broiling Method:

Combine the peaches, onion and marinade in a ovenproof dish, and place under the grill/broiler on high for half an hour. 

Best served hot- although delicious cold with leftover sliced veggie dogs the next day. 

Noodle and Cheese Salad

And here starts the start of a very complicated venture. Called writing my blog posts backwards. Starting with the week of my last exam and working backwards, so hopefully (if it works) there will still be posts even when I am not able to write any because I am revising. So I am going to try and write as many as possible in the next week and see how far (back) that takes me.

So actually- you will be reading this post last- so you possible already know all this.

Is it just me or are you thinking Professor River Song out of Doctor Who? 

Glad it's not just me.

Someone once told me that cheese with noodles was totally normal.

I was not so sure. So I had to try it.

I'm still not so sure that it's totally normal- but I'll accept that it's not horrendous. It's actually quite okay. And a good source of calcium to boot.

It does, however, need a bit of thinking. I'm willing to accept cheese with noodles, I just have to draw a line at something like cheese with stir fry. Because.... urgh.

I think I can cope with cheese in a noodle salad though.

I had to think logically about what to put in it. I mean real logically. Putting cheese with noodles may be normal to some people, but to me it is something with should be approached with great caution. Like brushing a tigers fur. I hope I got it right, because really, I'm still not sure. Cheese and noodles?

No, now is not the time to point out that it is basically mac and cheese. Not the time at all!!!

Noodles and Cheese Salad (serves 1)

• One portion of whichever type of noodles you like using best. Here I used instant noodles because I had a load that I wanted to use up, but normally I would have used my wholewheat egg free noodles or soba noodles. 
• Either half a red (bell) pepper or a few smaller sweet peppers. I used three mini sweet peppers
• Either 4 small tomatoes or one big one. 
• Two spring onions.
• 1/2 t turmeric
• 1/4 t cumin
• However much cheese you want. I used a small handful but I don't eat a lot of cheese. 
• Optional: some chives. I cut up a fresh one, but you could also used 1/4 t dried chives. 

• Cook your noodles according to the instructions on the packet. Add the turmeric and cumin to the cooking water. If your using dried chives add them too. 

• Meanwhile, cut up the veggies. I like the spring onion and pepper cut up small, and the tomatoes cut up into bigger pieces. 

• Drain the noodles. Yes, that means your getting rid of most of the turmeric and cumin, but you don't want a sauce. Just a bit of color/flavor. 
• Mix the veggies into the noodles. 
• Top with the cheese and fresh chive if using. 

So here is the end (or start) of my pre-written posts. And the day of my last exam, so, see you soon (in your view) or in a really long time (my view). 

You know... we do something like this in physics... I should revise.... for an exam I've done... messing with your heads yet?

Barny Bento

This is the last in my bear-y bento mini series. 

And next week- I can assure you- isn't a bento post. 

I know because I just wrote it. 

Okay, now, you know when you really really REALLY want something- even though you know that there is a high probability that you won't like it? 

Good.... and glad that it wasn't just me. If you've never experienced this- just pretend. It makes me feel less stupid- okay? 

So... we were down in Birmingham on an intensive week of physio (and that was less fun than it sounds, I assure you). And we frequented the local Tesco shop a lot. Because to be honest- there was nothing else to do. Except watch Food Network. Although that was actually a lot of fun and we have done it several times at home since. 

But they had a 'reduced' section. And in it were apple flavored Barny cakes. And despite the fact that I don't like cake at the moment and had never wanted one before- an apple flavoured Barney cake was suddenly very desirable. Unfortunately they only come in packs of 5. 

You know what? I don't like Barny cakes. But we are not telling Mom that and so I have to eat all of them. 

I should point out this probably doesn't mean that the cakes were bad- I just don't like cake.

Luckily this time someone gave me a couple of biscuits to take the taste away. 

So that is a Barny cake (apple flavoured), some grapes and celery sticks, some Quorn cocktail sausages, and some chickpea omelet. 

1. TIME This took me all of about 10 seconds to put together. I'd pre-cut the celery, pre washed the grapes, and cooked an extra (much smaller) omelet when I was making one for tea. So the time to pack this bento? Very little. One star for me. (Red today I think)

3. RECORDING I loose that star. We're talking months afterwards guys. 

4. BALANCE This is the first time that I used an 'omelette' as my calcium sauce. (okay, I don't think that it's the first time that you've seen me do it, but it is the first time that I actually did it). The omelette's are made with fortified milk, the chickpea flour is a source of calcium (who knew- right?) and this particular omelet mix contained sesame seeds. So we're good on calcium. So one red star (I'm currently talking to my friend about rubies, hence the red star). 

9. EATING I could possibly have eaten more. Well, I ate my friends biscuits so I did eat more. But this is not necessarily the fault of I didn't pack a big enough lunch- because as my friend pointed out- I had eaten breakfast very early- so by lunch I was very hungry!!! So the fault was actually more that I hadn't packed a snack! So we'll stay neutral on this one. Once. If I do it again I'll deduct a star. 

Which means that I end on one star. (and it sparkles. for the record)

Bear-y Pancake Sandwich Bento

Because no- it is 7 am and I was up all night talking to my friend - I can not think of a better title than that. Creative title naming juices are not flowing people. 

Sorry. 

Here is another lovely bear themed bento for you today. You can't really see properly (it was the middle of winter and bad lighting is definitely a killer) but in there is two BEAR YoYo's , some amazing crisps by Ten Acre (review coming at some point), a pot of banana and custard topped with some dairy free chocolate buttons- which were brilliant but they seemed to have stopped doing them. Which is not so brilliant. Do you know how hard it is to find dairy free chocolate chips? (the answer is immensely). There is also a 'pancake sandwich' in there. 

I made a load of apple pancakes and added a load of BEAR Paws and then cooked it in my bear shaped pancake mold to make extra bear-y pancakes!!! Topping pancakes that you are going to pack in your lunchbox can be slightly problematic- because you are, um, packing it. You can't just pour syrup over the whole thing- because you will end up with syrup EVERYWHERE- and that would not be good! So instead I made a pancake sandwich by putting the topping in-between the two pancakes so that it was contained, didn't go everywhere, and wasn't a sticky mess for me to eat. This works better with, thicker 'spreadable' pancake toppings, and did make quite a thick sandwich, so if you are going to do this you might want to make your pancakes a bit thinner than normal. 

When deciding what to fill my sandwich with- I went down the path of "what do bears eat?" I mean, real bears eat fish, but that one was a definite no obviously. Paddington eats marmalade, but I really hate marmalade- and so that one was a no to. How about honey? And peanut butter? So I went with that- a honey and peanut butter bear shaped bear-y pancake sandwich. Yes, that is a mouthful! So how did I do?

1. TIME This bento didn't take me that long- I did it in an advert break. (I don't sit around and watch television all the time guys- it's just that advert breaks seem to be the best time to make a bento time efficiency wise and so if I am going to watch television it's when I will usually make my bento) I didn't make the actual pancakes in that 5 minute slot of course, but they were already made that morning, so when it came to bento making, all I needed to do was make the banana and custard pot (and that really isn't an arduous task) and put it all in, trying to make it look as cute as possible. That means that it fits in the time limits of not taking any longer than it took my Dad to make my brothers lunch, and so one star for me! (Blue please)

3. RECORDING I probably did this bento at about 7pm and it was dark outside. Can we just realise that I did this bento a long time ago and move on, with no stars? Please? The least said about this matter the better. 

6. BOXABILITY I'm not all that happy about how this bento fitted together. There is a lot of empty space in that box- and to be honest- it just doesn't look that bento-y. It's a poor representation of a bento box because it doesn't fit well. So I'll loose a star here. 

8. PLANNING I think I get a star here. I made the pancakes in the morning- with a mind to putting them in my bento so I saved two from the freezer. AND I made sure that we had a banana in that I could use. This is no easy feat in a household where we are not aloud more than one bunch of bananas at a time but where we get through bananas so quickly!!! also- I think we should have two because then we could have one bunch ripening whilst we eat the other- which would solve the problem of the supermarkets only ever having green bananas (I like mine spotty, and my brother only likes them in Dad's banana cake- so really green banana's are not good). But I have now gone way off topic of how I think I should be aloud one star for good planning. 

Which leaves me on no stars :( 

I really need to get onto blogging my bento's when I actually do them... 

Until then, see ya, have a good week!