Hot Spaghetti

As the nights draw in and cruel Mr Frost arrives with his icy talons, offing pensioners and making British Gas merry, the need for heat is now pretty much priority to us Brits. If you are a fan of hot sauce like my good self, you can get warm for free too (minus cost of sauce obviously), eliminating the need to walk around indoors in scarf and five jumpers. Win!! It works too! Regular readers of these blogs will know the kid of crazy heat these sauces throw out. Believe me, its quite comical reading how friends on Facebook are freezing their azzes off while I am sitting in a tee shirt, sweating buckets.

The Beans Are Coming

You will be needing Balls

Quite fancy being a foody agony aunt today so here goes:

"I like to read British mysteries. Strangely, the food most often mentioned in this genre is "beans on toast", evidently an everyday item used for breakfast lunch or dinner (at least according to the authors). Being a lover of (Boston type) baked beans, I tried some on wheat toast. Didn't seem to be different enough to make it worthwhile. Am I missing something? Did I use the right kind of beans or bread? Could some Brits fill in the blanks here?"

Sure can my Colonial chum! What you will be needing:

1. Good quality bread is a MUST, woe betide if you opt for cheap own brand supermarket scut.
2. Ditto baked beans. You really DO NOT want to be choosing the 21p "value" beans. Nothing "snobby" about it, the cheap baked beans have a high salt content. Mind you Heinz could be accused of being too salty as well, so I use Branston.

While the baked beans are simmering on the hob (I suppose you could nuke them in the microwave but im old fashioned) toast a slice of bread. Some like it almost burnt but me? I prefer a light toasting so that the toast is the colour of a matchstick. Make sure you butter the toast while its hot so that all that buttery goodness melts into the bread. This is important! As soon as the beans are hot (hot not warm) pour them over the toast. Serve and enjoy!
I know a lot of folks like to eat this snack with their hands but using a knife and fork is usually the wisest method because it prevents the beans and tomato sauce (not ketchup) spilling all over your lap/carpet/cat. Only use your hands if you are stingy in slopping out the beans but don't be a beany miser, pour that sh!t on good!
If you happen to have some good Cheddar cheese lurking in the fridge (definitely not that processed rubbish) melt some of that and plonk it on top of the baked beans. Makes a great dish even tastier! Of course if you want extra flavour but don't like cheese, the braver readers among you could do what I do and put some HOT SAUCE over the beans. It really adds a pleasant nip, and my personal recommendation would be Psycho Juice Red Savina by the evil (but in a good way) Dr Burnorium. His Psycho Juice range are fantastic.

Cheese Muerte

National Grilled Cheese Day

The LSD for dreams

Its National Grilled cheese Day today (is there a special day for everything?) so in its honour heres a pic of a drunken dish I knocked up a few nights ago. Cheese, onion, toast. A Holy trinity in the food world much like fish, mashed potatoes, parsley sauce. Grilled cheese is a particular favourite of this headbanger because (A) it reminds me of childhood, and (B) you can do quite a bit with it such as adding Worcester Sauce, baked beans, etc. I can (and do) go through a large sized hunk of cheese (say 350g) in a couple of days. Is that bad? Dont be silly, how can anything that tastes so good in a hundred different ways be bad? Preposterous idea!
And on the metal side of things, if you pop over to iTunes right now, you can download a 'forgotten' track off Pantera's awesome Vulgar Display Of Power album. Its called 'Piss' and a fine track it is too (check it out below). I bought my first iPhone yesterday so 'Piss' has become my first ever iTune purchase. Metal (and cheese) Forever!

P.S. did you know the Welsh word for cheese is caws? You do now!

Sop

Dunked toast

Right metal moshers this could hardly be called a meal but it is an unusual (and ancient) snack so I thought it worth a quicjk mention. Sop is a slice of buttered toast dunked in a cup of tea. It was very popular at the medieval table and back then both wine and soups would replace the tea.
The word Sop is even mentioned in the Bible:

"He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a SOP, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the SOP, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon." ~ if you want to check it out its John 13:21-26

Some people don't like the idea of eating wet toast, and having butter swilling around the tea's surface but its actually not bad. If like myself you are a bigger fan of savoury foods over sweet, then Sop is much better than simply dunking chocolate biscuits into a cuppa.