Holiday part 2

In part 2 of the holiday series, I'd like to take you to to a wonderful little tea room in Shipston-on-Stour. Well, actually, I can't take you there literally, but you catch my drift. N and I took S there to have some tea and lunch (quite hungry at 14:00).

S had a cheese-scone with avocado, brie or camembert and cress

N had toast with scrambled eggs and bacon

For myself, I ordered a classic scone with strawberry jam and clotted cream

Note about the clotted cream: I had always wondered what it would be like, since it can't be bought here in the Netherlands. It turned out to be closer to butter than to whipped cream, which may alternatively be served in the Netherlands when having tea (for example, at the Theefabriek). It was rich. It was delicious. It was artery-clogging, heart-stoppingly good. Yum!
Also, I think this was the first time I had an actual, full-sized scone. Not the mini-versions we always sample at the Theefabriek, nor the selfmade attempts at scones that wouldn't rise and stay compact little bricks. No, this was a piece of pastry, the size of a tennisball, very fluffy yet satisfying.

To me, it made for a very nice English tea-drinking event.

Sailing

At our annual sailing trip, this time also including Big-L, along with S, E and J, we usually don't care too much about dinner, since the outdoors will always make you hungry. We started the trip at friday evening and ended sunday in the afternoon. The weather was beautiful (even hot) and it was very nice and all, etc. -- but of course you're interested in the food we ate during that trip!

Well, that friday we had some fries with mayo and croquettes. Because there were Endless Amounts of Fries, we had plenty leftover. During that dinner and also afterwards, Big-L had a very influential role in halving the beer supply for the weekend. Later that evening, probably when the effects of that role had kicked in, he specifically requested for the cold fries leftovers to be served for breakfast the next morning, on a sandwich, with peanutbutter. The rest of us, not having had such an influential role, promised to remind him of that the next morning.

So, here it is, the proudly presented Cold Fries Sandwich with Peanutbutter:

Unfortunately, I cannot describe the gustatory experience this culinary curiosity has led to, but I'm sure Big-L himself will want to comment on that. We might, however, draw some conclusions from the fact that he withdrew after just a single bite and made us promise to stop him from expressing silly wishes after having had a few beers.

Ah, the joy of beer-influenced decisions.

The next day, we had macaroni and cheese, with some ketchup and diced ham.

After boiling some macaroni, we added two bags of grated cheese and a tin of diced ham, along with a tin of tomatoes. Unfortunately, the pan was too small to add another tin of diced ham (which while waiting for the macaroni to boil, started to decolor -- and the cooking only took 7 minutes). Luckily, the two bags of grated cheese did fit in. However, because of the heat of those days, the cheese had already started to melt beforehand and had formed a large lump. Because of that, it wasn't easy to make it melt and mix it evenly throughout the pasta. Big-L and S, being the hard-working sailors, were offered portions containing the most of that lump. Strangely, they didn't quite enjoy it, just chowing away on yellowy unshapely somewhat cheesy lumps which they felt was directly clogging their arteries and making their stomach ache. They made us promise to never do this again too. Well, E, J and I did enjoy our portions (which might have had something to do with us missing out on that cheesy experience). E and I promised to eachother that when we would be making a boating trip ourselves someday without people complaining about our cooking, we would gladly eat this every day!

All in all, this trip turned out to be great, however, for our next trip, we will probably have to provide for a lock on the beer supply, a cooling device and other dinner options.

I can't wait for Big-L's comments on his culinary experience!

Burger King Mountain Burgers

At long last! After some Blogspot problems, I'm finally able to post a small review on the Burger King Mountain Burgers. They're the temporarily available trio of burgers at the BK over here. According to the commercials shown on TV, they're supposed to celebrate some kind of rugged outdoor life. You know, for those occasions when you're at the office and feel like making a campfire, or feel like canoe'ing down that flight of stairs because it resembles a river.

A and me went to sample two of the three varieties. A had the Blue Cheese variety, and for myself, I chose the Rocky Cheese. The third burger that completes the trio would be the Smoky Barbecue.

As so often is the case, the real deal is a far cry from the grand version pictured in the ads. In this case, the disappointment was not in the flavour, but in the size. The ads and also the pics shown on the menu displayed in the restaurant, made it look like the burgers would be Whopper-sized. Not so. Their diameter was that of a regular burger.


This one, shown above, is the Blue Cheese variety. It didn't have actual blue cheese on it, but instead came with a blue-cheese-sauce. A will post his thoughts on this one in the comments below.



The one shown here, is the Rocky Cheese. Flavourwise, it was A-okay! Each Mountain Burger comes with two patties. Then, on mine, there's a slice of fried cheese on top. That is topped with some kind of barbecue sauce, a slice of tomato and some lettuce. It makes for a very fine burger. The cheese is of a very lightly flavoured kind and provides more of an extra protein-boost than an additional flavour. It combines well though, with the overall experience. The bbq-sauce is very thin, it ran off the sandwich. It has a slight pinch of heat to it, which in turn helps spice up the overall burger-experience.

All in all, despite the fact that the burger comes smaller than expected, it's a nice one. I wouldn't mind ordering it again. One last note, both positive and negative, on the fries. Negative: I ordered Twister Fries, but I got regular ones. I didn't feel like going back to the counter to ask for the ones I ordered but instead just ate the regular ones. Positive: even the regular fries are so much better than the McDonald's variety (I won't even mention the soggy KFC ones). The crust is very thin and seems extra crispy. Twister Fries are even better than that, as they not only come twisted, but also with some additional flavour-enhancing spices. One might beg to differ (N does), but in my opinion these are the best fries.

Nachos in Denmark

The next day, we went to stay in Denmark for one more night before heading home, in the same B&B in Herfølge. We had a drink in a small cafe in the nearby town of Køge. We ordered some great nachos with them, which came with cheese on top, jalapeños, creme fraiche, guacamole and red sauce. Yum!

Barbecue

I know what you're thinking. "What, spareribs? Again?!". As usual, there was some sort of celebratory event, that justifies eating this.

M, one of N's friends, came over all the way from Brabant. We wondered what we would have for dinner, and a BBQ seemed like a nice idea, even though we'll be having another BBQ tomorrow at J&L's.

The spareribs were bought pre-marinated and pre-grilled, so they only had to be heated basically. Tasted quite nice.

These were some curry-marinated chicken breast strip skewers. Quite okay, but a little dry. Went well with BBQ-sauce.

These were some cubes of old cheese, wrapped in baconstrips. Simple and nice!

To go with the meats, I had prepared some couscous salad, welded in vegetable stock, mixed with orange and grapefruit parts. Also, I had made grilled pepper strips, marinated in garlic. Then, I made cucumber pickle and tzatziki, using soy yoghurt (not gross at all) and tzatziki mix my parents brought with them from their holiday in Greece. Finally, I made some satay sauce, using soy milk, peanut butter, chili sauce and soy sauce. Traditionally, in Holland, we have sliced baguette with it and a variety of other sauces. I picked Heinz's barbecue-sauce and herbed butter for the baguette.

Now, this gun-shaped device is so cool! It's not 007's latest gadget, or the newest G.I. Joe toy gun. Well, the writing gives it away of course. It's a BBQ fan! You squeeze the red trigger-like thing and the fan starts blowing through its metal nozzle. Pointing it at the charcoal, you direct a jet of oxygen straight into the hot spot. It works great. Saves you waving a piece of paper to supply an undirected amount of oxygen in the charcoal's direction.

There were a lot of leftovers, mainly sides. We'll take them with us to the BBQ @ J&L's.

Dinner at E's

I wouldn't want this to become a new blogging-habit, but this post will be another one without a picture. Again, because I didn't take one.

I had dinner at E's. He prepared a nice spinach quiche for L and me. It was great, (because) it had a lot of garlic in it too. He feared my food-criticism wouldn't make his quiche stand my tastebud-test, and that I would comment about it on this blog. I assured him that I don't blog about bad food usually (well, except for that quinoa).

Not blogging about it would make it seem like I didn't like the quiche however. So, I wrote a post about it. That's also the reason there aren't any pictures. You see? It all makes sense once I start explaining things.

So, thank you, E, for the nice quiche!