Christmas Festivities!

Christmas is certainly one of my favourite times of year, especially with regards to food! This year has been no exception. Christmas morning there were the usual nibbles that consist of smoked salmon wrapped round various fillings (soft cheese?) and various other little savoury bites. I did eat a little bit too much of these tasty little morsels and when it was time for dinner, I wasn't all that hungry.

However I did soldier on, my starter was a prawn cocktail on a bed of lettuce (everyone else had breaded camembert) and my main course was, of course, turkey and all the trimmings (including my special sausagemeat stuffing). I wasn't hungry enough to have my usual turkey leg - so I got my Mum to bung it in the fridge for a later date (unfortunately, though, I got a devastating SMS from my Mum earlier today to say that the leg was off so she chucked it!!!)

Too stuffed for dessert, I went round my Nan's in the evening. Was pretty much too full for any tea there either, so it was a fair few hours before I could eat any more.

I went round my parent's on Boxing day for lunch, a buffet consisting of cold meats, salad, potatoes, red cabbage and various pickles (amongst other things).

So anyway, back to work today - so had lunch in the canteen. I was weaned back on to canteen food with a very tasty lamb lasagne, they sure know how to lure me back in!

Anyway, off to Jesters again tonight - if it's half as good as last time, I am in for a treat!!

Last night's 16" adventure

Well it's Christmas Eve and I am on-call so can't get drunk. Just waiting for the nod to go drive everyone around. It's been a hectic week (on-call wise) and I don't feel particularly Christmassy, although that might change when I get down the Sheep (local pub) - which we have been doing every Christmas Eve for the past few years.

So anyway, the house is pretty much devoid of food - as I have been reluctant to brave the supermarkets.. but on Thursday night I relented. I went down my local Asda at around 22:00. It was completely rammed, but I managed to pick up a few "essentials" (Stella, etc). I did buy some Tikka'd chicken and some salad to make myself a pretty wicked sandwich. I appreciate it might look quite rank, but it tasted OK with some mayo to moisten it up.

Friday (yesterday), I didn't get to work until 10am - and happily they sent everyone home at midday, so I monged out for the day and my mate Lee came over to watch a DVD and order in some grub.

As it's Christmas, I treated myself to my favourite pizza from my favourite takeaway... the 16" seafood pizza from La Cuisine! A proper salty feast and no mistake!!

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow - I'm sure there will be some pics up of my Christmas dinner (with now legendary sausagemeat stuffing) very soon! Merry Christmas!!!

Ciao Burger!

Yesterday would normally be roast dinner day anyway in the canteen, but yesterday was Christmas roast dinner... turkey, stuffing, pigs in blankets, carrots and sprouts (I am starting to develop a taste for these strange vegetables, maybe it's a Christmas thing?)

The best thing is it only cost £2.50 (and that incuded christmas cracker).

For today's lunch, we went to the famous Ciao Burger takeaway down Gloucester Rd. Their burgers are world renowned (probably). My favourite is usually the Chicken Devil, but today I had a BBQ Chicken and Bacon sandwich. The featured pictured is what the four of us ordered - top left, Adam had a 1/2 pounder beefburger - top right, Trew had a 1/4 pounder burger (lightweight) - bottom left is my BBQ chicken thang - bottom right is Martin's 1/2 pounder burger with all the trimmings.

When we got back to the office, I was fortunate to win a bottle of champers in a raffle.

Not bad for a £1 ticket.

Pie. Pie. Pie.

Last Thursday, we tried a different pub for lunch. I had heard good things about their Steak & Ale pie (pictured left). It didn't disappoint, it was rather nice.

Friday, I again had a pub lunch - but nothing to eat (I had meetings with lunch provided that day). But when I got home, I cooked up a monster of a Fray Bentos Chicken Curry Pie!! I also used up the rest of the vegetables that were left over from last Sunday's Christmas meal (no waste in this household!)

Saturday I went to Cardiff and watched the Little Britain live show, had a few beers and stopped for KFC when we got back to Bristol. I had a family bucket of chicken, like a greedy bast.

So Sunday was dinner round my parents, no photo of the Sunday roast (they all look pretty similar) - but for dessert I made a smoothy from bananas, ice cream, custard, crunchy nut cornflakes, pineapple chunks and milk.

Quality! I love it when I get creative.

Free 24oz Steak! Brilliant!

I think the biggest ever steak I have eaten was a 32oz T-bone steak in Exmouth a few years ago, although I was at a restaurant in Basingstoke once where the offered a 64oz steak (about 50 quid, but free if you could finish it within an hour) - which I didn't opt for, although I can eat steaks very easily. In fact, I quite often enjoy the 20oz "Megasaurus" steak that the Hungry Horse has to offer.

So anyway, I was on a "team build" event yesterday at The Poacher's Pocket pub in Shepton Mallett. A few "fun" events designed to get staff to meet each other and do various tasks and stuff, for example we each had to carve our own totum pole - the theme was "What does 2006 hold for you?". 2006 holds much beer for me, so I carved and painted a nice pint of lager. I was quite pleased with the results.

I was also pleased that there was a tab behind the bar being picked up by my employers, as well an evening meal! I managed to drink a fair amount of the free beer (I don't remember exactly how much...) and enjoyed a mighty 24oz rump steak! Very nice it was too, they couldn't even fit the chips on the plate - they had to be put in a different dish! Brilliant!

Truly a week of unparalleled gluttony!

I will try and break this down into categories to make it easier on the eye bulb.

Surrey (Pre-Course) Friday 2nd - Sunday 4th
I caught the train up to Surrey (OK, technically across to Surrey - as it's East of Bristol) on Friday after work. On Saturday Sarah's grandparents took us our for a 3 course Christmas meal at a local restaurant for a 3 course Christmas meal

The meal was great, very filling though, but I didn't take any snaps - as it would have been rude to get my phone out during a meal in this instance.

On Sunday, Sarah and I went to the local Hungry Horse and this time I opted for Spinach + Ricotta Ravioli. Considering Hungry Horse normally caters for people like me, with big appetites and small budgets - this option was a mistake. A very small portion, but I thought I would try something different - and now I have. I will know not to make this mistake next time.

Surrey (Red Hat Course) Monday 5th - Thursday 8th

I love training courses, staying in a hotel for several days enjoying a large budget for meals picked up by the company. The hotel in Guildford I stayed at was also a Brewers Fayre, the menu was pretty good. I also managed to make it up for breakfast every morning, a self service style deal - where you can help yourself to as much as you care to eat (an example of what I was eating for breakfast is displayed above).

Monday night I actually didn't have an evening meal, I went to Bracknell instead to meet a mate called Mark. Mark is something of a legend when it comes to drinking. He insisted that he was only going to have a quiet night and that suited me (as I had to be up early the next morning for training), but after a few Stellas we started on the cocktails - some of which were very potent (pic below).

Mark, Mark's South African mate Nico and myself managed to get though about 50 large cocktails in the night. Apparently the pub had never sold so many drinks in one night and, in fact, ran out of a couple of bottles of spirits as a result. We asked the barman (Mr Brown?) to leave the empties out for us, so that we could keep count of the wreckage (pic below of Barman Brown, Mark and Nico).

As for the training course, it was pretty good itself - and the food wasn't bad either! I usually opted for the homemade burger covered in chilli beef and grated cheese in a sesame bun with chips and salad. Unfortunately, I have no photographic evidence of this (I didn't want to have to explain to the other students what I was up to!)

I do, however, have some photos of the steaks I ate. The first one was an 8oz steak in a stilton and peppercorn sauce, I wasn't too impressed with the way they made the "sauce".. it was a steak with slices of stilton over it with peppercorn sauce over the top. It wasn't too bad once the cheese melted though.
On one particularly hungry night, I had a combo meal for starters and a 10oz steak in a diane sauce for mains (obviously Stella for dessert!!)

Christmas Meals Friday 9th - Sunday 11th
I came back to Bristol on Thursday night and Friday was the team meal in Clifton. A 3 course meal with a few drinks, my only problem was the dessert - ice cream in a brandy snap basket. Having had a few drinks I decided to eat it in one mouthful - I succeeded, but the cold ice cream did do me a bit of a mischief!

Yesterday was the traditional Christmas meal at the Holmes/Higgins residence. We had a few people over for a 3 course Christmas meal. Many thanks to Higz for doing most of the cooking, although the best bit was probably my contribution of sausagemeat stuffing (which was better than my effort last year, which was slightly over done). Tomato soup was the starter, mains were turkey, 3 types of stuffing (including the now famous, sausagemeat stuffing), pigs in blankets, cauliflower, peas, roasters, roast parsnips, turkey gravy, carrots and, of course, sprouts. For dessert was Christmas pud or Trifle. The event was mainly funded by our recent pub quiz winnings.
I was quite full after that and Christmas hasn't even started properly yet!!!

Welcome to December...

This is probably my last post for a few days, as I am off to Surrey tonight and I won't be back until Thursday night. There's bound to be plenty of feasts too, as I am going to a Christmas meal on Saturday and the training course might offer some pleasant grub also - not to mention a fair few evenings of grub at the companies expense!

Anyway, I haven't had much food of interest recently - mainly been out boozing. The best I can offer is this pic of a bit of garlic-bready type roll that I sliced in half and grated some Smoked Applewood cheese over and seasoned with black pepper and baked in the oven for a while... Delish!

Other pics include the chicken fillet burger thing I bought from Quigleys in town last night whilst on the way home from the pub and today's lunch down the Hungry Horse (a whole chicken with a sausage, stuffing, veg and chips in gravy!)

Right, I have to go - need to catch a train to Surrey in a few hours and I need to pack (I don't think I did a very good job whilst pissed last night!!!)