THE MOST AWESOME BAND TO EVER EXIST ON THIS EARTH

Hallooooooooo there.
This post today has absolutely nothing to do with food
 I just want you to check out this band.
They are called Earthtone9 and they are the best band on the planet. I get goosebumps when I listen to the music. No joke.
You can have your Metallica, your Slayer, your Pantera. These guys are MY band of choice. I love them so much I might weep. Or maybe windmill hair? But I've only done that once and it hurt real bad.
Please check out their tunes and give them your support and buy stuff from them so they can keep going and make me happy.
It is all about me after all.

http://www.earthtone9.co.uk/free.php







Yeeeeeeeeeeeeey!

HAMMERFEAST Part III - The final chapter.

So, Saturday night yeah? It's still going.
We saw loads of bands this night but by far the best was Entombed.



I was really excited about seeing them as I loved them when I was younger.
They played a great set but I was a wee bit disappointed that they didn't play Hollowman.

Hollowman video  http://youtu.be/2EUl-MTftsg

Well me and Arlene sneaked off at one point to get some more "dancin juice" from the chalet.
On the way we met to young men who were giving us a bit of funny banter. We had a chat and a giggle then something happened.
Out of the thick Welsh mist there came a Man!
A hulking, Norse looking, Metal Man with long flowing blond hair, big broad shoulders and a Metal strut to die for. The two guys we had been talking to turned and fled. Myself and Arlene stood there clutching each other in fear.
The Metal Man approached.
He was Welsh by the way. We struck up a conversation, told him about my blog while he bellowed and laughed like Brian Blessed.
I decided to start filming him on my camera as he was crazy.
He sang a whole Alestorm http://youtu.be/ta-Z_psXODw song for us in Welsh, told me his favourite food is a type of Welsh that I cannot pronounce as I was a wee bit Merry by this point. He then picked me up (while I was still filming him) tried to dry hump me then run off with me. I screamed, my sister screamed, he put me down then disappeared back into the mist.
The video didn't work. Gutted.
We named him "Crazy Welsh Alestorm cheese guy".
We had a little tipple then headed back to the stage to get our friends.
We met Krusher from Raw Power and Noisy Mothers fame.

We cornered him in the puggy room, gave him some Rocky Road and had a nice little chat.
He was a very nice man and said he thought the blog was a great idea and wished me the best of luck with it. I nearly got all teary.
Oh, just for the record. women love free chocolate. Men? Not too receptive, unless your name is Krusher.

So I was going to do some sort of cheesy Welsh Tart type thing for this recipe but since I can't remember the name of the cheese Crazy Welsh Alestorm cheese guy was talking about, I'll just do a cocktail instead.

Dark and Stormy

1 shot dark rum  (Krachen is very good)
1 bottle William's Brothers alcoholic ginger beer
100ml coke
Big wedge lime
Loads of ice
 Put everything except the time into a tall glass, squeeze the lime juice in and pop in the lime.
Stir with a small leek.
This is very strong. Be warned.

We had a great last night and I will definitely be going back to Hammerfest next year. Whoot.

HAMMERFEAST Part II - A new Dawn

Day two at Hammerfest.
Woke up with a not too bad hangover and feeling quite refreshed regardless of the fact that i got woken up at 3am to the sound of people shagging on the grass at the back of the chalet.
All I can say is "GET SOME CLASS" and stop interupting my Pepper Kennan dreams.
Anyhoo, I made a batch of Rocky Road at home to take down and hand out to people to convince them to take my flyers. Bribery works by the way.



Not much to look at but tastes great



He liked the Rocky Road too much



Little parcels of Joy

When we eventually left the Chalet we headed down to see some bands.
We were walking through the crowd and I looked over at the stage and it was like a magnet had just pulled me over. It was a band called Svart Crown http://www.myspace.com/svartcrown

The singer was a fine specimen of manly Metalness.



Shwing!

( For the record, I don't just listen to bands because I fancy someone. I like Death Before Dishonour for God's sake).
I looked over at Britta and we both had a little glint in our eyes.
We stayed to watch to watch to whole set. I circle pitted on my own which basically involved me spinning around in a circle with my arms up in the air and shouting "wheeeeeeeeeeee".
I also realised at this point that I was the only person in the building not wearing BLACK. Oops.
Svart Crown did lots of windmill hairing. I love watching people doing that.

                                              http://www.youtube.com/embed/dNUTMq_fcO8

After watching a few more bands and mulling around for a bit we retired back to the chalet for some pre drink food.
Then we broke out "The HORN".



Toot.

I love my Viking Drinking horn. I even drink tea out of it.
I shall not discuss what was in the "HORN" but let's just say Glaswegians call it "Dancin Juice".
So as you can imagine the second night was a bit more messy. Here is evidence of said messyness.





We like pulling the Horns



More Horns



Angry horns



Horns, horns, horns



I have no idea what happened here

Lesley thinks Arlene is a giant ice cream



I should probably ask permission before I put photos up of my friends????

My sister knows the Drummer of Attica Rage from Glasgow who we were there to support.
Check em out.

http://en-gb.facebook.com/atticarage




Oh yeah, here's my recipe for Rocky Road. I gibber on so much that sometimes I forget what I'm supposed to be doing

Rocky Road for the Metal Masses

Makes a lot

Ingredients

500g good quality milk chocolate
100g crushed biscuits. I used hob nobs
100g mini marshmallows
200g dried morello cherries or glace cherries
100g toasted pecans chopped roughly
Sprinkles for the top

Put your crushed biscuits, marshmallows, cherries and pecans into a big mixing bowl.
Melt the chocolate in a heat proof bowl over a pan of simmering water making sure the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl.
Alternatively, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl in the microwave on medium at 1 minute at a time then stirring,  making sure not to burn the chocolate.
Pour the melted chocolate into the bowl with the other ingredients and mix well.
Pour into a foil or greased container. Flatten out so it's all even. Sprinkle your sprinkles on top and put in the fridge for a few hours to set.
Cut into bite sized chunks and serve.

HAMMERFEAST part I. The journey begins.

Hallo there everyone.  
So, as I said quite a few blogs ago I went down with my sister, Torsten and Britta to the Hammerfest Metal music festival down in Wales on March 18th and 19th.
http://www.hammerfest.co.uk/
I had a jolly good time. I watched loads of bands and met lots of nice people.
Hammerfest is an annual Metal music festival which is held in a Pontins Holiday Park in Prestatyn down in Wales.
You get to stay in a chalet and all the gigs are held in the main building. Which is good for me as I am a festivalaphobe. I know, I know. What kind of true Metal fan doesn't like getting down and dirty camping at the big music festivals like Download, Waken, Bloodstock etc? Well, I'm sorry but I never have and never will CAMP. I'm not a vain person. I just like to be clean and I like my home comforts too much.
Back to the story.
Imagine being in a twee holiday camp surrounded by thousands of Metal fans all clad in black. It's great.
A weird thing happens though, and I guess it happens at most Metal festivals too.
Somewhere in the distance and at regular intervals, you will hear the roar of one or a few of the male of the species. Wether this is a gathering call, a mating call or just a call to warn the lesser males to flee the alpha males domain, who knows? It amuses me to no end though and I sometimes join in. Just for fun.
A few of the bands we saw were Man's Ruin, Turisas, Svart Crown, Satyricon, Attica Rage, Accept and Entombed. I love Entombed.
Check em out when you get the chance.
Before I headed down to Hammerfest I got myself some swanky, black, double sided flyers made to take down and hand out to the punters. (A big thank you to Arlene, Torsten, Nicola and Lesley for helping me hand them out. Love you guys).
What better place to advertise a Heavy Metal food blog than at a Heavy Metal festival full of hungry fans wanting to Gorge themselves in music.
 "Good thinking Batman", as my Dad would say.



Drummer from Attica Rage

Just you watch where you put your hands mate



Awesome



Go on, eat the chocolate



Yes, they were sporting old school METAL double denim



By far the best outfits of the whole weekend

So me and Arlene were handing out some flyers at the second stage. People weren't taking much notice but a nice guy called Matt came over and asked if I would do a recipe for Shepard's pie.
"Of course", I said.
"Do you want it with Lamb or beef?"  Duh! What a stupid question. The line does not go ...while a Shepard tends his flock of cows??? I was having a Glaikit moment.
Glaikit: Scottish word meaning: stupid, foolish, not very bright, thoughtless.
If you look in the dictionary at the word Glaikit you will see this picture of me beside it.

I have no idea how I managed to pull this face. I have tried to recreate it many times to no avail.
And yes, I am about to be hit on the head with an inflatable Metal Hammer.



So, sorry it took so long to get this recipe up for you Matt. If you manage to read this, try it out and let me know what you think.

Matt's Shepard's Pie Not Made From Cow

Makes enough for 4 hungry Metal heads

You can make this with quorn mince too. Just Use a vegetable stock cube and 1 tablespoon of yeast extract, 1 teaspoon thick dark soy sauce and reduce cooking time to about 20 minutes.



Mince in a pot, mince in a pot



I do like those wonky angles



Mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Ingredients
1kg minced lamb
1 large onion diced finely
3 sticks celery diced finely
1 large carrot peeled and diced finely
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tablespoon plain flour
2 big hand fulls frozen or fresh peas
100ml red wine
1 beef jelly stock cube
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp gravy browning
Water
Salt and pepper

For the mash
3 large potatoes Maris Pipers are good
Big knob butter,
2 tablespoons milk
Salt and pepper

OK. Get yourself a big pot and add a splash of vegetable oil and put onto a medium heat.
Add the onions, carrot, garlic and celery and cook for about 8 to 10 minutes, stirring every now and then until softened.
Next add your mince to the pot  and break it up with  a wooden spoon and stir every now and then till browned.
Add the plain flour, stir and cook for two minutes.
Once the mince is browned add the tomato paste and stir and cook for two minutes.
Add the red wine, jelly stock cube, bay leaves, salt, pepper and water. Stir well then bring to a simmer.
Simmer the meaty mincey mix for about 40 minutes until thick and saucy. Put the peas in 5 minutes before mince is ready. Take out the bay leaves.
Next make the mash.
Peel your spuds and cut into big bite sized chunks.
Put into a pot and cover about an inch over with cold water.
Put onto a high heat, add a big pinch of salt. Bring to the boil and cook for 20 to 25 minutes until potatoes are tender but not breaking apart.
Drain well then place back into the pot.
Add the butter, milk, salt and pepper and mash. I left my mash quite chunky as I like the texture and crispy ness it gives you.
Heat your oven to 200 degrees or equivalent.
Place your mincey mix into and oven proof dish, top with the mash and spread evenly over the mince.
Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes until potato is nice and crispy on top.
Munch away my friends. I ate about two portions before I was about to burst.

Feed My Frankenstein

God I freakin love this song. God I freakin love Waynes World.
I wish I was 23 and living back in the early 90's. That would be awesome.
I'd go to Seattle and hang out with Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and Alice in Chains and tell them all to lay off the freakin Heroin. It's bad for you by the way!

In honour of this song here is my Frankenstein inspired recipe for cupcakes.




Frankenstein cuppity cakes or green velvet and white chocolate

Makes 12
Ingredients

For the cake
30ml green food colouring
Half teaspoon vanilla
30g white cocoa powder (if you can't find white cocoa powder then you can use white drinking chocolate but you will need about 100g of this)
1 egg beaten
60g soft unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
150g plain flour
Half tsp bicarbonate of soda
Half tsp salt
120ml natural yoghurt
1 and half tsp white wine vinegar

Butter icing

125g soft unsalted butter
250g icing sugar
Half tsp vanilla
15ml green food colour

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees or equivalent (160 for fan oven)
Line your muffin tin with paper cases.
In a small bowl whisk together the white chocolate powder, vanilla and green food colour.
In a bowl sieve together the flour, bicarb of soda and salt.
Next using an electric mixer whisk the sugar and butter on high till it becomes white and creamy looking.
Once the butter and sugar is ready while still mixing on high add about a third of the beaten egg and whisk for one minute repeat with the other two thirds of the beaten egg.
Add the green cocoa mix and mix on low till just incorporated.
Sieve in half the flour mix and mix on low till just incorporated.
Add the yoghurt and mix on low till just incorporated then sieve in the rest of the flour mix and mix on low till just incorporated.
Add the vinegar and mix on high for 1 minute.
Separate the mix between the 12 cases then bake in the oven for 30 min or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean. (I've made this recipe tons of times and it never needs more than 30 min).
Take cakes out of oven and put on a wire rack to cool.

Once cakes are cool you can make the icing.
Whack all the ingredients into a big bowl and start mixing on low till incorporated. Otherwise you'll get icing sugar everywhere. Put the speed up to high and mix for a few minutes until soft and fluffy.

Pipe or spread over the cupcakes.

You can decorate with choc sprinkles or black jelly sweets or whatever you can find that looks minging.

Was it wrong to laugh?

Yello everyone.
How are you all today? Good I trust.
I'm having a few wee problems with my camera again so that's why I aint been blogging for a few weeks. Well that and the fact that It was me and my twinny Arlene's Birthday, Claire's Birthday, My wee Grannie's Birthday my Dad's Birthday, my friend Kath is over from New Zealand and whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Celebrations have been going on  for a whole month now don'tcha know.
Anyhoos, I think I'm all partied out and getting back into my normal routine of making nice food and force feeding it to Pauline. She loves it.
Tonight I'm making porky schnitzel. Yum.
Due to my cameralessness I'm sticking up a few wee recipes that I have back logged. Don't like putting up recipes without being able to prove I made them. I am no fraud.

So on one of my days off I stuck my head into the cupboard to see what I could make. Ready steady cook stylee again. I checked the back of the cupboard but unfortunately our new flat does not come with a Narnia out the back. Gutted. Yeah newbies. This is a throw back to an old blog.

I had bought a Cumberland sausage ring from Westmoorland farm shop on the way back from Hammerfest. Yes, yes. The blog for that is still in construction. It's a trilogy though and it takes some people a whole life time to write them????

Aye, so Cumberland sausage. I had a pack of cooked black lentils too, so decided to make sausages with lentils in tomato sauce. Mmmmmmmmmm.



I was too hungry to wait till after the photo to start eating it.

While I was making said dish I had Scuzz on the TV in the background. I heard a guitar riff that drew me like the rats to the pied piper into the living room. I sat on the arm of the couch, covered in tomato sauce splashes and watched the video. It was from a band called Revoker and the song was called Stay Down.
S

I couldn't make my mind up about what was going on in this song. It was like early 90's Grungyness smashing into the naughties hardcore movement. The hardcore guitars riffage and growly, shouty chorus and then the flamboyant, slightly overacted campness of the main singer. I dunno. I sat there laughing. But you know what? I bloody well like it. So there.

Here's my recipe for sausages and lentils. Enjoy.

Lentils in a tray

Add a sausage

Et Voilà

Sausage and lentils for two

Ingredients

200g Cumberland sausage ring
250g pack ready to eat black or puy lentils (I got mine from Merchant Gourmet)
1 red onion diced fine
3 cloves garlic minced
1 stick celery diced fine
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 bouquet garni
Hand full sun blush tomatoes
Half teaspoon paprika
Half teaspoon dried oregano
Half teaspoon dried basil
Glug olive oil
Glug red wine
1 chicken jelly stock cube
1 tablespoon maple syrup
200ml water
Salt and pepper

First you want to make your tomato sauce.
Put a glug of olive oil into a saucepan and put onto a medium heat.
Add the onion, celery, garlic and paprika and cook for a few minutes until vegetables are softened and garlic is smelling lovely and fragrant.
Add the chopped tomatoes, bouquet garni, basil, oregano, red wine, jelly stock cube, water and a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir then bring to the boil. Once it has started to boil turn it down to a low simmer and cook for 30 minutes stirring every now and then to make sure the sauce does not stick to the pan.
Pre heat your oven to 190 or equivalent.
When sauce is ready, take out the bouquet garni and stir in the lentils. Put into an oven proof dish.
Pop the sausage on top of the lentils and cook in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes until sausage is cooked through. The juice and fat from the sausage will drip into the lentils and make them super nice.
Check the seasoning and serve. I made some soft polenta to go with mine but you could serve it with a nice green salad or a big chunk of bread to mop up the juices.

Stay down, on the ground.

Breakfast Burrito as big as your Heid.

Halloooooo Y'all,
Do ya feel like a breakfast fit for a Luchador?
I know I do.



This was after half the contents of the burrito fell on my shoes

My friend Lynne (of Panteratone pudding fame) asked me if I had a good recipe for a breakfast burrito.
She had tried them in the US of A and when she made them at home she couldn't get them quite right.
Never having eaten  a breakfast burrito before I took to the challenge with all the ferocity of a sweaty, pumped up, tiny panted Luchador about to fight his biggest, baddest rival and tear the mask from his salt sweat, blood dripping face. Ahem.
So I looked on Google. Yes, we chefs do that too.
I scoured loads of recipes and well, to be sure I ate far too many burritos than any person could. But I think I've got something pretty close.
Let me know what you think Lynne. If it's not up to scratch then I will retire back to the kitchen like a mad scientist and work on my experiment till it LIIIIIIIIIIVES!












Breakfast Burrito as big as yer Heid

Serves 2 but damn they are big

Ingredients

2 large flour tortillas
4 eggs
Splash milk
1 red pepper seeded and diced
4 hot peppadew peppers ( or chilli peppers in vinegardiced finely
1 red onion sliced finely
2 cloves garlic minced
Half teaspoon smoked paprika
pinch dried oregano
2 big hand fulls shredded iceberg
1 avocado chopped roughly and mixed with the juice of half a lime
I tomato deseeded and roughly chopped
2 big hand fulls strong cheddar cheese grated
2 tablespoons salsa shop bought or fresh
Salt and peeper
Splash hot sauce
Glug vegetable oil

Whisk your eggs in a bowl with the splash of milk and a pinch of salt and pepper. Set to the side.
Next heat a glug of vegetable oil on a medium high heat. Add the onions and garlic and fry for a few minutes until softened.
Add the smoked paprika and oregano and fry for another minute.
Add the diced red pepper and cook for a minute or two until just softened. You still want the peppers to have a bit of bite.
Add the peppadews and then pour in the eggy mixture. Stir continuously until the eggs are scrambled to how you like them. I like my scrambled eggs firm so I cooked it for about 5 minutes. No runny eggs for this girl.
Take eggy mix off the heat.
Next heat your flour tortillas for a minute in the microwave.
Spread over the salsa, top with the iceberg, avocado and chopped tomato. Sprinkle over a little salt and pepper. Sprinkle over the cheese then top with the eggy mixture and add a few splashes of hot sauce.
Roll up and serve. This is messy so don't wear your Sunday best.

Toodles. X