Untitled: all options were too rude

I'm generally against essentially diarising every little bit and bob that my greedy little goblet guzzles, as it would be a little too like one of those 'food diaries' that they make you keep at WeightWatchers, however, I couldn't resist with this little cracker.

Yesterday I went and did my weekly frugal shop. I pottered into the meat section and these little babies caught my eye:


Look at those eh?! An intriguing cross between pork belly and bacon rashers, with lovely fresh pink flesh glistening seductively in between temptingly tasty layers of fat. The challenge was too good to resist. Into my trolley they went.

But then I got them home and hit the post-shopping euphoric lapse as I realised I really am quite naive in the ways of pig. Pork is just something that I've always been a nervous about. I suspect it's one of those childhood things, as there are all too many 'thin, grey, tastless, chewy' memories floating round from my schooldays. This means that, bar my two faves - bacon and sausages - the rest of the pig rarely gets a look in. My new resolution therefore: all of this is going to change as of TODAY!

Inspired by a recipe I read on one of my favourite blogs, Eggs on Sunday, I thought it was time I whipped them out of their packet for a little dance in the frying pan, just in the nick of time for my lunch. I tried a variation on Amy's recipe .

Rubbing salt and pepper into the thick rashers, I then laid them in a frying pan where some hot oil sizzled. They cooked for some 3-4 minutes on both sides until golden and cooked through, when I laid them on a hot plate to one side as I made the sauce. To the oil I added some finely diced red onion and some chopped sage, allowed it to sizzle, scraped in the remnants of the pork from the pan, and deglazed with a couple of capfuls of cider vinegar. The mixture bubbled and wafted tantalising smells. I let cook and reduce for a few moments before spooning it over my belly/rasher hybrid, and enjoyed them with some buttered leeks and garlicky mushrooms.

Heavenly.

Drumroll.....

I am sure those reading are just desperate, DESPERATE to know exactly how much I ended up spending over the five days of My So-Frugal Life.

Who am I to deny you the details?

I was quite interested myself, but I should add the caveat which is that, in the interest of really truly using up the fridge's fairly plentiful contents, I have had a helping hand in the old ingredients department. It does put a slight skew on the results.

But, in terms of actual, bought items from the shopping list:

Butternut Squash £1.67
Parsley £0.99
Leeks £1.59
Whole Chicken £2.46 (I apparently lied previously)
6 Sausages £2.59
Little Gem lettuce £0.88
6 eggs £1.52
carrots £0.49
1 kidney £0.45
_____
Total: £12.64

Actually, even I'm surprised by how piddly that amount is, which is why it's necessary to state that I already had a lot of the basics: garlic, onions, rice, salt, pepper, potatoes, a lot of vegetables, any storecupboard items.

I'd be interested in carrying out the experiment from a real starting point which, hopefully, if I'm ever able to restart my existence away from the parental abode, I'll get a chance to explore. I will give some details of 'stocking up your storecupboard with staples' and where to find cheapy cheapies. There's no denying it, I've turned into a frugal food fiend!

Frugal Fare Challenge Day 5: Wednesday

Nearly at the end of the frugal five days...and for interest's sake (more my own than anyone else's) I'm going to have a little tot up session to see exactly how much I spent. That will follow, but for now, I've still got one last day that I've not penned up. Am very behind the times!

Since my kidney fetish started, I've been flipping through Delia and several other cookbooks to see what other ways there are of cooking them, and I found one rather intriguing recipe that looked very cheap and easy, and oh-so-World War Two. It had to be done.

By now, my butcher guffaws slightly every time I open the door, and makes references to my offal obsession. What can I say, I have a reputation to upkeep! Although most girls I talk to are a little wimpy about the stuff, I've been getting into animated discussions with the builders who are in, who apparently 'love a bit of steak and kidney pie/liver cooked with onions'. Maybe I should worry about my manly taste in meat, but I personally think it connotes an open mind, and an economic one too!

And so, to cook...

Lunch: Kidneys baked in Potatoes
1 Serving

Ingredients:
1 large potato, scrubbed; salt and pepper; knob of butter; 1 kidney; 1 tspn dijon mustard/mustard powder; 1 rasher bacon

Method:
Scrub and dry the potato, and rub salt into its skin. Bake in teh oven at 220C for about an hour or until it feels soft when pinched. Cut a cap off the potatoe and scoop out some of the inside. Skin the kidney and rub in salt, pepper and a little mustard. Roll it in a rasher of bacon and put in the potato case. Wrap the potato in foil with a scrap of butter and bake for an hour longer. The kidney gravy is soaked up by the potato - which, if you like kidneys, is scrumptious!
Serve with a lovely crisp salad and sharp dressing.

Dinner: Pasta Puttanesca

That was it, I was pretty much at the end of my weekly shopping supply and so the time had come for a truly store-cupboard only meal. I'm a bit obsessed with the 'store-cupboard' meal. I'm not sure why - I think it's something to do with the creativity and innovation behind it. Or maybe it's just the stingy so-n-so which hides deep within me. Whatever the reason, pasta puttanesca is without a shadow of a doubt a beautiful example of the ultimate SCM. Most seasoned chefs are well aware of the dish, but for those who aren't, a little history. Pasta puttanesca is a powerful, punchy pasta dish made with most ingredients which fussy eaters abhor - ie. all the seriously flavoured ones - capers, olives and anchovies. Yikes! As a result, this isn't a dish for the wimps. Its name literally translates as 'whore's spaghetti', a nod to the gutsy, raucous and unapologetic flavours frolicking around the dish. I blimmin' love it.

Ingredients:
Serves 2
Storecupboard - a glug of olive oil; 1 clove garlic, chopped; 1 tin chopped tomatoes; 2 tablespoons capers; a handful of tinned black olives, roughly chopped; 3-4 anchovy fillets, drained of oil; salt/pepper; whatever pasta you fancy (I like linguine)

Method:
Start to cook the pasta as you cook the sauce, in a large saucepan of boiling water.
On a low heat, fry the garlic in the olive oil until golden, then add in the tin of tomatoes. Stir and cook for a few moments, and then add in the rest of your storecupboard ingredients. Simmer on a low heat for about 15 minutes, by which stage the anchovies will have melted into the sauce barely to be seen again, leaving only a salty, savoury hint of their existence.
Drain the pasta and pour over the sauce.

Frugal Fare Challenge Day 4: Tuesday

By the fourth day of my challenge, I had started to wear out the occupants of my fridge. They weren't looking quite as plentiful, and it was time for me to start pulling in the storecupboard staples to throw into the mix, and bulk out what few meat and veg items I had left. I was still on a mean mission to make the most of anything I could though, which forced me to be slightly more creative than I think I really have licence to be in the food department!

Lunch: Roasted Butternut Squash & Carrot Risotto

This is what I mean by 'creative' really...I think essentially there is something slightly wrong about carrots in risotto...I'm not even really sure why but it just doesn't sit well with me - probably the texture or the fact that I know that in Italy I've never ever seen carrots in risotto. Ne'ertheless, I had a bundle of these cute baby chantenay carrots who were just a-beggin' to be cooked up, and who was I to argue with the little tykes? After all, I was only serving myself...it was time to experiment. See how they panned out below.

Ingredients:
Shopping cart: Half a butternut squash, chopped; 3-4 thin slices bacon
Store Cupboard: 1 cup Risotto rice; 1 litre stock; handful whole chantenay carrots, washed & top/tailed; 2 sticks celery, diced; 1 onion, diced; 1 garlic, chopped; 1 glass white wine

Method
Spread the roughly diced butternut squash and the carrots over a baking tray covered in foil (option to lay some thin slices of bacon over the top of the veg, which will crisp up and give the veg a delicious salted flavour) drizzle some olive oil over the top and season with salt and pepper, then roast in the oven for 30-40 minutes until soft. Meanwhile, in a wide flat saucepan melt a small lump of butter over a gentle heat and add a glug of olive oil, allow to heat through and then add the garlic until it sizzles, then add the onion and celery, stir and allow to soften slightly. Add the cupful of risotto rice, stir to coat the rice with the oil, so the rice grains go translucent; pour in a cup of wine which will puff up in a glorious waft of alcohol, stir and add a pinch of salt and season with pepper, and then start to add the stock liquid one ladleful at a time, stirring each until absorbed fully into the rice. To use the entirety of the stock liquid should take about 20 minutes, all the while stirring the liquid in, until the rice becomes a creamy mass and can absorb no more stock. Take the pan off the heat.
By this time the squash and carrots should be roasted to a tender, slightly sticky stage. Remove the by now crisped bacon, and chop roughly. The veg can be further chopped or added into the risotto mixture as is. Gently stir the squash and carrots into the risotto, serve onto warmed plates, and sprinkle the chopped bacon over each separate serving.
This would be ideal with some deep fried, crumbly sage leaves - sadly my cupboard didn't stock them!

Dinner: Baked Eggs

By dinner time I seemed to be consumed with this retro 70s desire for Baked Eggs.

I know - who eats those now?! Well, apparently I do. In fact, I've been dying to make them ever since I returned home and saw a plethora of little ramekins sitting unloved in one of our kitchen cupboards. And, as we've already established (and you haven't even seen Wednesday's meals yet), I have no qualms in going a little 'old-fashioned' in my eating. I would even go as far as to say, in these purse-tightened times, we all have a lot to learn from old-time cooks. In these days of plastic-covered apples, and styrofoam boxes, and 'ah-just-throw-it-away-and-buy-a-new-one' attitudes, the word frugal hasn't really been touted around a lot lately. But hark back to the 70s (I finally received my copy of The Pauper's Cookbook by Jocasta Innes - see below) or even as far as the war, and there were women stretching every single ingredient they were lucky enough to get their hands on. I've always been a little old-fashioned, me. You're just lucky I'm not posting pictures of me in my oh-so-flattering 80s cashmere cardie that I've been passed on by my mum. Though I'll confess that this isn't really for the fashion statement so much as the fact that this house is blimmin' freezin', with great gales screeching around each corner and biting at my poor wee ankles. Fashion just ain't a great consideration in the country!

'The Pauper's Cookbook' by Jocasta Innes, revamp of 1970s classic. Likely to feature a great deal in posts henceforth.

Anyway, enough waffle and excuses about my Baked Eggs. Let me just tell you now that this is a beautiful, versatile, simple little dinner, which doesn't lay heavy on your tum, but delivers a solid whack of protein and nutrients. Try it and see!

Ingredients:

2 Eggs; a few snippets of any of the following - bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, herbs, cheese, ham, in fact anything you'd add to an omelette; salt/pepper

Butter a small ramekin dish, and pop in your finely chopped ingredients (if using bacon you should fry it up first). This time round I was using mushrooms and tomatoes. Season well. Pop the ramekin in the middle of a high-edged baking tray, and then pour hot water in until it fills the tray/reaches about an inch up the side of the ramekin dish. Then pop all of this in the oven...I'm still figuring out temperatures as I'm using an Aga, so this would be about 220C. Allow to cook for 10 minutes or so - the mushrooms/tomatoes will steam slightly.
After the 10 minutes, bring the tray out - being very careful of the hot water - and crack the two eggs carefully into the ramekin. Season well again, put a piece of foil loosely over the top to protect from burning, and return to the oven to cook for a further 10 minutes or so, until the egg is set. I served mine with some buttered brown bread, just to be reeeally retro.

*Warning: as soon as you've finished, put the ramekin in to soak, otherwise you will be scraping egg bits off for days to come*

Frugal Fare Challenge Day 3: Monday

Today has been very tough.

I've found out that one of the jobs which I was still holding out slight hope on had gone to another person as a result of a bit of a miscommunication between the HR lady, the Directors and the recruitment consultant. I made half a dozen furth
er new/continued feelers into the world of jobs and just received even more 'there's just not many roles at the moment'. I'm home alone, and for a whole hour I was in a bit of a slump.

So what's the best thing to do?! Cook some comfort food is what! I cheered myself up and took my mind off things by chopping leeks, sweating onions, and skimming chicken stock. It's an old friend coming to the rescue, the one dish which has supported me through thick and thin, and which never fails to comfort me with just one spoonful - I've ranted about it before, but the time has finally come for me to forsake it to cyberspace: Ma Pea's famous Chicken Soup.

Here is my hug in a bowl:

Leftovers: a couple of generous handfuls of cooked cold chicken, roughly chopped/pulled apart; 1.5litres of homemade chicken stock (see here for previous recipe)
From the fridge/veg bowl: 1 clove garlic, chopped; 1 onion, diced; 2 sticks celery, diced; 2 carrots, diced; half a leek, diced; salt, pepper; generous handful parsley, chopped coarsely

Method:
In a flat soup saucepan heat some olive oil and add the garlic. When garlic wafts are a-tantalising, add the onion and stir until coated in the oil and frying gently. Add the celery, carrot and leek and stir, covering the pan with a lid to allow to sweat for about five minutes until softened slightly. Ladle in the chicken stock, season and simmer gently for about 20 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Keep an eye on them so that they don't overcook and lose their vibrant colour. Taste - the soup should be sumptuous and packed full of flavour, but season if it needs a little more pizzazz. Stir in the chopped chicken and the parsley, and heat through for 3-5 minutes until the soup (and the chicken) are piping hot. Serve with more iron-packed parsley.

Yet another slightly blurry photo from moi - I can't seem to figure out this fancy schmancy digital camera works....

The lunch was a success: distracting me from jobsearch woes, living up to my mantra of maintaing morale through nutrition, and resigning myself to the fact that without Ma Pea around to deliver a motherly sympathy hug, chicken soup was the next best thing. Not that I'm saying she's like a big bowl of hot stock, but...

Dinner: Sausages with second Bubble & Squeak
I confess that I'm finding it slightly tricky to balance the 'variety' and keeping things interesting, with the frankly overwhelming need I feel to make the most of leftovers - waste not want not, as my granddad said to me when I was little. So rather than beat myself up about this, I really am focussing on the frugal/economic meals. Hence an almost exact repeat of yesterday's lunch. With peas instead of beetroot. Hey - it was the perfect comfort food.

Frugal Fare Challenge Day 1: Saturday

Ready, set, and go...the challenge begins.

Breakfast: storecupboard muesli and some blackberries from fridge leftovers.

Lunch: Roast Chicken with baby courgettes, baby carrots and beetroot.

I'm happy to say that the veg were all participants from the fridge, eager to get involved and, most importantly, to get used. The meal proved a very colourful plateful, alongside my highly useful, very simple Roast Chicken. I'm not what you'd call a fancy, schmancy cook - I'm still just learning. And a chicken is, to me, one of the ultimate fares which can stretch 62 different ways. Forget credit cards, chickens are my flexible friends!

Requirements:
1 chicken - mine wasn't fancy, and I'm ashamed to say it wasn't organic either, so £2.75 it was.
Glug of olive oil, 2 cloves garlic chopped, a dollop of butter, salt and pepper

Lay the chicken breast up in a high-sided roasting tray, cut away the excess skin at its neck and bottom, pop a lemon up its backsie, smear some butter all over its chest, and down into the joints of the legs/wings. Scatter the chopped garlic over, glug the olive oil across, and whack in the oven (I'm afraid to say I use an Aga, so this just means 'top oven') for 20 minutes at high heat, till the fat is bubbling and getting talkative, and the skin is lightly golden. Baste the breast and legs with the hot fat, so that the chicken glistens tastily.

Then pop some foil across the top for protection, and put back in the oven for an hour at a slightly lower heat. Baste from time to time to keep the lovely juices soaking into the chicken. The chicken is done when you pull the leg away from the body and it is no longer pink, or if you stick a knife into the leg joint and the juices run clear.

Mademoiselle la Poule, in all her glistening glory. She was a beaut. Shame about the photographer. Hopefully I will start to improve...

(My) Gravy: remove the chicken from the roasting pan and onto a carving tray, and pop the tray back onto a heat ring. Scrape all the bits into the tray, and start to heat the fat until it bubbles. Add a teaspoon of flour so that the gravy thickens, and stir vigorously to mix in. Add a teaspoon of gravy granules for colouring, and season with some salt and pepper. Then slowly add in some of the vegetable juices to bulk up the gravy. I never end up with smooth gravy, but I loathe it gloopy, so you will have to sieve out the bits, but will have a lovely juicy sauce to top your meat and veg with.

I then quickly got to work on pulling the meat off the chicken, and sending it off to the fridge packed up in foil, ready and waiting for me to conjure up some further delight with it. It would not have to wait long...
The bones were made into a lovely, scrumptious chicken stock - all the bones and the carcass went into a large saucepan, along with a whole carrot, a couple of celery sticks, the top half of a leek, a peeled, halved onion, a peeled garlic clove, 8 peppercorns, a bay leaf and some parsley stalks, with a couple of litres of water to fill and several generous pinches of salt. About an hour of bubbling later, and I had my stock! It was dutifully drained of its by now rather sorry looking occupants (oh such use and abuse!), resulting in a tasty, glisteningly perfect, and highly useful stock. The champion of frugality methinks.

Dinner: Chicken Pilaff

There is something rather retro and 70s sounding about a pilaff. Am I the only one who thinks this? But it is such a simple storecupboard dish, that can be rustled up with a variety of different ingredients, and is perfect for me to hit the 'waste not, want not' objective. So it seems a great shame for me (or anyone) to sneer, just because it sounds old fashioned.

Leftovers: a generous handful of cold chicken roughly chopped - several ladles of chicken stock
The Fruit&Veg bowl/The Fridge: a clove garlic (chopped), an onion (diced), 2 sticks celery (diced), 1 small green pepper (diced), a large handful of baby tomatoes (halved), generous handful of chopped parsley
The Storecupboard: some fastcook long grain rice of a brand I shan't mention

Method:
In a shallow saucepan, gently sweat the garlic, onion, celery and pepper in a small amount of butter and oil. Once golden, add the tomatoes (add them too early and they will just disappear and go terribly mushy), and then add a cupful of the rice. Stir to mix and to coat the rice grains in some of the fat, and then add a two or three ladlefuls of the boiling stock. Rather like a risotto, only the pilaff will not become a creamy mass, but will retain its ricey origins. Now leave to simmer for as long as your rice packet tells you (mine was 10 minutes). Do not stir and fuss around, as this breaks up the rice grains and results in a big old mess. Should you notice that the liquid is becoming rather sparse, simply add another ladleful. The rice should, after the recommended period of time, have absorbed up the liquid, and be cooked whilst still retaining bite. Stir in your chicken and your parsley and heat the chicken for a few minutes, until hot through. Scatter with parsley and serve as is.

My picture does not nearly do the tastiness justice, but you will fast become used to this. I repeat: I am not a photographer, I am not a photographer. Maybe I'd do better if I just drew the food!

The Pilaff in all its retro glory - complete with apparently equally retro plate. What a perfect couple.

Day 1 - £2.75 actually spent, plus a smidgen of 'cheat items'. At the end of the week I will tot up what I actually spent where, to give you an accurate idea.

The Official New Theme/Challenge: Frugal Food

My previous post should give some enlightenment as to my personal circumstances, and why exactly I have this overwhelming obsession with frugal food. It seems like a lot (if not all) of my posts (bar the restaurant reviews, where I have been lucky enough to be taken out by a host of wonderful friends/family) have been detailing ways of getting more bangers for your buck, of stretching your ingredients just as far as they'll go, and occasionally reverting to using odd (yet delicious!) insides to get a cheap meal. Whilst I'll admit that a lot of this is due to the fact that I'm hardly what you'd call rolling in dosh at the moment, coupled with the fact that I think the theme is highly relevant in a time where people are starting to feel the financial strain of the recession, this is not the only reason I'm interested in frugal food. I'm interested because, well, I'm not by nature a wasteful person. I like the concept of simple living, of more frugality and less extravagent waste. Less materialism, more productivity. Cooking can very quickly and easily become a highly expensive past-time, unless you use your noggin. And it's this sort of brainy cooking that I like - creatively and cleverly using your ingredients to the max. BUT - the results must be tasty, not all weird and wonderful, like say kidney beans with...erm...(she racks brain trying to think of something really truly odd to mix with kidney beans)...cauliflower.

So over the next couple of weeks, as I'm left home alone in a big house, with just a big kitchen and a computer to keep me company, I am starting an official experiment. I'm going to try to feed myself healthily, nutritiously, deliciously and colourfully for under £30.00 in a week. I should warn you right at the beginning, I am going to cheat a little, as I have to go up to London at the end of the week, to remind myself what a social life is like, and to see some real, live people. I've heard rumours they're still out there.

To be slightly more exact then, this week I will be detailing my food frolics between yesterday (Saturday) and Thursday. 6 days - well counted.

There are some more conditions, and you can decide for yourselves whether you think this is just stretching things:

1. There is a storecupboard/pantry in the kitchen, which is full of lots of lovely basics - flour, tinned tomatoes, tinned - olives, capers, pulses, pasta, rice, etc. - I intend to exploit this for all it is worth. Expect details of some 'storecupboard meals'The Storecupboard: my first photo but I thought I would give it a shot. Not least because I am so proud at how tidy this is post a tidy-up session yesterday. Helping Ma Pea to generally get the house in order - this was a task I set my organisational skills to. I know, it's official. I AM A GEEK. (Lydia at The Perfect Pantry would be proud!)
   
2. The fridge has a friendly smattering of bits and bobs - cheese, bacon, ham, some vegetables and some cheese - left over from when Ma Pea vacated premises for her fancy holiday, and I fully intend to use these up/come up with innovative ways of getting them involved in any way shape or form. Think of it as social food, and giving them an excuse to join in the fun.
   
3. It is necessary to bear in mind that I am based from home, and not currently juggling a job at the same time (bar all my mini creative projects, which I may start to upload details of soon, if I can figure it out), therefore breakfast, lunch AND dinner can and will be cooked and eaten at home - something which would never, ever happen when I was back in the big smoke.
   
4. We have apple trees, and intend to use 'em. I already have my eye on a recipe by Hopie, flagged and tagged by Psychgrad at Equal Opportunity Kitchen - keep your eyes/apples peeled ('scuse the pun) for that one.

I'm intrigued to know whether anyone else is as interested in eating frugally as me, and if so what your success stories have been - what you've managed to stretch out the most into multiple lunches and dinners, how you've used apparently discarded parsley stalks in stocks, that sort of thing. If you stumble upon me, do share hints, tips and/or encouragement!

Cheat Sheet - The Omnivore's 100

Ok, so I'm shameless, and only 6 posts in, it's getting late, it's past my bedtime, I'm going to pilfer a neat little post I found on a food blog (also swiped from another blog, so I don't feel too guilty). This is the Very Good Taste list of 100 things that every omnivore should try at least once. Ah, I like a good, preferably food-related challenge. Bring it on. (see my results below)

Given that it's obviously done/is doing the food fiends rounds, I feel I should have a good chance at it, and having just slurped, golloped, swallowed, tasted and chewed my way round the world in a very deliberate fashion I reckon I can give this list a run for its money...but I've not had a look at its contents quite yet - I'll take 'em as I find 'em. Any other fellow foodies who want a challenge, your instructions are simple:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses (strong, smelly French cheese)
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi (pickled Japanese sour prunes)
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin - no idea what this is
64. Currywurst
65. Durian (durian icecream but not yet the fruit itself, darnit!)
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Cor blimey that was fun! 78 out of a 100, not too bad though I do say so myself! A fair number of those of course I was lucky enough to have chowed down in the last four months. That alone is a good enough justification for the time away in my (admittedly stomach-oriented) opinion.

Now to keep an eye out for the remaining 22 food challenges...anyone care to join me for some snake? Or fresh Roadkill perhaps? I heard that Chef and the Connecticut boys had a dead skunk outside their house - seems like the perfect opportunity for some potent roast to me...