A Knock Back
I’ve never really made it public on this blog about my intentions regarding… life I guess.
Often I sit around and wonder what I’m supposed to do with this blog, and the other day Kimberlee my beloved suggested that I blog about what my plans are. My plans are incredibly simple, but incredibly complex at the same time:
Move to America on January 31st.
I went back and forth to how best to start this process and like most processes it starts with cash.
This whole thing won’t be cheap and the primary expense is the plane ticket. It’ll probably cost anywhere between 550 and 650 euros. That’s a wedge of cash in my books and I think a lot of us would have trouble raising that sort of scratch in the current economic climate.
So I decided to start selling things. The first thing I decided to sell was a burberry coat that I own. I picked it up about a year ago, maybe a year and a half. I never wear it, because it’s too nice to wear. I know it’s stupid.
The knock back referenced in the title is my first attempt to sell the coat. It didn’t sell.
This was an immediate shock to me, least of all because it’s a genuine Burberry Coat; I’d assume people would have my arm off for it at that price. It’s missing the belt, but that’s the only problem with it.
It was difficult to understand that it hadn’t sold. I had to consider an unpleasant idea:
What if I can’t sell any of my stuff?
I spent the rest of the day rolling this over in my mind. Yeah, gamestop will take my DVDs, and any clothes and nick-knacks can be given away if I run out of time. It’s likely a lot of stuff will go to charity shops. But if I don’t sell my stuff, then that’s a significant amount of cash I had planned on being in the budget… not being in the budget.
Well you know what – fuck it. If I give up at the first hurdle I’ll sit here in this chair, in this house, in this place and I’ll never get anywhere. Sure, I might get a job, or find a woman, or any of that shit.
But that job won’t be my dream job and that woman won’t be Kimberlee.
No compromise, no surrender.
Go buy the coat. If you don’t have the money to buy the coat, spread this around until we find someone who does have the money for it.
The first ever Mc Girr Family Tartan
So after some false starts, and a little back and forth, the tartan is now in the registry.
The Mc Girr family has an official tartan now.
The next step is to get together enough cash to get the material loomed, and then made into a kilt.
There is a donations page if you wish to toss me a few quid.
By the way, Mc Girr means ‘Son of the short man’ so anybody with the surname Mc/Mac Girr, Mc/Mac Gearr, Mc/Mac Garr or even Short/Shortt can wear this tartan.
Zinc Saucier Edition 10 – Breakfast Burrito
I hear you all out there saying:
“Dave, all you make is dinner. Make something else”
And this morning that is exactly what I did, so welcome, to the breakfast burrito!
We start with the greatest ingredient nature has yet given us. Bacon! Yay Bacon!
I grilled my bacon, which a while, so I put it on first. Then I started making up some tasty corned beef hash
You can totally make corned beef hash on it’s own, and it’s delicious, but for today it’s an ingredient.
Oh, per person you’ll need:
Two slices of bacon, loosely shredded
One medium potato, chopped
One sausage, cut or crumbled
One third of a can of corned beef
One handful of grated cheese
One tortilla wrap
Yep that’s everything.
After the jump is the rest of the preparation.
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Zinc Saucier Edition 9 – Calzone
Today we make a a pizza pocket. Simple as that. Well not quite that simple.
So this recipe was a bit of a mixed success. I didn’t like the taste of the cheese combination I used, Sinead wasn’t a fan of the sauce. So I’ll have to perfect it at a later date.
Here’s the recipe I sort of followed. I used some gluten free pizza base mix stuff… that was not very good. It didn’t knead well. And the corn meal, polenta stuff was damn hard to come by.
I put sauce inside the calzone unlike the video, I probably used too much cheese.
I split 4 large chopped sausages between three calzones, and that worked incredibly well.
The recipe is pretty well contained and it has a video with it, so happy days.
It’s easy to make, very hard to perfect. Pretty much like all cooking.
So the response was mixed, but none of us regret eating it.
Try something new this week. I’m trying several new things every week.
Look after the jump for a picture of an uncooked calzone.
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Zinc Saucier Edition 8 – Fried Chicken and Biscuits
We have a bona-fide success from the kitchen: Fried chicken and biscuits.
Or scones, if you’re not American.
Doesn’t that look delicious?
The recipe for biscuits is easy enough, in fact I did a post about them. Which apparently I’ve pinged back to several times.
Once you’ve made your biscuits, it’s on to making the chicken, which we shall do after the jump.
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Zinc Saucier Edition 7 – Steak Pie
Let me just say right off the bat, this turned out much better than the peppered steak.
But it isn’t peppered steak so let’s move along with this.
For the first time ever I used a crockpot, and for the first time ever I made pastry.
Each turned out fine, however there is room for improvement next time.
First a picture of the finished pie, then the recipe after the jump.
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Zinc Saucier Edition 6 – Peppered Steak
For the first time in my trek through the world of better food have I come up short, and only partially enjoyed the food. The main problem I had with this dish was the smell. I know exactly what it was, and I will be sure to leave it out next time.
Creamy peppercorn sauce. It smelled absolutely foul and it really put me off the meal. I still ate it, and it tasted fine… but it would have been so much better without that damn smell. I bought a little carton of pre-made sauce and I really shouldn’t have. Next time I use a spice packet, or just go from scratch.
Anyway, on to a picture. Brief details after the jump.
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Shaving My Head For Charity
So it’s been a while since I posted a picture of myself here. But that’s not what we’re discussing today.
Today we discuss giving money to Cancer Research. I can’t say that I’m big into charitable causes, but this seemed like an opportunity to give money to a cause that’s helping a lot of people every day.
I gathered some donations, pledged to shave my head, then I went and did it. I raised 55 euros.
A bunch of other people came along pledging to have their heads shaved, their legs or chest waxed.
Click after the jump for the after picture and some pictures of other volunteers.
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Zinc Saucier Edition 5 – Enchiladas
On this week’s culinary tour we go to Mexico for the wonderfully rich dish of Enchiladas
Now I’ve seen a lot of recipes online for enchiladas, and there are a lot of variations.
So when making your own enchiladas – Just wing it. Go with what tastes good.
However there are three main components to this dish for me.
1. Fried ground beef.
2. Tomato and cream cheese sauce.
3. As much cheese as can be tolerated.
Here is a picture of the results, I’ll provide a recipe below.
Recipe and a bonus vegetarian version after the jump.
Zinc Saucier Edition 4 – Beef Cobbler
The Zinc Saucier [that’s me by the way for those of us not paying attention] is hard at it again, but this time I’m making a childhood favourite of mine: Beef Cobbler.
As far as I know mema got this recipe from a cookbook she purchased somewhere in the 70’s or 80’s and she’s been making it ever since. I found my recipe here. But I’ll have to admit that I didn’t follow it religiously, mainly because I didn’t have all the ingredients.
After the jump there are details of what I did differently.
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