Download 2020

Is it just me or is Download 2020 shaping up to be the best lineup in about a decade? I’m on the verge of ordering a new 2 man pop-up tent and dropping a small fortune on a weekend camping ticket (I swore I’d never camp there again after the last time, the camp site was overrun by complete and total cunts, trust me I do not use that word lightly).

New Bedding

It’s been a long month, but payday finally arrived and to celebrate I treated myself to some new bedding. I don’t think there’s a better feeling than climbing into a fresh bed at the end of a long day.

Dear Brain

Dear Brain

I know that you have a lot going on at the moment and I do genuinely appreciate everything that you do for me, but tonight could you please shut the fuck up and actually let me sleep.

Yours Sincerely

The Rest Of Me

Chicken Kebab And Chips

It looks like I'm going to have to be particularly strict with my diet over the next few days, after a somewhat food heavy weekend.

I got in Friday night feeling tired, emotionally drained, a little depressed and absolutely ravenous. As payday was, and at the time of writing this still is, several days away, ordering a takeaway simply wasn't an option and that meant getting my head together, raiding the fridge, freezer and larder for whatever odds and ends I could find. Fortunately I always tend to have things like onions, garlic and pasta in stock as they're cheap, keep really well and are easy to cook, making them an absolute store cupboard essential. I coupled this with a good sized chunk of leftover chorizo, some mushrooms and a large chicken breast, I found in the back of my freezer drawer, to make a quick, easy and actually really tasty chicken and chorizo pasta. I added some additional flavour with a glug of dark soy sauce and a couple of teaspoons or dried oregano from the larder.

I did my weekly food shop, after my driving lesson, on Saturday morning and decided, with having not being able to afford a takeaway the night before, to treat myself to a dinner of homemade chicken kebab and chips. I bought a couple of packs of chicken thighs, I skinned and boned them out myself as they're considerably cheaper to buy with skins and bones still intact, a pot of yoghurt, a bag of 'wonky' potatoes, a bag of 'wonky' onions ('wonky' veg is just as nice and a fair amount cheaper than standard, uniform, veg), a cabbage, a couple of corn on the cobs and a pack of wraps. The whole lot came in at less than £10, about what it would have cost to order in a take away for myself, and I ended up making easily enough food for 2 people, with plenty of leftovers besides.

I started my prep as soon, as I got in from my shopping trip, by seasoning the yoghurt with paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin, onion powder and garlic powder before adding in the chicken thighs, coating them thoroughly and putting the whole mixture in the fridge to marinade for most of the day. In the evening I impaled the chicken on skewers, set them on a high sided tray and placed them in an oven set to 150°C. While the chicken was in the oven I cut up some potatoes, added them to a pan of water and bought it to the boil. Once boiling I removed the pan from the heat, poured the potatoes into a colander to drain and spread them out on a lined tray to steam dry. once the potatoes stopped giving off steam, I lightly sprayed them with oil and seasoned with smoked salt and dried rosemary. Before adding the potatoes to the oven I removed the chicken and turned it over to ensure it was evenly cooked throughout. While the potatoes and the chicken finished off, I chopped some onions and cabbage leaves to make a salad for the wraps, made a mint yoghurt sauce with the leftovers from the marinade and some mint picked from the garden, boiled the corn on the cob and lightly charred some peppers I'd found in the fridge. Once the chicken and chips were cooked I removed them from the oven and carved the meat directly from the skewer. I filling the wrap with salad, sauce and meat then served alongside the chips, corn and charred peppers. All in all it made for a very large, very tasty and extremely satisfying plate of food, with the added benefit of leaving me lots of leftover food and ingredients for other meals during the week. food, food blog, food porn, foodie, cook, cooking, cooked, home cook, home cooking, home cooked, home made, homemade, fat boy, fatty, meat, fat boi,

El-Truderino

This is Gertrude, she’s our new office mascot, she likes to be called Trudy for short or El-Truderino, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.

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I'm A Work Of Art

When someone asks if they can draw you and you think they’re taking the piss right up until the moment they send you something amazing and absolutely blow you away. It’s incredibly flattering, I’m extremely honoured, I have never looked this good and I’m so making this my new avatar.

I Taught Myself To Knit

I ended up spending some time in Birmingham town centre over the weekend, I got some food, had a couple of drinks, browsed a few shops and generally hung out, it was actually pretty good fun. The afternoon was starting to get towards evening and I was aware that I would need to be leaving fairly soon. With that in mind, I headed towards the train station hoping to get on the next train to Burton, however, it turned out that the next train was fairly heavily delayed and the train after wasn't arriving for over an hour (A common theme where British rail travel is concerned, it seems that the more expensive train tickets become the longer the delays you should expect. I'll probably end up writing a more in depth rant about this at some point in the future). Knowing that I was in for a wait, I popped into a nearby shop to pick up a drink and a bit of a snack, a fella has to keep his energy levels up after all. Whilst queuing to pay, I noticed they were selling balls of wool and knitting needles. Being the not even remotely childish, fully functional adult that I am, I immediately bought a pair of thick bamboo needles and a ball of extra chunky wool. So instead of just sitting around Birmingham train station, basically doing absolutely nothing, I decided to teach myself how to knit, something I've never really done before, and after a bit of a wait, and starting over several times, this extremely ugly, tiny scarf (?) is the result.