Bacon and Mushroom ? or Cheese Burger? Or BLT?

[Zak33]

Fun fact I found out the other day - Weatherspoon's veggie breakfast has the same calories as their traditional english

i would never.. ever.. have thought to go to Wetherspoons for any brekkie... let alone a veggie one!

[kalniel]

i would never.. ever.. have thought to go to Wetherspoons for any brekkie... let alone a veggie one!

Trust me, it beats holiday Inn/other brand cheapo hotel stays which you've been forced into in some town centre somewhere because your finance department wouldn't deal with a nice B&B instead.

Besides, never a bad thing to have an excuse to head to the pub before midday

[Zak33]

that's the damn truth .....

[Ttaskmaster]

Go up a decent burger van or biker cafe and get a full fry up burrito.
It's like what McDonalds do for breakfast but, you know, real food and proper quality components. Failing that, buy the stuff from a local farm shop and do some up at home.

[TooNice]

Well, I have been dieting lately, with every other Saturday being a cheat day.

Today, I had a roast chicken from a local (non expat or tourist oriented) spot. The price is a fifth that you would pay from a touristy restaurant, or KFC (popular as I understand and expensive in this country). Right off the bat you notice that the cook's T-Shirt, baggy from years of use and greasy to the point you wonder if it has ever been washed. He handed me a piece to sample (on a skewer) which I was a bit reluctant to take with my hands as I knew I have touched a lot of not so clean stuff on the way there, but did so to be polite and.. ooh, that hit the spot. Juicy, tender, nicely seasoned. Much better than the better looking yet so dry chicken costing four times more I had two weeks ago, or the equally better looking roast chicken you get in UK supermarket.. yeah, including Waitrose. Now, I am not saying that it is michelin star material, even ignoring the presentation, but it is something I have all too often seen done wrong, done well.

If I live to post tomorrow, I would be tempted to have this monthly or even every other week

While I am at it, I shall state that I really don't get why bacon is so popular. Maybe I have never had any done right, but it is just to salty and greasy for me (given that I do eat greasy stuff, it is the saltiness really that bothers me; and I guess bacon is pre-salted when bought?).

[Saracen]

With bacon, a LOT does depend IMHO, on what you get.

I'm lucky in that I get my bacon from a village butcher, who gets in fro a pig farm about 4 miles down the road, that does it's own dry-smoking.

However, if you get almost any supermarket bacon, especially that stuff that looks really succulent, it's nearly all injected with some kind of horrible chemicalky brine mix.

One test is to fry a slice. If it shrivels to about half, or less, the size and you end up with a milky liquid in the pan, it's been "plumped". If, on the other hand, you get good bacon a little bit of fat will render out but it'll barely change size and there's no milky liquid.

Another test is, whrn frying, does it tend to spit everywhere? If so, it's been injected. The stuff I get you get aclight sizzle, but you can hold your hsnd achslf inch above the frying bacon and barely ferl anything.


Don't get me wrong, bacon is saltier in taste thsn, say, lamb but there'sca difference between a natural salty taste and that horrible artifical stuff. That, I won't touch

[TooNice]

Perhaps I have had a lot of "plumped" stuff. Or maybe I have only ever had plumped stuff. Regarding the saltiness, I think that part of the issue is that what often comes with the rest of the plate is often quite salty too. I mean salted duck egg (from Chinese cuisine) is horrifically salty, but since it is usually served with congee, it balances out fine.

[stevie lee]

If it shrivels to about half, or less, the size and you end up with a milky luquid in the pan,

that's what I had for dinner. from those 1kg offcut packs from lidl. here's my method :


3 butty sized flat-ish bits in the frying pan (foreman grill exploded a month ago) sizzle em about till they're brown ish.

slice o warburtons medium cut bread (that was cheap from tesco's because it was on BBE date)
spread thickly with similar-to-cant-believe-butter butter.
bit of bacon.
then splodge of sauce from random flavour sauce bottle that's left over in the cupboard.
next bit bacon
cheese slice from packet.
last bit bacon.
slice of warburtons spread with whatever was left on the knife from other slice because you didn't want to get bread crumbs in the butter tub.
squash it down on the plate to meld it together.
cut in half for 2 sammiches. making sure to clean the knife of breadcrumbs while slicing.


on another slice of bread, spread some more knock-off-butter. with freshly cleaned knife.

crack an egg in the pan, above all the liquidy stuff the bacon left
use spatula to shape egg into a rectangle shape so it fits on the bread.
make sure to get all the juicy bits from round the pan (saves washing it later)
spatula and flip egg onto bread and fold in half, squishing egg so the bread soaks it in.

enjoy eggy bacon butties, while mum wanders into the kitchen wondering why no-ones eating the sausages.

repeat above tomorrow but with sausages instead of bacon.


I also use this method with potato waffles, burgers, chicken pieces and pork chops.

hmmm.. pork chops on eggy bread...

[Saracen]

Well, it's your stomach, Stevie, but on this one, rather you than me. I'll stick to the dry-cure stuff.

[DanceswithUnix]

Cheese burger, no bacon. But then if I am going to eat a greasy mess I would much rather a sausage bap, splash of ketchup.

Apparently I'm strange as I don't like bacon, but then I'm not a fan of pork generally there is just something about the texture of it that I never liked. Except in sausages where the texture is long gone.

I went for a pub lunch yesterday (Saturday) and instead of the burger I went for one of the specials which was labelled as a coconut chicken curry. Couldn't detect any coconut, but was very nice despite the slightly dry chicken that makes me assume it came out of a freezer.

[zygzakmcqeen]

One Bacon Cheeseburger for me. Trying to be vegetarian now, but it's a great one for a cheat day every once in a while

[Zak33]

One Bacon Cheeseburger for me. Trying to be vegetarian now, but it's a great one for a cheat day every once in a while

so.youre not vegetarian.. you're just sensbly trying to eat less meat.

don't confuse the two.... it's not the same. Cheat days for vegetarians... no such thing.

[zygzakmcqeen]

so.youre not vegetarian.. you're just sensbly trying to eat less meat.

don't confuse the two.... it's not the same. Cheat days for vegetarians... no such thing.

Okay, I'm not vegetarian YET, but someday in the future I'll just stop eating meat forever. Is "aspiring to be a vegetarian" better phrase?

[Ttaskmaster]

Is "aspiring to be a vegetarian" better phrase?

That's probably best used as part of a paragraph that also includes something like, "Good sense of humour. Fun-loving. Enjoys long walks, reading and tennis".
It might even help you find someone who'll help with your aspiration!

[zygzakmcqeen]

It might even help you find someone who'll help with your aspiration!

Thanks for a dating tip mate, but I don't need to change my eating habits to score. But, sure. Whatever works.
My angle is like that - I absolutely adore the taste of nice beef and bacon, but we're slowly heading towards environmental crisis. Even if my resolution won't change anything I guess it won't hurt either.

[Ttaskmaster]

I don't need to change my eating habits to score.

You've never dated a vegetarian or vegan, I presume....?

My angle is like that - I absolutely adore the taste of nice beef and bacon, but we're slowly heading towards environmental crisis. Even if my resolution won't change anything I guess it won't hurt either.

I'm sure the price of veg will go up if everyone started making the switch... This problem, like many others we face, stems from overpopulation in In this instance, the increased demand for food, which has been capitalised upon by fast food giants and mass livestock farming, combining with pricing undercuts to sell cheap and unhealthy food and pricing more sustainable healthy farming products out of the market, along with creating serious food wastage.

In short - We need more people to die, and the most humane way is in fact..... BACON!!!

Yep, heart attacks aren't the greatest, but you'll have such delicious fun getting there.
So grab yerself a trucker-sized Full English-Scottish double-treble fry-up, loaded with bacon, back bacon, middle bacon, sausages, chipolatas, lorne sausage, bubble & squeak, tatty scones, fried eggs, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, black pudd'n, white pudd'n, haggis, scrambled egg, French toast and maybe a side of porridge - Together we can save the world!!


Of course, if you're of Irish, Welsh, Cornish, or any origin with its own variant, please feel free to add your bits in as well... and some for me, too!