Day 3 Evening

It's actually a bit of a strain to remember what I ate that evening, which suggests that it wasn't great.

Ah yes...

Baked Potatoes with expensive Fife cheese

1. Bake 3 small potatoes for about 55 minutes
2. Grate some expensive Fife chees
3. Put cheese on top of potatoes
4. Consume

In the last dish, I discovered that the cheese worked quite well as a topping. Sadly, it just doesn't work in baked potatoes. This one didn't really work.

Day 4 (and Day 5 morning to some extent)

I think it can be fairly accepted that I eat oatcakes with Venison Paté for lunch, as I've discovered that I actually like them, so I won't go into to much detail except to say that I fear the day I run out of Venison Paté.

For my evening meal, I decided make a change from my normal meals and actually attempt cookery...

Gammon Steaks (dry fried)

1. Put Gammon steaks into a hot, and very non-stick frying pan
2. Fry for a bit, until the meat has changed to a kinda whitish shade
3. Smear on some Rowan Jelly as an attempt at flavour
3. Consume

These were very salty, but the rowan offset it somewhat. All in all pretty nice.

Plain Vegetable Soup

1. Cut up the following: Carrots, Swede, Potatoes, Turnips
2. Bring to the boil
3. Simmer for a further 25 minutes
4. Add some ripped up cabbage and spinach
5. Add salt and pepper
6. Simmer (lower the heat so that it's nearly, but not quite, boiling) for another 10 minutes
6. Mash up with one of those big metal spoons with holes in
7. Consume

On my first try of this soup, it was pretty much my nightmare of vegetarian fayre, it had some flavour, but not much, and I longed for some meat, herbs or sauces. However, after leaving half of it in a sealed pan overnight then re-heating it, the carrots and swede had added considerably more of their flavour, and the soup tasted much better.

As such, I'm amending the recipe to:

7. Leave overnight
8. Reheat, and consume in the morning, whilst under the effect of a mild hangover.
 
The mild hangover, or Cairn o' Mohr Bramble wine

My friend Suzi invited me over to the pub that evening to do a pub quiz. Now, as you may be aware, we're only allowed to drink two types of alcoholic drink, Fraoch, and Cairn o' Mohr fruit wine. So far I'd found it completely impossible to source the wine, despite many outings to local beer and wine stores. I'd heard that the Auld Hoose did both drinks, but I decided to actually do some research so that I didn't end up on water all night.

The pub confirmed that they did have the wine, but not the beer, so I got out £10 and headed for the pub.

What can I say about the wine? My decidedly novice wine tasting skills told me that it had a very rich fruity flavour with distinct hints of blackberries, and a slightly overstrong bitter edge to it. I quite liked it, although I must admit that I prefer normal red wine.

I've always found that fruit wine has the strange tendency to make you think you're drinking fruit juice, so you drink it too fast. As a result of this, halfway through the pub quiz I was already swaying slightly, and I came up with "Jakarta" and "Jamaica" as countries with the vowel 'a' and no other vowels in their name. I had a mild hangover this morning.

Ah, how I long for Carlsberg.

Day 5 evening

Today I tried something truly ambitious, and with moderate success

Pork & Leek Burger / Potato and Kale Croquette Hybrid
1. Boil some potatoes chopped up small for 25 minutes
2. 15 minutes in, steam some kale over the potatoes
3. Also 15 minutes in, fry 500g of pork mince with half a large leek
4. After the potatoes are done, drain out the water, and mash together with the kale
5. Add the mixture together, stir around for a bit
6. At this stage you should add some seasoning, preferably Tobasco sauce. When I say should, I mean that I'm not allowed, which made this dish taste far more like potatoes and far less like Tobasco sauce than was to my liking. Anyway, in the absence of Tobasco sauce, add salt and pepper, this won't improve the flavour of the potatoes much, but it's something.  I also added the last of the Venison paté as I was desperate for some flavour.
7. Remove the mixture from the pan.
8. Shape into patties with your hands
9. Fry until golden brown on the outside (about 4 minutes each side)
10. Consume

In this dish, I actually managed to make something slightly tastier than the raw ingredients that it was made of. It was quite nice, and not that bland. I must admit to being dubious about the whole spice restriction thing.

I'd kill for a can of Coca Cola right now.

Only two more days...