The Ultimate Toast Adventure

Our 116th slice of toast - PB, dipped in chocolate milk

2012-08-08T14:46:00.000-07:00

WHERE HAS SKIPPY GONE!? Calm your shetland ponies, we acquired some free Sunpat wholegrain crunchy PB, which is delicious, so went for a change. Skippy lives on. This new PB was a bit shy and hid behind the bowl. So very unlike our Skippy.

We chose Yazoo for our chocolate milk. Chocolate, PB and toast is a wonderful combination, as shown in slice 62 (Reese's pieces) but this didn't quite compare. The chocolate taste was there, but not significantly enough and in hindsight, we should probably have gone for a thicker grade of chocolate milk such as Frijj. Still, quite nice. Different for sure. But I preferred our 62nd slice.

Our 115th slice of toast - Lime butter

2012-08-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

I used to like drawing the cross sectional view of lime's at school. I have more recently lost my interest in fruit art and prefer to suck on my lime segments with tequila shots. How far i've come.

This meant mixing some butter in a bowl with the zest and juice of half a lime, followed by splattering the mixture it across the toast. We used a knife to zest - which was quite dire. The slice basically tasted like basic buttered bread, but with a tang. Which we liked yo. And yes, more green.

Disclaimer: The unused half of the lime was pictured, for presentation purposes.

Our 114th slice of toast - Avocado

2012-08-08T14:31:00.001-07:00

I've never seen someone attempt to eat an avocado like a pear, unaware of the large solid stone that lurks inside. I would love to see it though. It would be hilarious. Avocado's are full of monounsaturated fats which is great for your skin and hormone production, amongst many of the general benefits you see labelled about the world. But most importantly and visibly - it's good for your skin.

We cut ours down the middle, all the way around the stone and twisted the two halves apart. The last avocado we had was far from ripe and caused discomfort. This avocado on the other hand was perfect. It cut well and was easy to bite in to too, almost eliminating any risk of either of the UFS or CSD actions. Eat this. And again, some wonderful green

Our 113th slice of toast - Cream cheese & kiwi

2012-08-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

A kiwi is technically called a kiwifruit. This is generally abbreviated to share its name with that of a small flightless bird native only to New Zealand, called the kiwi. We didn't put the bird on toast. This isn't to say we wouldn't, should the opportunity be laid down upon our blue towel plates, but we weren't presented with this opportunity so went for the kiwifruit instead.

Kiwifruit has a sharp taste to it. I once overheard a strange conversation between two campanologists, discussing those who do and those who don't eat kiwifruits with their skins still on. To eat a kiwifruit alone, both Grace and I prefer to cut it in half and scoop that sharp juicy centre out with a spoon. We used this same method to apply it on our slice of toast. The cream cheese mellows the sharp taste quite well, but as a combination I didn't find they were best suited. Not all bad though. I like the colour green, for example.

Our 112th slice of toast - Boiled egg & pickled herring

2012-07-31T13:53:00.001-07:00

Technically, this wasn't your simple pickled herring. I shopped in Sainsbury's for this and they had either rollmops or marinated herring. For information a rollmop is pickled herring, wrapped around pickled onion, in pickle/vinegar. The marinade though is a sweet dill marinade, consisting of a basic pickle with the addition of some spices and dill, of course. So it's better than just pickled herring right? Wrong. At least not on toast avec un oeuf.

The herring packed a mighty kick making your eyes water. Boiled egg on toast is good, but not known for its strong flavours and the herring just destroyed everything in this slice. Grace couldn't even finish. Not that that's a first!

Our 111th slice of toast - Tuna, cucumber & olives

2012-07-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

A 3 ingredient topping here and not you're obvious combination at all. I'm a big fan of tuna and olives separately and not a big fan of cucumber. Grace likens cucumber to a sneeze, whilst I just don't tend to put the effort in to describe it. So I suppose this is a kind of intercontinental tuna salad. Interesting.

We went for Princes tuna. Its a good'n. We chose Aldi mixed black and green olives and you're standard supermarket cucumber 'portion', merely meaning that you don't get the whole thing. So for the individual. I can't imagine any single person would have an entire cucumber to themselves?

As a combo, it was strange. Tinned tuna of course has nothing on a fresh tuna steak as it is less meaty in taste and the texture is fairly dry. The olives were as strong as ever which overpowered the bland cucumber and its not like toast packs a punch to match the olive either. So it didn't really work very well. Oh well.

Our 110th slice of toast - PB & nutella

2012-07-31T13:32:00.001-07:00

How had we not had this before? Chocolate and nut is a fantastic combination. Nutella already reps the combo and we've taken the ratio way over on the nut side of the scales. And does it work? Of course it does!

I never won my Nutella tree.

Our 109th slice of toast - Caramelised bacon

2012-07-31T13:20:00.001-07:00

As far meat is concerned, bacon is probably among the least healthy. But that's not unhealthy enough for many American's. So, they cover it in sugar and bake the life out of it. And I copied this tradition. Unfortunately I had to bake it at home due to a lack of work ovens (none) and microwave it at work in one of our many work microwaves (two).

This caused the caramelisation factor to reduce, but the sweet salty taste remained. This was unsurprisingly delicious as we liked this very much.

Our 108th slice of toast - Condensed milk

2012-07-31T13:14:00.001-07:00

When I purchased this tin or Nestle carnation condensed milk, I also purchased some damn good quality Nescafe coffee. Now never before have I considered the similarity in Nestle and Nescafe's names. Nor had I before considered the similarity between their logo's. But nevertheless, the tins began mating in my shopping bag and upon surfacing, they couldn't have been a better fit. This is when it all came flooding in: the name; the logo. Then, there, on the back of the Nescafe tin, was Nestle.

I'll finish with a poem:

Condensed milk is very sweet.
Like unbelievably sweet.
But in the most delicious way.
It doesn't taste like milk in any way.
Not today or any day.
We recommend you try this out.
Experience what it's about.
It spreads so great and tastes great too
We recommend this to you.

Our 107th slice of toast - Tinned spaghetti

2012-07-31T12:54:00.001-07:00

It's Heinz for baked beans and it's Heinz for tinned spaghetti. You can pronounce beans like a bit of a retard if you're desperate for a rhyme, but spaghetti has no chance, so I wouldn't recommend trying it. Heinz are great at their tinned, tomato based toast foods. They are of course, designed for toast. They go too well not to be.

This slice was as expected - we loved it as much as we always have, throughout our toast loving lives.

Our 106th slice of toast - Fried egg & tomato ketchup

2012-07-24T10:56:00.004-07:00

Again, a classic barn breakfast item - fried eggs. They are without doubt my favourite form of cooked egg, that is, when only eggs are used. For example scrambled eggs can be made so much better by use of other ingredients within it, such as: chives; parmesan; cream fraiche; onions etc. That's cheating.

Neither of us really eat tomato ketchup much. I loves me a pickle or a relish, or even a strong mustard, but I find that ketchup just makes everything taste like... well... like ketchup.

So, we weren't particularly liberal with our ketchup appliance and the slice was actually pretty good. So if you love ketchup, chances are you LOVE this one. Again, sorry for my crap camera. And crap isn't swearing.

Our 105th slice of toast - Beans and cheese

2012-07-24T10:51:00.000-07:00

We went down to our canteen for slices 105 and 106 as they provide the toppings we needed. Our canteen is situated in an old grade 2 listed barn, which is nice. Unfortunately Grace left her phone all the way back at her desk, leaving the photo's to my Blackberry Pearl 9105 3G. The camera isn't very good. Also, half the lens was covered in dirty fingerprints, making the camera even worse still. I remember when it was incredible to have a VGA camera on your mobile phone and now, here I am complaining about 3.2 mega pixels. The flash though is excellent - it hurts peoples eyes.

Back to culinary chit chat, the beans and cheese were excellent. But we knew this before we even started heading down to the barn. We've all had beans and cheese before and more often than not, we love it. I do have a friend who doesn't like beans though. But he does like cheese...

Our 104th slice of toast - Cheese & a pineapple ring

2012-07-24T10:42:00.001-07:00

This was the last of our Pilgrims Choice Wonderfully Strong and Punchy Extra Mature Cheddar cheese. We loved it very much and highly recommend it to all those strong cheddar fans. You deserve the best. Cheese and pineapple always reminds me of those party cocktail sticks you get, with a little cube of cheese and a segment of pineapple.

Well we went one better here, putting it on toast (which is far more edible than a stick) and completing it with 1 entire pineapple ring, usually saved for gammon steaks. This slice was fab. Plenty of juice from the pineapple, strength from the cheese and the savoury dough based produce we all crave in bread.

One word of wisdom: tinned pineapple rings are called pineapple slices. Thank me later.

Our 103rd slice of toast - Melted cheese and crispy bacon

2012-07-24T10:37:00.001-07:00

Cheese on toast has to be a favourite nation favourite, especially with Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce over the top. But what about with cold crispy bacon? You know, the ready cooked stuff you can buy for extortionate amounts from the supermarket? We gave it a go.

As far as bacon is concerned, I prefer it still squealing. I don't like how you seem to lose half the rasher the more you cook it so as soon as it starts to shrink, its whipped off the heat and in to a sandwich. I do like crispy bacon though and this was delicious. The cheese was cheddar, thus extra mature. What else? There was something incredibly gnawish about the bacon too. Worth the extra money for precooked bacon? Yes, assuming one has no oven.

Our 102nd slice of toast - Oatmeal & jam

2012-07-18T15:15:00.001-07:00

...so we had it with jam! As mentioned in slice 101, porridge on toast is bland but not horrible. But with jam, now this a completely different story. We all begged for jam in our porridge as we were forced to eat our oats as children. It improved the food tenfold and this doesn't change now and neither does it change on toast.

We went for a Bonne Maman strawberry jam. This is an excellent jam, let me tell thee. We spread this on the toast first, quite heartily, followed by spooning more of the oatmeal on top, splodging it around with the spoon until pleased with our distribution. Oh my oh my oh my. This was absolutely excellent for the both of us. Low carbers should either avoid this completely, or stop being silly and get on it! I recommend the latter.

Our 101st slice of toast - Oatmeal

2012-07-18T15:07:00.002-07:00

101st doesn't sound right - but i'm quite sure it is. Oatmeal is a healthy and hearty form of carbohydrates, great for a sustainable breakfast to get you up in the morning and last you until lunch. I was already awake as i'd had eggs and a coffee for breakfast. So, my oat fix was coming in at brunch. We went for Quaker good morning instant oat sachet's, which Grace had donated to me months ago after years of drawer storage. I didn't use them either and it would seem that these things just don't go off!

So, in case you are currently in the dark to the instant Quaker good morning oat sachet's, you poor the oats in to a bowl and fill the empty sachet back up with milk, to the line near the top. You then poor the milk in with the oats and zap it for 2 minutes in a microwave, during which time the oats have a wild party with the milk and they become porridge! Its science. On toast, this was bland but not awful. It honestly wasn't bad. It just wasn't that NICE. Perhaps it could have done with some jam...

Our 100th slice of toast - Banana split

2012-07-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

Yeah, you remember the days of banana splits. Perhaps your days of banana splits aren't yet over? It's a good part of life. I don't have them much really as i've become a man of savoury dishes. I like to feed myself with foods that actually have a positive effect on the way I feel and function, though the toast adventure has certainly taken me away from that from time to time! But it's been worth it of course.

We didn't split our banana, instead we mashed it up on top of the hot toast. We don't hang around PTP. We then squirted on the cream, drizzled over the chocolate syrup and finished it off graciously by sprinkling over the desiccated coconut. Now that's a lot of verbs.

"Desiccated? That poor coconut", exclaimed our Grace. This slice was incredible and Grace and I enjoyed it immensely, making it a fantastic 100th slice. Now on with the next century and more!

Our 99th slice of toast - Pepsi & whipped cream

2012-07-18T14:44:00.001-07:00

Do people actually eat this kind of stuff? Grace and I aren't fans of pepsi or coca-cola. To be honest, I don't drink any non-alcohol carbonated beverages at all. If it's not water, tea or coffee - it's alcoholic. Sometimes I make my coffee alcoholic, just to push the boundaries. I'm crazy like that.

We buttered the toast (obviously) and I decided to cut mine in to dipping strips, allowing for easier dunking abilities. Planning as though I was intending on enjoying this one? I wasn't expecting anything of the sort. I arranged my dunkables in a michelin restaurant style, though the picture just does it no justice! It looked pretty 5 star from my angle. However the toast was arranged, nothing could have made this taste good. The pepsi taste, the fizz, everything that had anything Pepsi involved was detestable. And detested by us. And rightly so!

Our 98th slice of toast - Cheddar cheese & relish

2012-07-17T14:19:00.001-07:00

Hello ploughman's. A ploughman's has to be one of my most favourite British meals, especially when enjoyed in a pub garden or at a picnic in the summer. We decided on a Pilgrim's Choice extra mature cheddar. I have always found Pilgrim's Choice cheese to be very tasty. There really is no place for mild cheddar cheese. Extra mature is the superior choice and I won't hear otherwise. Literally, I just won't listen.

The relish was Branston hot chilli and jalapeno. This sounded delicious but being a Branston product, who target the very widespread and fussy general public, we were quite sure this wouldn't be at all spicy. We were correct, but with the jalapeno content at just 0.4% and in puree form, you can't expect much! It was also ~10% cauliflower...

On toast, the ploughman's with a twist did not let down. It was delicious and didn't taste of cauliflower one bit.

Our 97th slice of toast - PB & brown sugar

2012-07-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

I put too much PB on this slice. Now I know i've mentioned on more than 1 occasion that we are BIG fans of the PB, but when it stands taller than the thickness of our thick cut slices of bread, things may have gone a bit too far. And too far they did indeed goeth.

P.S. I'd just like to mention to all those branded loaf anarchists that pride themselves on regularly eating home cut doorstep bread - my comment on thick slices referred to that of pre-sliced loaves. I do also agree that they are not that thick. I also love doorstep bread.

And the blog continues... I've always found brown sugar quite odd on toast, despite working on those little cake slice things you get with brown sugar on top and that i'm too lazy to try researching the name of, it doesn't really work on toast. Its like sea salt, when its in large grains and you get a big crunch whilst attempting to enjoy a savoury dish of delicate flavours - it's upsetting. This slice made me upset. Though it wasn't so much the size of the brown sugar grains, but more the PB overdose. I thought we were friends. Alas.

Our 96th slice of toast - Cream cheese and chocolate syrup

2012-07-17T13:59:00.001-07:00

Don't be afraid of this slice. It may seem that Grace is cowering away, but she is in fact just trying to get out of the picture. Unsuccessfully I might add. No this slice is as friendly as they come in which Philadelphia makes yet another appearance. We would probably purchase a supermarket-own brand if we weren't so disorganised, but we are disorganised so make do with forking out the extra dough at our local Co-Operative. I say 'local co-operative' quite often, so i'm going to start using the acronym. LCO. Much better. Striving to keeping the characters to a minimum, so that I can up the waffle but without the extra typing!

The chocolate Syrup is made by Lyle and sons. For some reason, Lyle and sons decided not to include Tate in their syrup business as they did in their refined sugar venture. Greedy family. Good syrup though. Despite the chocolate syrup causing the cream cheese to develop an abundance of cracks beneath it (I don't know why), this tasted great. I just ignored the cracks.

Our 95th slice of toast - Instant hot chocolate powder

2012-07-17T13:45:00.003-07:00

We have already been fortunate enough to show off our ace dipping skills in a mug of hot chocolate, but this time there was no dipping involved. We had some instant 'Options Belgian Chocolate' sachets remaining from the aforementioned dipping day, thus we used these. Obviously. There would really be no point in buying more as these risk going to waste. We drink tea you see. Yorkshire tea.

Although it does look a little odd, the slices were actually delicious. They just tasted of hot chocolate, a taste that I found worked very well with the warm buttery toast. The chocolate also partially melted over the warmth of the slice, a delight I feel we wouldn't have been fortunate enough to experience had we lingered around PTP (post-toast-pop). You see those folk, hanging around nonchalantly PTP, not a care in the world, wondering why their slices just don't taste as good.

I made an excellent stencil with this one. Oh the small things.

Our 94th slice of toast - Cream cheese, olives & capers

2012-07-15T13:08:00.002-07:00

Neither Grace nor I have had capers before. At least not knowingly anyway. They are imported from Morocco and jared in brine, much like many olives. We again went for the olive and feta pots from our local Co-Operative. The olives taste consistently good from these and we just ate the feta separately. I've no idea how that bright red section of what I guess to be pepper made it there though (see picture). It certainly failed at being inconspicuous, being red and all. We ate it. It won't do that again.

We didn't want to go crazy with the capers and also decided not to taste them alone first, either through fear or a rather dampened sense of adventure that day for whatever reason. Whatever the reason, we didn't. Were weren't particularly able to taste them at all with this slice. I felt there was a flavour above the cheese and olives, something similar to the olive but slightly stronger and tangier, but I couldn't have pinpointed a caper. I'll try more next time. If there is a next time...

Our 93rd slice of toast - Brie and maple syrup

2012-07-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

Brie can be purchased, as far as i've seen, from strengths 1 - 3. It is a mild cheese after all. I would often opt for Coeur de Lion brie, which offers a rather tempting 3 rating. I do like a strong flavour - it's English mustard over French for me every time. But we didn't have mustard here. Our brie was Sainsbury's basics, showing signs of our toast adventure eating quite steadily in to our financial resources and being from the basics range, we were inevitably provided with a strength of 1.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. Far from it in fact as I have gained much satisfaction from this cheese in the past at a price marked below the 100 pennies mark. And with maple syrup lying on top, the cheese becomes so much more than just cheese on toast. The sweetness of the syrup reminds one of times consuming cheese and chutney, perhaps at a picnic beneath the extended leafy branches of a tree at the park. I wouldn't rate the syrup up there with a good English chutney. Heck no. Certainly not. But the sweetness matches the cheese in a similar effect, making this a great slice.

Our 92nd slice of toast - PB & tahini

2012-07-12T13:34:00.002-07:00

SO MANY PB SLICES! We're not complaining though. We're PB whores. We paired it with tahini today. This is basically sesame paste, made purely from sesame seeds. It is also 1 of the main ingredients in hummus, which we also love. So naturally, we were intrigued by this one.

We were supposed to apply the PB and tahini at a 80:20 ratio but I got a bit carried away with the tahini. And I got a shock. I can't quite describe the feeling I was exposed to but I can say that I didn't enjoy it. It seemed to dry my mouth out completely. I soon wiped the majority of tahini off the top of my toast and once reduced the slice tasted ok! Grace couldn't really taste hers, so it seems there is a thin line between not tasting it and experiencing an unexplainable trip to hell. If you try this, I bid thee the best of luck with your ratios.