How I roll

  I finished yesterday's post telling you we'd arrived and the stricken bike had been fixed. On the way back from the mechanics, we stopped at the supermarket stock up on supplies. Four mouths, one big meal and breakfast to cater for as well as the obligatory essentials and snacks. Oh yes, and cocktails.

  Though the meal I had in mind was simple, that was only true on paper. Chicken, roast potatoes and salad was the idea. Tasty, rustic and kind of classic but with a close eye on quality. Everything cooked fresh. I got to work with oodles of enthusiasm and plenty to do.

  One of the group has a problem with tomatoes. There's something about the texture of the skin and snot, (his description of the seeds) that upsets his delicate palate. As I'm that kind of guy, I skinned and seeded the two punnets of tomatoes but I kept the snot because to throw it would have been a waste. instead, I melted some red onion, threw in the snot, (You can stop saying that now. -Ed.), a bit of garlic, a dash of thyme and let it bubble for ages before blitzing it into a tomato sauce that was so good the diners all said I could have served it to them with a hunk of bread as a soup supper.

  The chicken had its spine removed and got flattened in the gizmo you can see so it could get BBQ'd. The worried diners saw it was very far from the smouldering coals but I assured them that we wanted it cooked slowly. This gave me time to assemble the salad, roast the spuds, make a proper gravy and shake some beverages. Pen at the ready cos here it comes. Jack and Drambuie were replaced by Rum and Cointreau. They got shaken, (2 rum to 1 Cointreau) with equal OJ and cranberry. General consensus, yummy. It's called, Lie down, I think I love you.

   While I cooked I also cleaned. Below is a picture of the kitchen taken as I served up. I wanted to show it to you to demonstrate that if you stay on top of things you can save a lot of the agony of a huge mound of cleaning that awaits at the end of the meal. For me this is second nature and I thoroughly recommend you make the effort to do the same.​​​​​​​

  The only detail missing from dinner is dessert, and I always need something sweet. The pizza place from yesterday served a home made tiramisu but it was very mediocre. However, it had been on my mind ever since I had been left horribly unsatisfied at the end of the meal so I made one of those. Stunning.

  As you can tell, the trip is as much about cooking as it is about the riding. Tomorrow I'll tell you more about that as well and the sights and sounds of the place. Come back soon to find out more. Now it's late and I'm off to bed.

Kirk out

Chefsebastian.com