Live Below The Line: Nick – Late week update ( better late than never )

With the best of intentions to do daily updates, I have had some renovations get in the way and take me away from my PC to be able to type something up. This will therefore for a longer post, but it will essentially cover most of the week, as unfortunately I have eaten the same food in differing variations every day, for every meal….

Live Below the Line – Shauns update

The week had kicked off in fine fashion already with both the soup and the initial pasta playing their parts to perfection. Could it continue to be this easy and tasty? Time would tell (as will this post).

Live Below the Line – Shaun – Day 1

Live below the line was something which we participated in last year, and it proved to be a very interesting and rewarding challenge. While we did raise money towards the cause, it was particularly enlightening just to see how little we could get by with, what you can use as a ‘work around’ and how expensive our ‘small luxuries’ of life really are!

Live Below the Line: Nick – Day 0, Prep day

I saw Shaun doing this at work last year which seemed like a great cause and over all a good cooking challenge. So when it came time for it again this year we decided to give it a crack. To use a Jeremy Clarkson line… “How hard Can it Be?”

My first thought was buy cheap “bulky” foods, ie home brand pasta / bread ect. Then the more I thought about it there were a few ingredients I needed, like something to cook with. Which left me at oil or butter, home brand butter at $1.50 (aka 15% of the weeks budget) is a large expense only to be really used for cooking. So back to the drawing board.

Instead I decided I needed to work out a menu that wouldn’t be cheapest ingredients but purchase the ingredients that would have the highest potential uses.

After a morning of wandering around the Adelaide Central Market, pricing certain ingredients, and having a number of possible menus running through my head I finalised the ingredients as follows:

Plain & Self-raising flour (500gm ea ) 95c per Kg

Lamb patties – 10 for $1.50 (what I would class my best find)

“Burger Mince” – $3.00 per kg

Sweet Potato – 99c per Kg

Carrots – 99c per kg

Onions – 99c per kg

Tomato’s – $3.99 per Kg

Tomato sauce – $1

Baked beans – 69c

Butter – $1.50

Bringing my weekly total to $9.41

I have already run into my first issue when baking / preparing (not to mention after taking the above photo with no way of telling which flour was which, oops). The flour I bought was measured out to exactly how much i needed for the recipes in mind, i hadn’t added any extra for preparing the food, coating the bench top etc. As such I had to sacrifice some for this task.

Issue 2… I don’t own a rolling pin, so i had to make so with a Vodka Bottle as an Emergency Rolling Pin. Alcohol may not always be the solution but it does come in handy!!

Although i did manage to budget in a bottle of wine, just to prove all the haters at work that it could be done, I thought it would be best to focus on food and have potentially over catered. Seeing what I have already prepared, I guess we will find out as the week goes on.

Stay Tuned for tight arse eatery as we push on with Live Below The Line

The Stag – Triple Bacon Burger

The Stag is a venue which should be no stranger to most citizens of Adelaide. It is an iconic pub in the east end of the CBD who take their beverages, food and especially meat, very seriously. Burger Me have been here before with pleasing results. So when we caught wind of their new burger, we obviously felt this was a very good reason for a return visit. We quickly locked in a suitable date, placed our pre-order and wondered down to check out their new creation.

Coopers Alehouse – Double Angus Burger

Back to the coopers ale house to try their main fare – their double Angus beef burger. After the disappointment from their lunch special vege burger, they definitely needed an improvement this time around. Will they make amends or will it be a double failure for the Coopers Alehouse?

Double Angus Burger

Burger Addiction – Blue Sun

Finding a new burger place is, to us, a bit like that moment of making eye contact across the room with that guy/girl that just makes your heart skip a beat. You know, that butterflies in stomach, don’t-want-to-but-have-to-go-and-chat-to-them moment. Well, I don’t remember that, but I am lead to believe that it happens so I will run with it for now.

First impressions are ok and numbers are exchanged. You wait the pre-requisite amount of time before contacting them and arranging that first date. Even if it’s just a catch up for coffee, it’s still a date. Excited, nervous, wanting things to go well but wary of expecting too much.

This was us as we placed our orders at Burger Addiction, a new outlet in the food court of the very recently opened Rundle Place.

BOTW – Brew Boys – Charger Lager

Just looking at the bottle I just had to try this one. As a bit of a car nut and a lover of classic Aussie muscle cars, it just had to be done.

The charger also takes me back to high school, when a certain English teacher of ours had a replica E49. We would then continually write stories, during our creative writing tasks, including a Charger in various heroic roles. One particularly memorable story had the Charger pitted against a Phase III GTHO – racing through the streets of our area, crossing the designated finish line, airborn if memory serves, to claim a slim victory.

Needless to say we got top marks.

As for the beer, well it was pretty decent. Brew Boys have some interesting options out there and this was more than acceptable. The usual boutique ‘fruity’ aromas, some malty flavours ending with a good, acidic bitterness made this pretty decent. Not especially heavy in the mouthfeel, the only real ‘downside’ might be that it was perhaps a little too fizzy. This could easily be solved by pouring it into a glass, and then this would give you a better opportunity to just look at the bottle, and reminisce….

B+
$5 – Stirling Cellars

Bridgewater Inn – Deneary Burger

An impromptu dinner out lead us to the wine watering hole at Bridewater. Having not quite ordered a burger from here in the past – it was a simple decision to be made on this evening. It is a pub of wonderful character and a favourite of mine in the Adelaide region, but how are their burger making skills? Read on to find out…

BOTW – Lord Nelson – “Three Sheets” Pale Ale

This beer is from the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel, Sydneys oldest licensed hotel and also the oldest pub brewery. In my very short search, I didn’t actually learn anything much about the man who so kindly donated his moniker to the Hotel, other than he died in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

At the Lord they brew six mainstay ales and a number of seasonal options throughout the year. They also bottle two of these – the subject of this review, and the Old Admiral dark ale.

The Lord indicate that they have won awards the world over for their all natural ales, but one thing I guarantee they are not aware they have won is the auspicious ‘best beer according to Burger Me at the 2012 Craft Beer and Cider Festival’ held at the Arkaba.

All very interesting I know. But can we please move on to some tasting notes?

Well, this is an ‘Australian Pale’ style beer, which means it’s a mid golden colour, with a bit of yeasty cloudiness. The aroma from the hops is somewhat citrus, with some stone fruit in there. The mouthfeel of this beer is superb though – velvety smooth, with the malt and hops working together like Jack and Jill heading off with a bucket in hand. Only without the breaking of bones and the like. Perhaps not the best metaphor ever employed, but I will run with it for now.

Put simply, this is a great beer. Do yourself a favour and track one down. And even better, if you get the chance in Sydney, track down the hotel and try it direct from the brewer. I can only imagine ho good it would be there.

A+