Fruity Devils…. and a Life Check

  Ever have those moments where you take a good long hard look at yourself and wonder how on earth you ended up in a certain place? Where your life took that turn?

I had one of those tonight.  And it wasn’t pretty. Unlike these Fruity Devils which we will get to in due course. 

 So, let’s imagine my life as a movie.  Not a very glamorous movie.  But a movie nonetheless. We’ll start with a close up…

Eight o’clock Friday night and I am sitting alone. At home.  Wearing a sweatshirt that had seen better days about five years ago and yoga pants.  Well, that’s what the shop I bought them in called them.  They may have never seen the inside of a yoga studio or known a down dog but technically they are yoga pants.

None of that is is the problem.  He has a new job where he is working nights and I am perfectly comfortable both in my own company and with my attire. 

So, lets draw the camera back and see where the problem may lie.  Sitting on my lap is a plate of chopped up bananas smothered in peanut butter, wrapped in bacon and grilled.  I had a grand idea to do a take on a Devils on Horseback and call it Elvis on Horseback.  It didn’t really work…Anyway, bacon and peanut butter is admittedly  not the healthiest combination on earth but it wasn’t that that had me cringing either.  I count eating weird stuff as R&D.  I’m eating it so you don’t have to!  And you, know sometimes in this blogging lark you have to take the (super) crunchy with the smooth. 

And boom! 

That peanut butter gag was like the Spanish Inquisition.  (Because no one expects the Spanish Inquisition). 

I’ll stop now. 

Maybe the problem will be apparent if we draw the camera back even further…

  Yes, that is a very hefty glass of wine in front of me…could that be what has me in a such a state of consternation?  Drinking alone? Am I worried about some incipient alcoholism /the state of my liver / my ability to get up and go the gym tomorrow morning?

No, no and resoundingly no.  It’s Friday, it’s been a long, hard week and if a girl wants a drink in the privacy of her own home, she should be able to have one.  Or two.  Don’t judge me.

 So what it is?  Why am I pausing for a moment of reflection? Not that I am alone at home on a Friday night, wearing let’s just call them “comfortable” clothes; not that I am eating a banana smothered in peanut butter then wrapped in bacon; not that I am drinking alone but that I am doing all of the above whilst watching a movie where Robert Pattinson is playing Salvador Dali. 

What???????

Why?

WHHYYYYYYY???????

I really need to re-evaluate some of my life choices.  I may need professional help.  Or at the very least some movie recommendations….

Who on God’s green earth thought that was a good idea?  (Me apparently seeing as it was on my Netflix queue).  But then again, I’m alone at home on a Friday night eating bacon, bananas and peanut butter!  My judgement is at best questionable. 

But apart from me, who else thought it was a good idea?  It’s TERRIBLE. Well, to be honest, the film itself is probably not so bad.  R Patz, however is more wooden than the stake that should have been driven through his cold dead heart in any one of the billion Twilight films. 

Oh, God, why am I still watching it?

Make it stop…someone please make it stop!!!!!

And does anyone else think Vamp boy looks a lot like the Blackadder?

I have no idea what possessed me to pick that film.  What is far easier to track is how I ended up thinking bananas and bacon were a good idea. The seed of THAT insanity lies within the book club. One of the ladies brought along one of her mother’s (?) Women’s Weekly cookbooks from the early sixties.  It was AWESOME.  And whilst I really wanted to just grab it and run….I contented myself with flicking through the pages.

Which is when I saw the recipe for Jaffa Devils.  Orange slices wrapped in bacon and grilled.  Two ingredients, easy to remember.  So I made them.  They were ok.  They weren’t the best thing I’ve ever eaten but they sure weren’t the worst!  And it works in theory – bacon and orange mix well at breakfast…so why not in an appetizer? (Mind you, it’s that kind of thinking that leads to coffee flavoured scrambled eggs…and Little Ashes, which incidentally, STILL watching).

 The problem was, the Jaffa Devils became like a gateway drug.  For a while there I was utterly obsessed with wrapping fruit in bacon.  I kind of like it when food is both good and bad for you, bacon and fruit, peanut butter and celery, cranberry juice and booze..it’s the way o’ the world, yin and yang, toxifying and detoxifying in equal measure.  

I wrapped peaches, pineapple, a tangelo…I couldn’t leave the citrus alone.  And the banana.  The banana was not good.  The tangelo, like the orange, was a bit meh…..

The peach and the pineapple?  OMG. Super.  The Bacon and Peach Combo worked best with a sauce made from Pomegranate Molasses.  By which I mean some Pomegranate Molasses poured into a bowl.  But you could use some reduced Balsamic if you did not have the Pomegranate Molasses.  The Bacon and Pineapple Devil worked with both a sweet chilli and a BBQ sauce. 

 Pretty damn good, even if I do say so myself! And super easy and super quick to make as well. 

In all honesty, give the banana and orange ones a miss.  But do try the peach and pineapple.  They are gold!  And for some Dali gold, skip Little Ashes and watch this clip of the real Salvador Dali utterly bamboozling the folks on What’s My Line. 

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  Have a great week!