And then I thought, quite rightly, ‘you know what would go well with that? KUMARA FRIES!’ But as I am not in New Zealand, sweet potato fries would have to suffice. So I stopped at Tattie Shaws and grabbed some sweet potatoes and sweet chilli dipping sauce ( I can’t make everything myself), then went home and got on with the fry-makin’.

Raison D'Etre and sweet potato fries. I'm pretty sure this is what they're talking about when they say 'just like heaven'.

People, it was the best idea I’ve ever had on a Friday afternoon. And I think I’ll be doing it more often (mind you, with different beer, because I don’t think I’ll be lucky enough to have my Dogfish Head all the time, but no matter). And because Scott decided to go to the pub after work, I will shamelessly admit that I ended up polishing off the whole lot of these fries myself. Something he was none too pleased about. But faced with the other half of a bowl of piping hot, homemade sweet potato fries, I think you’d do the same. Don’t ever make more of these things than you should reasonably be eating, because you will not ‘have leftovers’.

If you do want to make some of your own sweet potato fries, don’t think it’s difficult. You basically slice up a sweet potato into fry-type shapes, toss in some olive oil (and I like to add a ton of black pepper), and bake ‘em in one layer on a cookie sheet at full whack in the oven for about 10 minutes on each side. Adjust to your particular taste for slightly burnt (read: carmelised) outsides, and dip in your preferred stuff before consuming. I use sweet chilli sauce and greek yoghurt (in place of sour cream), because that’s how we had our kumara fries in New Zealand, and it kind of gives you two different taste options.

Saturday, the food goodness continued with a trip to the farmers’ market for lunch. We got some buffalo burgers from Puddledub and scarfed them down standing up. The only way to do it.

When we were back home, I made some bread in the bread machine we acquired from Scott’s parents when they moved to Canada. It’s a great thing to have, but it’s so big that we have to store it in the closet, so I don’t use it as much as I’d like to. However, I had the other half of a bag of malthouse flour, and I had big plans for this bread.

Sunday morning, I woke up and made some EPIC french toast with my homemade bread. Big, fat slices of the stuff topped with proper Canadian maple syrup and the tastiest bacon around (again, from Puddledub). Fresh coffee for Scott (from Italy even!), a cup of tea for me, and orange juice (unfortunately, not fresh from one of those crazy fresh squeezed OJ machines with all the moving bits, but we can’t have everything, can we). I love french toast, half because it’s so good, and half because I’m hopeless at pancakes, but french toast I can DO. I think next time, I need to explore making it with some kind of crazy bread. Maybe with fruit in it. Who knows. But the homemade bread was definitely the right thing to do.

I don’t really have a recipe for french toast. I just watched my dad do it and absorbed. It’s a bunch of eggs, some milk, a little sugar, and, for me at least, more cinnamon than anyone should have the business putting in anything. Dip bread, fry in butter, keep warm in oven, douse with more maple syrup than your mother would say was good for you. And preferably serve with bacon. I’ve also made baked french toast before. With Grand Marnier in it. It’s not quite as good as the basic stuff, but I think I’ll have to try it again sometime soon anyway. Perhaps at a breakfast-for-dinner party.

For lunch, we were at the Foodies Festival in Holyrood Park because we had free tickets. It was sort of lame. And by sort of lame, I mean not nearly enough free samples going on, especially as people who actually had to pay dropped £10 on admission. We did get some good sausages and I replenished my supply of citrus pepper and some other awesome blends from the Organic Blending Company, but that’s about it. We left to go to the pub for a beer so we wouldn’t haemorrhage any more cash.

I used the garlic pepper I bought on some lamb neck fillets for dinner and made potato salad with cumin and lemon, based on a recent recipe on Everybody Likes Sandwiches. We had no greens, so I cut up some apples to go with it all. Simple, tasty end to the kind of food weekend I wish I had more often.

*Cornelius is so good, it got me to join twitter. (Me! Twitter! Unheard of!) Solely to receive beer updates via text. It was so worth it.

Rosemary Raisin Pecan Raincoast Crisps

Scott’s parents are moving to Canada in about two months, so his mom went over to get started at her new job for two weeks at the beginning of the year. She brought all sorts of presents back, including a tin of Raincoast Crisps. And holy mother of snackyfood, they are REALLY good.

I’m a big fan of healthy snacks. Mostly because I’m pretty much constantly eating so I can appreciate a snack food that’s guilt free on some level. Happily, there are no chemicals in the ingredient list. They don’t even LOOK bad for you. In fact, they look like someone made some homemade brown wholegrain-type bread with loads of seeds and nuts running through, sliced it superthin, and baked it til it was crispy. They don’t even look mass-produced!

My tin had the original crisps, which are just nutty and grainy, and the rosemary raisin pecan crisps, which are like the original ones plus rosemary, raisin, and pecan. The latter were so good that I’m already scheming a muffin recipe based on them. In fact, I’m thinking I might try the rosemary raisin combo in other places as well. With meat, perhaps lamb?

I’ll also be testing the recipe for artichoke tapinade that came inside the tin. Too bad I won’t have any of the crisps left to spread it on. (They were gone in about 3 days. Would have been gone faster if I didn’t keep reminding myself that I couldn’t get anymore.)

Sadly, it looks like there’s pretty much no way to get these crisps outside of Canada. That means two things: I know what I’m asking Scott’s parents for for Christmas, and I have another thing to add to the list of reasons to go to Canada.