The real Masterchef final

Stick with it.

Stuck for something to eat tonight?

Try this site out. Funny.

www.whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com

Heinz beans on toast pop up cafe

We went down to sample the beans on toast at the new Heinz pop up cafe near us. It was dressed up to look homely, with colouring in books to entertain everyone.

A nice touch is that all the women serving drinks and beans were real mums. There was even some of their childrens art work on the wall. It's got to be real, as mums never lie!

The Beans of toast cafe's exactly location is here. An article from the Mail is here.

It's worth popping down as it's only a 50p donation to go in and eat.

All the information you need is in the email invite at the top.

Bagel time!

Possibly one of the best things near us is the bagel shops down brick lane. The salt beef bagels in particular. It's hard to find something as good as this for lunch.

The breads fresh and they pile on the beef! If you're ever in the area we recommending stopping off to try one.

It puts you in a good mood for the afternoon.

Make a cake in a mug!

"With Cake in a Mug, you can have a hot, delicious, fresh-baked chocolate cake in minutes!"

Fancy something different with your afternoon tea or coffee. Then give this a go. 

What your need...

A microwave oven

A large microwavable mug

A tablespoon for measuring

4 Tablespoons flour

9 Tablespoons hot chocolate mix

1 Egg

3 Tablespoons water

3 Tablespoons oil

Cooking Spray

Instructions

1. Spray a little cooking spray into the mug.

2. Measure out the flour and hot chocolate mix into the mug. Stir.

3. Crack the egg into the mug. Stir a bit after adding the egg so the cup doesn't overflow.

4. Add water and oil.

5. Stir until thoroughly moistened. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the mug with your spoon to avoid any leftover pockets of dry ingredients.

Bake!

The handle of the mug may be hot, so use a potholder to remove it from the microwave.

Tip your cake cylinder out of the mug into a dish. Your cake may look a little damp and wrinkled. This is normal.

Use a fork to break it up into quarters. This will allow steam in the center to escape. Arrange so that the more attractive interior of the cake is showing.

CAKE IN A MUG. DONE. 

All via the wired blog here. 

Bake off

We had a bake off at work on friday and these are some of the entries. Yes, somebody made a cake in the shape of a shaved cat. Our efforts were commended however our cake baking skills are pretty poor. 

Feed your creativity with a Pikey Pie.

This month has been a manic one. What has happened is that all our cash has disappeared, we're still not sure how (denial there), but alas...it's all gone. 

Now to the point. With no cash in the bank and obviously a need to at least feed ourselves we have been again rocking the toast/grilling machine to add some much needed zing to an otherwise boring meal. Our post about our love for this kitchen appliance can be found here.

However, it seems these boring meals have spread into the evening with not even a chili or lasagna  that could feed us for a week in sight! Making a really cheap meal can be difficult, (Pot Noodles don't count!) finding time is a massive factor and when your poor, pasta for 100th time can get tedious. 

So i offer up the Pikey Pie for you all to try. It's basic, cheap and quick, but can still inspire even the most hungry of creatives. Here's how to make it.

Ingredients - Pack of fish fingers (bird's eye preferred), two tins of baked beans (heinz), potatoes, butter, milk, cheese, salt and pepper 

Once you've got them...

1. Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees and boil some water in a large pan.

2. Peel and cut the potatoes and put them on the boil. 

3. Get a dish and create a layer of fish fingers (still frozen) on the bottom.

4. Then put your baked beans on top.

5. When the potatoes are soft, mash em up with some butter, milk, salt and pepper.

6. Put the mash on the beans.

7. To finish, grate some cheese on top.

Put it in the oven for 25-30 minutes and you have turned something simple into something great. Hopefully, if you do try it you'll feel properly fed and ready to deal with another day in advertising.

Trust us, you'll taste the difference. 

Tag Teams

Since the introduction of our new grilling machine there have been a lot of people teaming up for some more adventurous sandwich making. As i mentioned before in an earlier post a toastie machine is a more creative way of eating lunch as well as my weird metaphor for the design department.

At the moment we have designers eating with accounts, creatives with development and other creative teams working together to create a better toasted sandwich. Steak was being grilled the other week!

Could one machine create a more cohesive working agency over lunch! Who knows.

ps. Any interesting toasted sandwiches filling anyone has it, let us know?

The Honorable Toastie

While Digital Roy is off gallivanting i thought i would take some time to talk about the toastie.

We've both been really skint this month and had to find cheap "creative" ways to feed ourselves that doesn't mean we have to raid bins!

Making sandwiches on the cheap gets boring very quickly. We're in our second week of cheap lunches and have decided we needed a fresh angle.

This is where the toastie machine comes into play!

Why is it if you put a mundane sandwich in a toastie machine it comes out tasting 10 times better and seems more glamorous? We're not getting comments like "counting the pennies i see" instead we're being praised "a toastie, what a good idea!"

I'm beginning to see this toastie experiment as an analogy for ideas for ads.

You have an idea, its ok, not the most original thought. What could make it original and might get people talking is probably the treatment, its final look and feel.

The design department is the toastie machine. I think its important to get these guys feedback on an ad as they know whats possible and could brown it to perfection.

So my conclusion is...

If you have an ok idea put it in the toastie machine for five minutes and create a great ad!