Burts Crisps - Firecracker Crisp Sandwich - yummy

Burts Crisps are really good - they are made in Devon and I like them a little bit too much.  They always seem to feature somewhere in my lunch.  I really like the sea salt and vinegar ones, and if I am in a meaty mood, I like the Spicy Chorizo and Devon Roast Beef flavours.  The Sea Salt ones are good too, but I prefer the flavours.

Burts want to encourage us this summer to have crisp sandwiches - I do not need any encouragement as I enjoy then anyway.  This is my favourite one using the Firecracker Lobster flavour:

You need the following, this is their 'recipe' but of course I tweaked it a little:

2 bags of Burts Lobster Firecracker crisps

150g cooked prawns

50g chopped sundried tomatoes

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 tablespoon tomato ketchup

small squeeze lemon juice

2 handfuls of rocket leaves

10g butter

4 slices soft white bread

I do not like mayo, so I omitted the mayo and ketchup.  I'm guessing that if they were used - they could be utilised as 'butter' on both sides of the bread.

I also had plenty of salad left over from the previous evening (Romaine, cress, cucumber, beansprouts, grated carrot) and used that rather than rocket.

Also I used 1 packet rather than 2 packets of crisps.  But the bread was on the smaller side of things.  I think I would use 2 packets if I was using regular bread.

Here's the bread (only buttered on one side) plus salad and sundried tomatoes:

 Then prawns and some crisps...

....and more crisps....

It was scrumptious and easy to put together and made me and my daughter a very good lunch - I can imagine having this on a beach for a picnic lunch - but we ate them in my back garden

It tasted so good and I had a look at the ingredients and it says that actual 'lobster powder' is used (no unnatural flavours there) and the colourings were just paprika and South Devon Chilli Farm chilli.  The South Devon Chilli Jam is a firm favourite with me and I always keep a pot in my fridge.

  OK so crisps aren't the healthiest of foods, but if they're part of a meal, contain natural ingredients, taste delicious, and come from Devon - fair enough!

Devon Pub Review: The Fat Pig, Exeter

We went as a family (two adults, a daughter aged 14 and a son aged 12) to the Fat Pig in Exeter for Sunday lunch a few days ago.

It was great!  A relaxing hang out serving some top notch micro brewed ales.  My other half had the Steam Hammer Ale and really enjoyed that.  We were intrigued by all the hanging pictures.  They did tell a few stories as we asked the waitress (owner, I'm not sure) about one and heard a wonderful story about the man portrayed.

We shared a Smoked Garlic with toast to start with.  All four of us enjoyed that.  Like everything, it was  served on a board.  There was a whole bulb of soft and smokey garlic and plenty of toast.  We should have ordered two portions really as we were hungry and there was plenty of grabbing going on! 

For main courses, two of us had the smoked prawns and chips (the prawns were recommended to me by Countrywoodsmoke, a local foodie and BBQ/Smoker expert), my daughter had the Roast Pork and my husband had the Smoked Pheasant.  The pub has recently acquired a new 'smoker' and is making the most of it.

The prawns were smoked, but not overly so.  They were served whole - so we had to peel them but my son loved doing this.  Personally I could have done with a debris bowl or dish as I was quite messy, but this is splitting hairs.  The large quantity of serviettes and finger bowls were appreciated and used.

My daughter enjoyed the Roast Pork - there are some reviews on Tripadvisor to say the Sunday roast isn't great - it was good for her.  Plenty of meat, veg and gravy.  The only weird thing was that the roast potatoes were enormous and could have been smaller - that is a small gripe.  The meat, veg and gravy were all fine.  My husband liked the pheasant - of which there was a large quantity - and when I had a small 'taster', I managed to get the only piece of 'shot' in the whole dish.  Typical.

All four of us enjoyed our meal and we will be back to try lunch on a different day of the week.  I liked the vibe, the ethos, the decor and the food.  The place was very busy by 1pm so it's worthwhile reserving at the weekend.  They have a great system of chalking the reservations on the actual wood of the tables.  I liked that.

I was a guest, but I was free to write what I wished.