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Hello there! And welcome to kick off cooking!!
Carrying on from Super Sunday, this feature will cover not just the food I make for the football but now other daytime sports also!
This time out I go over what I cooked for the all English champions league final between Manchester City & Chelsea this past Saturday.
This idea started when I decided to treat myself to a BT sports pass last month so I could watch the semi's & the final. This is probably down to all the promotion & build up on talksport, as I listen to it for at least 10 hours in my work day.
I feel I've got my moneys worth though as I have watched not just football but premiership rugby & a little boxing too! I have even seen an upcoming UFC event advertised that I may watch so there could be a late night snack attack coming soon!
Before I go over the champions league final, I will ramble about a few things before the finale.
A few days before the champions league final there's the Europa league final!
The Europa league is the secondary European cup tournament and the final was between Manchester United & Villarreal. In my monthly update at the start of the month I touched briefly on Villarreal knocking out Arsenal and Unai Emery getting revenge on his former team.
Well Unai and his team took their underdog status and beat united on penalties! The game itself was awful, but the penalty shootout was very tense and entertaining. The penalty shootout finished 11-10 to Villarreal with United's keeper missing his penalty in sudden death.
Snack wise I went for a bowl of grapes & strawberries with a few nuts. I also had a little tickle of the port I've not long brought, originally I brought it to have with a book I have been reading. Its bad to admit that I have never finished a book, well as an adult so I am looking to break that.
Early on final day I was able to watch a little of Dagenham/Wrexham which was nice to see. My family are from that area and used to live a stones throw away from the stadium, I remember passing it when we used to go down there to visit family. I even went to the stadium for a cup game against Coventry, that was a day before I started a placement I went on in a pub on my cooking apprenticeship in 2012.
I only watched the first half of the Dagenham game and then I started prep for the champions league.
Before the biggest game in club football there was the most expensive game in club football, the playoff final! The play off final secures the last place in next seasons premier league from the championship and is said to be worth around 160 million because of tv money, sponsorship, tournament money and who knows what else!
The match was between Brentford & Swansea at Wembley stadium. Brentford have been flirting with the top flight for a while whereas Swansea have been in the premier before. Swansea actually beat forest around 10 years ago in the playoff semi's and I was at that game so that's added to my thoughts.
Brentford won anyway and are promoted! It was a good match and I am interested to see what they do next season.
As soon as full time went on the playoff game I started cooking!
I wanted to do spread/mini buffet type of thing and I had a few ideas on what to do. But in the end I settled on sausage, bacon & fried onion batches, garlic mushrooms, chicken drumsticks, homemade garlic bread & a few other bits.
I made a tear and share style cheesy garlic bread with a three cheese bloomer loaf I picked up. I sliced through the bread but not all the way through, just enough so I could spread the garlic butter I made with oak smoked garlic, parsley & pepper. After I spread the butter in the cuts I put some red Leicester cheese in as well. Before I baked it I also sprinkled some mozzarella over the top. It was pretty decent when it was finished, although it almost slid off the board I served it on!
The garlic mushrooms are not my cup of tea but they were for the others, I used the left over garlic butter I made in the pan with the mushrooms with a little oil to stop the butter burning.
That with the rest of the bits made up a nice little spread!
The final in itself was good, city never turned up though. I was pulling for Chelsea anyway because I'd never hear the end of it if city won so all the results I have wanted over the past few days have happened so that's awesome! So its a second champions league for Chelsea!
