Tortillas....'cause it's Tuesday (by G)

As New Years Eve was a Tuesday, Biggs and I had tortillas.

This would have been a classic pork tortilla except I could only find pork steaks so I coated them in paprika, fried them off then simmered them for a long, long time in chicken stock, clarified onions and toasted cumin seeds.

Once the pork was tender I mashed it up and added a significant amount of cheese and melted that through.

For salsa I used yellow capsicum (because the red ones in the supermarket were all rancid), cucumber, red onion, coriander, salt and lime juice.

Nothing too unusual about these ones - to eat anything with that amount of cheese and salt is a bit death-defying.

Steak Sandwich (by G)

I was cooking for myself today so I cooked something simple with the best of ingredients.

 

A nice steak grilled and sandwiched on toasted sourdough with some slow cooked onions, cheese, lettuce and kewpie mayonnaise.  I had also meant to add tomato and cucumber but forgot - no great loss. The steak is the thing.

Haloumi Yiro (by Biggs)

I was pretty sad to be going back to work today and was suffering serious beer-cricket-pool-friend-turkey withdrawals. The only thing I could think of to fix this was a haloumi yiro, a walk on the river and my friend Red. 

We stopped by Char Char Yiros (that's a real thing....they sell shirts and everything) and gathered dinner before sitting by the river and hooking in. 

I was very, very satisfied with dinner. Char Char Yiros have not once disappointed. It was so good that when I dropped a piece of haloumi into the grass (of questionable origin) I picked it up and shoved it in my mouth without hesitation. 

Photo....not so good. 

Enchiladas (by Biggs)

Joss and Annetta have been staying with us since Christmas. It's been delightful to have their company and friends around to drink, swim and watch the cricket with. An added bonus is that they wanted to cook dinner for us one night and tonight is the night. Annetta is an excellent cook and Joss an excellent side-kick so I was very much looking forward to it. She asked if our household are fans of Mexican food and quickly realised she was going to have a very receptive audience.

After dinner Annetta explained the recipes to me so I could accurately update the blog but by this stage I'd had a bit to drink, a lot to eat and was already drifting off to sleep on the blow-up mattress in the lounge room. But, here is what I remember.

Served was a dinner of chicken enchilladas - leg chicken slow, slow cooked in a broth of spice, peppers and chilies, wrapped up in corn tortiallas with a generous amount of cheese melted on top. Joss cooked up some beans with some jalepenos and other goodness and it was served with a mango salasa with lime and mint.

Dinner was absolutely delicious and both G and I went back for seconds and thirds.

Annetta also did some baking which is pretty impressive in our shodey oven but she wrangled it and a batch of peanut butter cookies was served up for dessert.

Toasted Ham and Cheese Sandwiches (by G)

We have ham, we have cheese, we have the whitest of white breads available on the market today.

Easy decision (suggested by a house-guest) make ham and cheese toasties.  I am not going to describe how this is done.  For filling I also made a potato salad with kewpie and cider vinegar dressing and shallots for flavour.  I had thought we had capers and herbs and all sorts of things that would have gone well in a potato salad - we didn't... it is (or was) what it is.

Salads (by Biggs)

The plans for tonight were somewhat discombobulated. There is a lot of food in our house but nothing that could really make a substantial meal, we weren't sure how many people would be in our house and no one was really in the mood for cooking.

I decided I'd try to recreate a delicious chicken salad I made when G was overseas. I think I might have substituted one too many ingredients 'cause this salad turned out a little strange. It was lettuce, tomato, cucumber, turducken turkey, tortilla chips and a dressing of mustard and balsamic. The dressing went a weird brown colour and instantly wilted the lettuce which made it quite unappealing.

Fortunately G worked out he could quite easily knock up a potato salad. He does a good potato salad and this one probably saved dinner. G wanted me to mention that this potato salad featured two types of potatos - red ones and white ones.

G also served his dinner with Christmas ham.

Sausagaes and Salad (by Biggs)

When we did the Christmas shopping we knew there would be plenty of leftovers but still thought we should get something for Boxing Day dinner. A sausage sizzle was the obvious choice.

Annetta was in the mood for something a bit fresher so she whipped up a salad to go with the beef and pork sausages. For those of you interested in G's sausage consumption the eating ratios were as follows:

Annetta ate 0% of the sausages
Joss ate 25% of the sausages
Biggs ate 25% of the sausages
G ate 50% of the sausages

Christmas Special! (by G)

As it is Christmas and we had a wide variety and vast quantity of food this is a special edition showcasing what we ate on Christmas day.

To start the day Aaron cooked us (Biggs and me) bacon and scramby eggs... and Biggs made us a Bloody Mary.  This was a perfect combination - the saltiness of the bacon combining with the fruitiness of the tomatoes, the Vodka cutting through richness of the eggs, the fresh after-bite of the celery... and Aaron used parsley in the eggs and as a garnish. He put in a lot more care than I would have under the same circumstances.

At some point (and I'm not being dismissive here - the day is just a bit of a blur) Fi and Dan turned up with a late morning snack of -tomato-boccancini-basil- skewers and mini koftas with sour cream and also punch.  I'm fairly certain the tomato etc skewers had a balsamic dressing. 

The koftas were Moroccan flavoured - tasted like lamb but were actually beef - and were most excellent.  The punch was a bit non-traditional as it had fresh fruit and mint as well as tinned fruit - that added a certain amount of freshness to the day.

For Christmas lunch I made a turducken. That's a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken.  I spent a lot of time researching this particular delicacy - the best method I could find was on a site called The Food Lab. 

It involved getting a vacuum food saving machine, deboning the chicken a couple of days prior to cooking, stuffing with sausage (I chose a herb pork sausage) then rolling and vacuum packing it. Then the day before I deboned the duck and just left him unrolled.

Christmas morning I woke up at 5am, poached the chicken roll until the internal temperature was correct, then added some chorizo and herb pork sausage stuffing to the inside of the duck and rolled it around the chicken. After that I vacuum sealed it in a bag and poached it until the duck was up to temperature.  Poor Aaron was sleeping on the living-room floor and had to put up with my three noisy attempts to get the vacuum sealer to seal.  Anyway, after the duck had been poached I debagged it and fried it off until brown then stuffed it inside the turkey, which I had deboned (all except the legs and wings) the night before.  After that it was a simple matter of putting the whole thing in the oven at a low temperature and baste every hour.

I was expecting it to take a lot longer to cook the turducken but it was all brown and up to temperature in a matter of about 4 hours so I turned the oven right down until it was time to eat.

In a separate pot I had simmered the roasted, mixed poultry bones. I thickened this up to make a gravy but it turned out not to be too flavourful.

For sides there were some roasted vegetables - potatoes and such.

I must say, after deboning and handling so much raw poultry I was a bit unkeen to actually eat the turducken but it was excellent. Probably about the proudest moment of my life - the only slight mis-step in preparing the bird-inside-a-bird-inside-a-bird was not cutting the cooking twine off the ducken before stuffing it into the turkey. No matter.  The real joy of turducken is carving it up with one hand while holding a beer in the other - awesome!

Some time later prawns Aaron served up some prawns from Mooloolaba with a lovely seafood cocktail sauce from a jar. Most excellent.

Latter still Joss and Annetta turned up from Vietnam. Annetta constructed a Mexican Layered Dip - topped off with a jalepeno she found lurking somewhere in our kitchen. It went like hotcakes.

Apparently the layer dip (theoretically) has infinite layers - limited only by your imagination or pantry. 

We also, unnecessarily,  had cheese. 

Then we all had a little lie down.  A lot of food and a multitude of various alcoholic beverages saps ones strength.

Chicken Tortillas (by G)

'twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, G didn't much feel like cooking because he had to debone a frickin' turkey later.

Despite having a guest (Aaron) for dinner I didn't put much effort into this one. Diced up fresh chicken fried with onions, red capsicum, some chicken stock and sake - wedged into some tortilla wraps with a bunch of cheese then dry fried.  To add a glamourous touch I mixed an avocado with lime juice and slurmed it on top.

Despite the lack of effort, these turned out pretty well. I think it was the vast quantity of cheese I used - in total the three of us consumed about 200g of cheese each.

*I missed the cut-off again for this blog. Apologies.

Chicken Wings and Potato Skins (by G)

Last day before the Christmas break and I was looking for something simple that Biggs would appreciate. Chicken wings ticks all those boxes.

I simply marinated the wings in a mix of fish sauce and brown sugar, soy sauce, mirin, chilli sauce, some fresh jalapenos, garlic, ginger and coriander stalks then oven roasted them in the marinade.  When they were tender I stuck them under the grill for some colour.  I also got some packet chips - red potato skins just for something different.

The wings were great - some of the best I've made. The potato skins were pretty good, a little undercooked.

BBQed Everything (by Biggs)

Another night, another Christmas catch up with wonderful friends. Tonight I went to Bonnie's house to have dinner and drinks with her and her family. It was so good. Dinner was similar to last nights dinner but pimped up and turbo charged to the max. 

We had haloumi, chicken and non-chicken sausages, marinated chicken skewers, green salad, potato salad and, ever so delightfully, damper. I think it's been years since I've had damper and I hope never to go so long without it again. Just delicious. This one was a spinach and feta version with parmesan on top. 

I'm really sad that this photo didn't do the dinner justice but this was day four of champagne drinking so I hope I can be forgiven. What you may note in the photo is the very Christmas-y green colour of the damper. Bonnie had a damper vision that I suspect was more going to be chunky bits of spinach and feta kneaded throughout the dough but we got caught up in a WWJD (What would Jamie do?) argument which resulted in the whole lot being dumped a food processor. I thought it was fantastic but appreciate Bonnie's difference of opinion. 

I really can't express how much I enjoyed this dinner. But, I think company equaled the high quality of the food. 

Dessert was equally good with Bonnie cooking up a lemon cheesecake. My absolute favourite dessert flavour. I'm a happy girl.

Pasta and Meatballs (by G)

Leading up to Christmas I was looking to clear a little space in the freezer so I decided to use up the rest of the eggplant stew - the best way I could figure to do that was to heat it up and mix it through some cooked pasta.

That didn't like it would quite hit the spot so I decided to incorporate some sausages by skinning them, balling them up, frying them and putting them on top of my pasta creation - along with some parmesan cheese.

The sausages were a herb pork and a chorizo sausage and the result was much, much better than I deserve for doing something so simple.  The best thing is that I've now completely used up the eggplant stew.

Spicy Pork Ribs (by G)

Normally I save super things like ribs for occasions when Biggs is home, however, I was craving something different tonight so I bought some pork ribs.

I didn't go to too much effort, I simply spread 'Koon Yick Wah Kee' chilli sauce on the ribs and roasted them of an hour or so. For the uninitiated, this particular chilli sauce is the best ever, even better than sriracha (in my opinion).

I served these ribs with a packet of supermarket coleslaw - supreme coleslaw. Because, as I say, go supreme coleslaw or go home. I was already home but...

The ribs were excellent, quite spicy.

Haloumi, Asparagus and Salad (by Biggs)

It is the season for drinking gallons of champagne with friends and tonight I drank gallons of champagne with my friend Kylie.

After drinks and nibbles on the deck, Kylie asked if I was in the mood for dinner. I said we had to have dinner for the blog and boy I'm glad we did. Within about 10 minutes we were eating grilled haloumi and asparagus cooked up on the BBQ and a salad complete with basil and shallots from the garden.

Dinner was just perfect. It was exactly what I was in the mood for and so simple to throw together. The haloumi was cooked to perfection....charred on the outside and warm and soft in the middle.

Just perfect. We celebrated with more champagne.

Pork Cheeks (by Biggs)

Tonight was a very special night but a very sad night because we were saying good bye to our dear friends Mike and Amanda. Special friends deserve a special last supper so we put Dan in charge of dinner.

Since he and Fi had just spent over a month in France he wanted to recreate one of their favourite meals from the trip....pork cheeks with apples and vegetables in a creme fraiche sauce. Pork cheeks, apple, carrot and potato were slow cooked in butter and cider with some creme fraiche stired through at the last minute.

It was incredible. I think it's the first time I've had pork cheeks and I now understand why everyone raves about them. From this day forth I will only eat the cheeks of delicious animals and not bother with any of that other pesky meat. I was so excited I had half my meal eaten before I took a photo. Once I'd finished I demanded Dan heat up another bread stick so as not to waste all the amazingly delicious jus left in the pan at the end.

The amusing thing about this meal is that when Fi and Dan bought the pork cheeks the butcher gave them the whole side of the pig face not just the little nuggety bit so they have quite an excess of pig face meat and skin. A happy problem.

Dan is now inspired to cook a whole pig head so stay tuned for that.

Deconstructed Caesar Salad (by G)

I didn't have any idea of what to have for dinner when I got to the supermarket but as I looked around I thought a sort of Caesar salad would be good. 

This version is a very simple and meaty version to be sure. A chicken steak seasoned in salt and pepper and fried along with a thick-ish slice of smoked pork.  I topped the chicken with parmesan and finished it under the grill.  The crouton was a slice of white bread spread with olive oil spread, sprinkled with parmesan and then fried. The actual salad was just half a cos lettuce.

When I came to serve it I realised I didn't have a dressing so I mixed some finely chopped coriander stalks though some kewpie mayonnaise thinned down with some apple cider vinegar.

It's a bit of a shame Biggs wasn't home for this one because it was most excellent. Maybe it was on account of the fact that I didn't expect too much from this dinner that I enjoyed it so much... and less than 10 minutes to prepare.

Pork and Fragrant Salad (by G)

We have a lot of leftover green things so I decided early that I would make a salad of coriander, mint, snow peas, chilli (both red and I bought jalapenos), there was also some packet coleslaw leftover so I added that as well. 

I wasn't sure what meat to have with the salad but, predictably, went with pork. I salted the pork skin and roasted it in a marinade of soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, some mirin, a bit of yakatori marinade, ginger, garlic and jalapeno.  I cooked the pork according to the directions but the skin didn't crackle so I chucked it under a slow grill and got the crackling done.

When the pork was ready I dressed the salad with a mix of lime juice (from real lime), soy sauce, a dash of fish sauce, some brown sugar and some fresh ginger.

Sorry the meat in the picture looks a bit like sweaty yeti crotch - it tasted much better than it looks.

Thai Fish Cakes (by Biggs)

One of my many secret shames is that I love those frozen pre-packaged fish cakes that are often served in Thai restaurants. Little rubbery nuggets of nothingness. I love them. I decided I should try the home-made version to see how they compare. 

I bought a bunch of barramundi fillets (also known as the Asian sea bass), chopped them finely, then mixed through some garlic, kaffir lime leaves, coriander, fish sauce, red curry paste and sliced snow peas, balled them up and shallow fried them. 

In the interest of having at least one healthy meal a week I decided to serve them with a salad of sprouts, carrot, capsicum, cucumber and crispy noodles. 

The only error I made was in the sauce. It called for fish sauce, lime juice and sugar with some cucumber and chili mixed through. Limes cost about one billion dollars each at the moment so against my better judgement I decided to buy one of those little bottles of packaged lime juice. I've made this error before and knew I would regret it the second it was in my shopping basket. As soon as I added it the sauce it tasted like lime cordial and I couldn't seem to do anything to correct it. 

However, the rest of dinner was so delicious it didn't matter. 

Pork and Pineapple Salsa Tortillas (by G)

One ingredient I am really not fond of is pineapple. I'm don't actually dislike it that much - it's just that people put it on everything and it's always so sweet and it's like tomatoes in that, if you heat it up, it will stay scalding hot for too long... however, I was watching some ladies magazine Christmas TV special on the weekend and they made pineapple salsa with pork - it looked pretty good so I thought I should tortillarise it.

Firstly I chopped some pork ribs into little cubes and fried it with some paprika, cumin, garlic powder and salt - then stuck them in the oven to slow roast.  The pork got a little dry and I was going to add some chicken stock to braise it - then I discovered that I had some left over marinade from last night so I added the pork to a watered-down version of that.

For the salsa I fine chopped some fresh pineapple (that's another thing - pineapple is so sticky) then added some fine chopped coriander, mint, green chilli and a squeeze of lime juice.

I was pretty impressed with these tortillas - mostly on account of the fact that they had pineapple and were not terrible.

BBQ (by Biggs)

G and I somehow got out of sync with the blog - this was my dinner on Friday.

When the ladies and I arrived at the beach we immediately got into the rooftop spa with a few bottles of champagne so decided on a simple BBQ dinner. Pork and chicken sausages, a lovely couple of steaks and some fried onions as well as a modern take on the classic 80s three bean salad.

Many, many bottles of wine accentuated this dinner and I think everyone was awfully happy.

I may have implied in this post that I did some cooking but in fact, I was given the very important job of chief eater. Job done!

Korean Beef Salad (by G)

I figured that as Biggs eats the dinner she should get some input on what we have for dinner (just this once).  She wanted a Thai Beef Salad - which I thought was an excellent idea, but I think we've had that on the blog before. So I asked the Koreans what to do - they said, 'Bulgogi'.

Bulgogi (unless I am very much mistaken) is a dish of lettuce and cabbage topped with fried beef and onions. The beef and onions were marinated in Soy, Sugar, Sesame Oil, Garlic, Ginger, Sesame Seed (I used black ones), Chilli Powder (I used Sriracha) and Pepper - then fried.

The genius part of this dish is that you top the whole thing with a fried egg (I also topped it with fried shallot and fried garlic and some more sesame seeds).

This was awesome - I think Biggs would agree with me on that.  The one time we have something truly delicious and there were no leftovers - sad face.

Chipolata Sausages, Eggs, Chips, Corn and Mushrooms (By G)

Biggs and I somehow got out of sync with the blog - this was my dinner on Saturday.

Not much to say about it - I wanted sausages so I got the chipolata kind, then decided to do something traditional - sausage egg and chips. As well as corn, because there was a lot in the fridge. As well as mushrooms, because mushrooms are great.  I managed to over cook the mushrooms but they were still okay.  I split the sausages before frying them because they had a big bend on them and I doubted they would get cooked all the way through.

Please not the eggs - it's my special double yolk fried egg where I use only one of the whites to increase the flavour percentage. I saved the other white to make meringue... just kidding, I dumped it down the sink. Wasteful I know but it is only empty calories.

T-Bone Steak (by Biggs)

I've always been quite conscious of the fact I've never been in charge of lighting the BBQ in our household and I feel like that is a skill you should have by my age. So, tonight I got a couple of T-bone steaks and gave it a crack.

 

We had a huge number of BBQs in our childhood and I was always especially pleased whenever we had steak, fried tomatoes and crisps so was going to do that tonight. Unfortunately for G after my weekend of serious indulgence I decided instead for steak and salad.

 

G was aghast when I mentioned I was going to BBQ. I still haven't exactly established exactly why but I can only put it down to three possible issues:

 

1) He thought he was going to have to clean the BBQ grill,

2) He thought I would fail at lighting the BBQ and have to take over and cook dinner, or

3) He thought I'd left it too late to light the BBQ.....which I probably had.

 

But, for my first time I think I did okay. It took a long time for the BBQ to be ready for cooking then literally no time for the steaks to cook. They cooked so quickly I suspected they couldn't possibly be anything but rare however, the average cooking competition judge would declare these overdone.....a throwback to our youth.

 

I served the steaks with a quarter of an iceberg lettuce, half a tomato and half a cucumber each. I sprinkled some oil and balsamic over the veges but just a little since this was my Detox meal.

 

 

Mexican Fiesta (by Biggs)

This weekend some friends and I took Amanda away for a final fling before she moves West. We hired a beach-side penthouse and threw a Mexican Fiesta. Nachos, tortillas and sangria were served up with the sweet sounds of the Buena Vista Social Club playing in the background. Yes, yes, I know a lot of this isn't Mexican but it was very, very tasty.

 

The secret ingredient to this dinner was goat cheese (also not Mexican) which was super satisfying. In fact, the whole dinner was super satisfying and we did a pretty good job of (almost) polishing it all off after an hour or two of grazing. I didn't actually do the cooking tonight and as you know, I'm quite the tortilla connoisseur but, these ones passed the test.  

 

After two huge jugs of sangria, a chocolate truffle cake dessert and a cook in the rooftop spa, we were all in bed by 10. Fiesta!

 



Steak Frites with Special Mayo (by G)

Given that Biggs is away for the weekend I didn't feel like putting too much effort into dinnter.

A panfried T-bone steak, packet oven-fry chips and a mayonaise with diced cornishons and capers.  I was going to make the mayonnaise from scratch but realsied we had kewpie in the fridge so I just squeezed some out and mixed through the goodies.

Not a very challenging meal - it was pretty satifying though.

Brandy Tortellini (by Biggs)

Tonight I went out to dinner with Bonnie. We headed to Verve, a bar and cafe in the basement of the Metro Arts Building in the city. I like the vibe at Verve and they serve Italian treats so it makes me pretty happy.

Bonnie ordered a chicken pizza with chips and I decided to order the only thing on the menu that had alcohol in it - a Brandy Tortellini. It was a pretty good spinach and ricotta tortellini with cream, pine nuts, sun-dried tomato and brandy. I personally would have substituted the brandy for bacon.

When I asked for a draft beer I was told the only beer on tap was Kronenbourg 1664......pleasing.

Roast Chicken and Vegetables (by G)

For an awesome (and secret) reason I need to practice my boning... but decided to make dinner instead. Hilarious...

Any-way, I bought a whole chicken and went at it with a selection of the sharpest knives in the house. I was pretty impressed with how I was going for most of the boning process but had difficulty getting the bones above the chicken's tail out - in the end I got frustrated and cut that section out with the skin attached, thereby screwing my original idea to stuff the chicken.

In the end I just oven baked her and crisped up the skin under the grill.  For sides I steamed a potato, a carrot, some corn and asparagus (I should probably say I over steamed them) and topped them with microwave heated packet chicken gravy.  It was awesome - like a cheap pub meal right in my own home. And no bones.

Roast Pork and Eggplant Stew (by G)

Biggs dodged another bullet today because I re-purposed some of the large quantity of eggplant stew I have stashed in the freezer.  I also roasted off some pork thinking I would eat a little bit and use some in a future recipe - that didn't happen - I ended up eating the whole roast. It was good -roasted to perfection (sort of) - the crackle didn't quite get there so I had to stick it under the grill to get it done correctly.

Apart from the pork and eggplant I had some left over green tomato salad and bitter melon chutney. Most satisfactory.

Pork and Pumpkin Puff Pastry Pinwheel (by Biggs)

Tonight I arrived at Fi and Dan's house to find Fi baking some pumpkin in preparation for a pumpkin and bacon pasta. It was later discovered that there was actually no bacon in the freezer and the house down-spiraled into a chaotic mess of panic. No bacon??!

Then I got to witness the evolution of a recipe as dinner ideas were suggested....stir-fries, pastas, spring rolls and pies all got a mention....we all agreed on pork....then Dan found some puff pastry. This started as a sausage roll but after seeing a serving suggestion on the front of the puff pastry packet Fi went with a pork and pumpkin puff pastry pinwheel. 

I was pretty impressed with dinner particularly given the recipe didn't even exist earlier in the evening. I was also impressed that shallots and lettuces were gathered from the garden to put this together. Super tasty. 

I experienced particular elation when Dan decided to use gherkins as a cucumber substitute in the salad. 

Myanmar Fusion Tortillas (by G)

I've had a less than ideal experience with an Myanmar fusion dish in the past. A Myanmar pizza I ate in Bagan sent me crashing to the floor of my hotel bathroom simmultaneously sweating and shivering.  I decided to try my own fusion dish to try to partly erase that memory.

The meat for these tortillas is allegedly a Burmese chicken stew - chicken tenders cooked in garlic, ginger, onion, soy, fish sauce, brown sugar, Chinese cooking wine, turmeric, coriander powder, pepper, water and corn flour to thicken.  The recipe called for 2 cups of fresh ginger - I was halving the recipe but still added much less than the required 1 cup...

Once all that had simmered for quite a while I mashed up the chicken and served it with a version of the green tomatoe salad we had the other day and some packet tortillas.

It all turned out pretty well, pretty rich - I don't think you could have too many of them before you'd be doubled up sweating and shivering.

Biryani with Sausages (by G)

In an effort to use up some leftovers I used up the biryani leftovers from yesterday. I thought, perhaps, that two tandoori chicken lovely legs and some lamb was not quite enough meat so I fried off 8 pork chipolatas to mix in with the rice, also I fried an onion in ghee for more flavour. I also mixed in some coriander and parsley... and served it with a side of bitter melon chutney and some ricotta with the tandoori spice mix mixed through.

All-in-all it was a pretty happy expedition into the world of leftovers.

Tandoori Chicken and Lamb Biryani (by G)

I was pretty excited by a recipe I saw Simon Hopkins make on 'The Good Cook'. Chicken marinated in yoghurt and tandoori mix then grilled.  I used chicken lovely legs and did what Simon said and it turned out pretty well - the burned patches were intentional.

Just chicken seemed like a bit of a cop out so I tried to make a biryani. Rice was parboiled and layered in a pot with tender lamb (simmered in mustard seed, coriander powder, cloves, cinnamon, yoghurt, fake chicken stock and... a bunch of other stuff - pistachio nuts went in, also cardamom pods). I as then popped into the oven for about 20 minutes then left to steam. The biryani was a bit of a disappointment - quite stodgy.  Coming across a clove or a cardamom pod was quite a wake up.

The weird blob of stuff at the bottom is bitter melon chutney. I've always wanted to buy and use bitter melon from the market so I decided to get a couple and make a chutney. The bitter melon was fried until soft with some green chilli, onion, garlic... spices - a lot of oil. When the melon was soft I added some tamarind. The chutney was very bitter so I added some sugar, and packet fried onion and packet fried garlic. I probably added a whole bunch of other things - it got a bit like 'George's Marvellous Medicine' at one point - I just added more and more things to try and get chutney to not taste bitter and terrible. It turned out pretty well in the end, though who knows exactly what went into it.

To round out the experience I dry fried some packet Ajwain Paratha - they were, of course, excellent.

Pork with Burmese Green Tomato Salad and Stuffed Mushroom (by G)

I went to the Saturday morning markets an managed to find some green tomatoes and large flat mushrooms - also some good looking pork chops.

I was keen to get the green tomatoes to try and replicate the green tomato salad in Myanmar.  The recipe I found was a pretty fancy version.  The tomatoes were sliced and topped with chopped, roasted peanuts, black sesame seeds, finely chopped shallot, garlic oil and lemon grass vinegar. The garlic oil and lemon grass vinegar were home made - each by steeping the solids into the liquids.  Biggs seemed to enjoy the salad - it was still not quite right... I will continue my experiments.

I stuffed the flat mushrooms with a mix of ricotta, parmesan, olives and red tomato and oven roasted them for half an hour - the result was a bit underwhelming. Damn you ricotta you flavourless white waste of space.

The pork chops were simply seasoned in salt and pepper, fried and topped with shallot fried in butter with a dash of cognac. The pork was excellent - sweet and salty. 

Pickled Prawn Salad (by G)

I saw an awesome looking pickled shrimp salad recipe the other day and thought it would be a good thing to do - I couldn't find shrimp, so I used prawns.  The recipe called for the prawns to be pickled in a mix of spices, herbs, onion, garlic, oil and lemon juice. Unfortunately I did not have enough lemon juice and oil to cover the prawns so I added balsamic vinegar.. this was an error as (predictably) it overpowered all the subtle flavours.  I also pickled them for 24 hours longer than the recipe called for so they got a bit wizened.

Anyway, so, the prawns weren't great but I decided to add them to a salad regardless.  The salad was simply lettuce, tomato, cucumber, celery, avocado, mango, coriander and lime with a drizzling of the prawn pickling liquid.

Oh,  I also added some rolled up slices of packet corned silverside (because I didn't know if the salad was going to be filling enough) then I took a blurry photo:

Nasi Goreng (by Biggs)

We were recently watching some Bourdain, as we so often do. He was hot and sick and disillusioned and generally quite miserable in Sri Lanka, he was taken to a Malaysian restaurant and ordered a comforting bowl of Nasi Goreng. It seemed to make him feel marginally better about life so at that moment I thought...."Perhaps a bowl of Nasi Goreng could make G and I feel marginally better about life."

So, tonight we had Nasi Goreng, an Indonesian fried rice dish. There are about a million Nasi Goreng recipes on the Internet so I decided to go with.....the first one. I was tempted to use the Nasi Goreng recipe of Julie Goodwin (G's all time favourite chef) but then I probably would have been at risk of eviction (she's actually G's all time hated.....breeder). Then I had a panic about making a fried rice dish 'cause G is quite a connoisseur.

To make this I fried off garlic, celery, carrot, cabbage, shallots, chicken, prawns and bacon then stirred through some rice, fried shallots and oyster sauce. I was meant to use soy sauce and ketchup manis but there were some pantry stock issues. I was also meant to use bean sprouts but you can only ever buy half a kilo of them and then G tries to make the leftovers into awfully healthy pancake things....a situation best avoided.

I fried an egg to throw on top and after eating this concoction I feel......marginally better about life.

Ginger Chicken (by Biggs)

Tonight I attended a secret planning session for an upcoming something something. I can't say much more than that yet but what I can say is that I went to Fi's and she made Ginger Chicken for dinner.

 

I think this is a bit of a favourite of hers and it's most definitely a favourite of mine. Although I may have given her the recipe book this meal comes from I'm not entirely sure what goes on here.

 

From what I can gather its a stir-fry of mushrooms, carrot, shallots and chicken along with a huge amount of ginger.

 

Its super delicious and between the vegetables and the ginger I think it must have done good things for my innards. It certainly couldn't have made the situation any worse. Thanks Fi!



 

Sausage Pasta Bake (by G)

Part 12 in my series on why sausages should be eaten at every opportunity...

Biggs was not home for dinner tonight so I thought I'd have sausages again - this time with pasta.

First I fried off a lot of pork chipolatas, then I ate most of them.  Then I fried some garlic, added passata, a whole bag of spinach, some cooked irregular Asian rice noodles, basil and the remaining sausages in chopped up form.  All of this went into a loaf tin and I topped it with parmesan and oven baked it for half an hour (along with some garlic bread).

I wasn't really that hungry when dinner was ready (on account of the sausages I'd already eaten). It was not too bad I guess - it was a struggle to get it down so it is hard for me to judge.

Pork Tortillas With Home-made Tomato Sauce (by G)

Tried something a bit different tortilla-wise.  I got some mini-pork steaks, dusted them with cumin, paprika and coriander then beat the oink out of them until they were flat, fried them, rested them, chopped them up, returned them to the pan with some lime juice - that was that for the meat.

Also made was a salsa of cucumber, red onion, coriander, orange capsicum, salt and lime juice and a tomato sauce made by blitzing fresh tomatoes, adding some salt, simmering until thicker then green chilli and coriander were added.

We still don't have a tortilla press so I microwaved a packet of large wraps and cut them in half to wrap the other things in.

They were savoury - the pork was not as flavourful as I'd expected but that didn't matter too much.

Sausage and Onion Quiche (by G)

I like sausages, so I'm always looking for ways to incorporate sausages into dinner.  When I read that sausage and onion quiche was a real thing I decided to make that.

To make a Sausage and Onion Quiche all you have to do is blind bake some short-crust pastry - meanwhile, fry some red onions (I also used white because we had one left) then add balsamic vinegar and brown sugar (I wish I hadn't done that - there was no call for sugar).  Once the crust was blind baked I went to the corner store to get some eggs because I didn't realise we had run out... then I spread the onion onto the base of the quiche crust, then added lumps of sausage mince, then added a mix of eggs, cream, dried thyme and parmesan cheese.

I sometimes use a recipe more as a guideline rather than a strict step-by-step guide. This is a mistake.  For this recipe I added quite a bit too much cream - it meant that the quiche filling only just barely set, and made it quite rich.  I feel queasy and tingly as I write.

Luckily we had a side salad of lettuce, cucumber, capsicum, spring onions and capers to freshen things up a bit.

Pork Fillet With Noodle Salad (by G)

I wanted a change from chicken, specifically I wanted a change to pork.  I don't often cook with pork fillet so I decided to try that.  I marinated the fillet in soy, rice wine vinegar, ginger, garlic, chilli, brown sugar, fish sauce, lemon zest and juice.  Then I pan fried it. While the meat was resting I added the rest of the marinade and reduced it down.

I had meant to drizzle just the reduced sauce onto the meat but accidentally dumped the dark caramelised onion, garlic and ginger onto the meat - that was a good thing.

For a healthy accompaniment I boiled some delicious noodles, cooled them in some cold water, then mixed through some salad leaves, cucumber, spring onion and lemon juice.  I found some nice big capers to add to the salad... but forgot to add them.

Biggs took a look at dinner, went upstairs, vomited and then I didn't see her again...  I thought it was quite delicious.

Grilled Chicken Rolls (by G)

As Biggs was off vicariously reliving her glory days on the stage I decided to do something pretty simple for dinner.

I found some chicken breast in the freezer and marinated it in garlic and ginger.  Meanwhile, I blended the rest of a jar of olives, the little bit of remaining feta and some olive oil. The resulting sauce did not look very appealing so I blended in some parsley - this did nothing to improve the eye appeal, so I resigned myself to eating what looked like the intestinal tract of a giant slug.

For a side I oven baked some packet shoe-string fries with thyme, salt and sesame oil and mixed some tube wasabi through kewpie mayonnaise for dipping (I also spread some of the wasabi mayonnaise on the long white roll with the chicken).

The chicken turned out pretty well. If I'm honest, the feta/olive mix was a bit weird and pretty salty. I was pretty satisfied though.  Maybe something a bit healthier is called for on Sunday.

Re-Magic-ed Chicken (by Biggs)

I was home late tonight after joining my friends at their daughter's first ballet concert.

She was tremendous but after a long night of tears, glitter, pirouettes and stumbles I was pretty ready for a glass of wine and some comfort food when I got home.

The microwave doesn't get a lot of action in our house but tonight I cooked some leftover pasta, stirred though the leftover Magic Chicken, sprinkled it with cheese then zapped it in the machine for a minute or two.

Dinner was most excellent.

Magic Chicken (by Biggs)

I don't know the origin of this Magic Chicken recipe but it is simple and delicious and one of my favourites.

My friends Cam and Liz gave me a photocopy of the recipe along with an amazing Dutch oven for Christmas last year. The giant heavy-based pot gets a lot of love in our kitchen (except for one time when I left it in the fridge for a month with leftover soup in it).

The trick to this dinner is that if you open a bottle (or two) of red wine when you start cooking, once you've finished the wine, the chicken will be ready. Then you open another bottle to have with dinner. That's how we've always done it at dinner parties and it works out perfectly. The recipe is actually called "chicken with red-wine vinegar and tomato" but in reality it is.....Magic Chicken.

Beyond drinking a lot of wine you need to fry off some chicken thighs, garlic and shallots, pour in the red-wine vinegar and then when there's a "convincing sizzle" you add passata and chicken stock. Leave it while you drink the bottle of wine then add butter and parsley. I served it with some tiny taters and bread.

I was pretty happy with the chicken but did add waaaaay too much white pepper....I was meant to add black pepper. I'm not sure what happened there. It's Friday, I'm tired.

Lobster Gnocchi (by Biggs)

Tonight I had my Book Club Christmas Break-up Dinner Party and ate lobster.....yep.

Dinner was at a local Italian restaurant that I believe has featured on this blog before. It was excellent. A handsome waiter sold me on the special of Lobster Gnocchi (translated and paraphrased for your convenience) and I was pretty satisfied with my choice. 

Tiny little gnocchi with big chunks of soft garlic and little bits of lobster.....including shell - but that's how you know it's not from a can. 

It was excellent. I'm not actually sure I've ever had lobster before....I like it. Next time I might even eat a whole one. 

In the spirit of Christmas, here's a crappy food-related cracker joke from the evening: 

Q: Why was 6 scared of 7? 

A: Because 7 8 9.