Butter Bean, Grilled Zucchini, Roast Capsicum and Chorizo Salad (by Biggs)

The title of this one sort of gives the game away but the plan was to make a salad of healthy persuasion. So, I picked one featuring chorizo.

I grilled off some zucchini and chorizo then added pre-roasted capsicum, a can of butter beans, peas, lemon, basil and red wine vinegar. I can see why people make salads - they are easy and delicious. How cooking this meal resulted in the activation of the smoke alarm I have no idea. 

I established a fairly significant garlic bread addiction whilst in Western Australia so served some with dinner. Good decision. 

BBQ Chicken and Roti Canai Sauce Tortillas (by G)

I wasn't expecting Biggs back tonight - I was expecting her back at some point, but not tonight.  Irregardless of that fact I went ahead with my original plan of having a chicken and roti sauce in tortilla wraps.

There was not much to do on this one. Sweat some onions, add curry powder, a cinnamon stick, star anise, a clove, chilli, a potato and vegetable stock - boiled it all for half an hour, blend it then add coconut milk, - chop up some BBQ chicken, also chop up some lettuce, also heat the packet tortillas through.

The sauce was not correct - the recipe is a bit vague and I think that the one piece of potato that I added was larger than the correct size of potato. It's a shame because I nailed this sauce the first time I made it and this one was not quite right.

Don't get me wrong, dinner was pretty good but I will have to revisit the roti sauce again.

Burger with Pickles (by G)

I had some pickles left over from last night and decided to make a hamburger (that's a no brainer - I think C.J. from Top Chef may have inspired that idea).

I was a bit lazy and bought pre-made "special" beef burger patties from the supermarket - I also bought, appropriately, hamburger buns and Havarti cheese.

To make the burger I sweated some brown onion for an awfully long time 'til they were nice and soft, then fried the beef patties and topped them with cheese. While the beef patties rested I toasted the buns in the beef fat.

To compile I added some lettuce to the bun, then the patty and cheese, then onions, then a healthy dose of the pickles from last night. I also put some mayonnaise on the top half of the bun and served the hamburger with some oven baked, beer battered, oven chips.

The burger was not too bad - I mean the patties were not great but otherwise the whole thing worked pretty well.

Spaghetti Bolognese and Baby Food (by Biggs)

A sad but lovely night being my very last night in Perth, in fact my last few hours in Perth. I strategically booked my flight so I would get to have a nice last night dinner with Amanda, Mike and their family. It was just lovely. We were really shattered after a huge weekend so just stopped by the shops to collect some bolognase ingredients. Another night of communal cooking with everyone doing their part.

I was on chopping duty but once all the veges were chopped and ingredients added to the pot I tapped someone else in like a relay. Everyone was craving a home-cooked meal so were very grateful for the tagliatelle, bolognase and garlic bread. The salad was some lettuce with a pre-made pumpkin and lentil salad mixed through and was absolutely delicious. I'm really going to miss big family dinners like this. And, yes, I do realise I've had pizza twice, burgers twice and bolognase twice in the last week. A happy holiday situation.

As a side note, Amanda and Mike's baby nephew Alexander was with us for dinner. His parents had their hands full so I offered to prepare his dinner too. There was sweet potato and broccoli available which may seem pretty easy but I had many, many questions. Do I mash it together, do I mash it separately, do I mash it at all, do I take the skin off the sweet potato. I have no ideas what babies eat and when they eat it. Turns out Alexander is at the stage of enjoying a puree but being able to handle some chunks of vegetable so I went with the below option. He appeared to love it but my lovingly prepared meal was later trumped by his first garlic bread experience. Who can blame him? Garlic bread is brilliant!

Steak, Stewed Daikon and Pickled Vegetables (by G)

This is the meal I had planned for Saturday night but did not achieve due to an unexpected period of unconsciousness.

My idea was to create a Japanese inspired plate of elegance - it nearly worked out.

I marinated some steak in a mix of miso paste, sake, soy sauce and garlic - then fried it and cooled it before slicing it and topping with grated daikon radish.

To make the pickles I steeped thin sliced carrot, radish and cucumber in a pickling mixture of dried chilli flakes, rice wine vinegar, sake and sugar. The enoki mushrooms were pickled in a different, but similar, mixture of rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sake, sugar and soy sauce.

In order to add some more volume to dinner I stewed a daikon chunk in a broth of dashi (from a packet), soy and sake - then cooled the daikon.

Because rice seemed necessary I cooked some of that, I thought it may be a bit bland so I drenched it in ketjap manis and topped it with strips of nori.  The nori also served to distract from the fact that my plate had a pair of rice-y breasts on it.

Dinner was not difficult to make, it just took quite a lot of time. It was alright - the pickles were excellent.

Pork and Fennel Pizza (by Biggs)

Fi, Dan and I traveled back to Freemantle today after helping with the mammoth of packing up and tidying the cabins and wedding aftermath. After showering and putting on some clean clothes we headed directly to what Dan describes as 'Heaven' otherwise known as Little Creature's Brewery. 

It was exactly what we needed in our dopey, post-wedding haze. It was perfect.... moments of sitting silently with a beer, then moments of chatting, laughing and debriefing about the wedding. When a big storm rolled in over the water we happily realised we were trapped in Little Creature's for a couple more hours, then we stayed for a few more hours, then we tried to leave and got stuck in some sort of time vortex and had a few more beers. 

The afternoon and night slowly ticked by with beers, haloumi, chorizo, oysters and pizza. This photo is a fine example of what was on offer. Delicious....a perfect day. In the end Dan very, very generously shouted us all the beers and food. Thanks Dan! 

During our hours here we learnt a fair bit about Little Creatures....most interestingly the site used to be a crocodile farm. 

Steak and Cheese Sandwich (by G)

I had pretty big plans for dinner tonight but took an extended nap at an inopportune moment so I had to simplify somewhat.

I had some beefsteak defrosted so I seasoned them up, fried them off, sliced them up - then mixed the meat up in a pan with some 4 blend Mexican (sic) cheese.  To make the meat easier to eat I put it on some overtoasted bread, I also added some sriracha to make with the flavour.

This was not a great meal - it filled me up, so in that respect it was great.

Gourmet BBQ (by Biggs)

The day finally arrived! The day that my friend Mike married my friend Amanda.

It was an absolutely tremendous day held in some lovely, ramshackle cottages in Wellington Forest and was beautiful and relaxed and perfect but, we're here to talk about the food.

A wonderful, friendly, very hard-working couple run the cottages and do everything including the cooking. The Gourmet BBQ included steak, chicken skewers, sausages, potatoes, Waldorf salad and a spinach salad. Even though they had to cook about 60 steaks on a BBQ and serve them from a hotel pan they were cooked perfectly, the chicken was served with a mustard sauce and I think this was my first Waldorf salad experience. It was all really tasty but the relish was absolutely out of this world. I think after this trip I'm going to have a serious tomato relish addiction.

Other things we got to eat today were sausage rolls and party pies ('cause it's a party!), beautiful cheeses, figs, dips and an incredible terrine that one of the Uncles made.

Games, raffles, amazing speeches (if I do say so myself), 8 hours of dancing, fun people, lovely environment, beautiful flowers, yummy lollies and my favourite newly wedded couple ever.

Pork with Paratha Sauce (by G)

Two things dictated the direction of this dinner - the necessity to use up some of my pork surplus and a craving for paratha sauce (just like the one we had with Cheese & Mushroom Paratha on 26th June 2013).

The paratha sauce didn't turn out quite right because I didn't have some of the spices, so I used garam masala instead - I like cardamom, but it overpowered in this context. Also, for some reason, I added a little tamarind. The sourness was out of place.  Even so, the sauce was pretty good.

There's not much else to say about dinner - I fried a couple of pork chops (rind and bones oven roasted separately) and made a bit of a salad from tomato, cucumber, capsicum and radish.

There is quite a bit of sauce left so I'm going to cook up some toast and have at it. I also feel like I am going to go out tomorrow and get the required ingredients to do the sauce correctly so it will likely be featured again tomorrow.

Pig on the Spit Special (by Biggs)

Okay, up until now I've implied that I'm over in Western Australia and Wellington Forest because Amanda and Mike are getting married but the truth is that their friends have all actually gathered together to eat a pig on the spit. In fact, I'm fairly sure Amanda and Mike are only getting married for the excuse to have a pig on the spit.

Mike's Best Man Tim spent about two days preparing this. Hiring the spit, collecting the pig, cooking the stuffing, getting the pig on the spit, basing, basting, basting, oiling, salting and cooking for about 6 or 7 hours. Tim is AMAZING. What a guy! He did an incredible job and should be very very proud. The pork was absolutely delicious, cooked to perfection, just incredible. Probably the best meal I've had since G and I started the blog.

I ate my weight in crackling and pork and am the happiest person alive right now. Mike can not get the smile off his face. Neither can Tim.

There were also some lovely salads made by a friend of Amanda's and a weird Lord of the Flies moment that I'd rather not remember.

Excellent pig. Thank you Tim!

Tinned Tuna and Mackrel Salad (by G)

Fish is alleged to be brain food - I don't need to think for the next 3 days so that is not the reason for this dinner tonight. The main reason for this dinner is that I felt a little over-sausaged after last night's dinner.

I bought a tin of tuna in brine and one of mackerel, which I drained and added to a salad mix of lettuce, cucumber, yellow capsicum, celery, capers (why not) and radish. I mixed through some 'thousand island dressing', mayonnaise and lime juice - I also added a little salt and pepper.

It has been a long time since I've had tinned fish - I don't remember it being so unpleasant. It was mushy and, for some odd reason, after I had eaten it I COULD FEEL MY TEETH.  That is not normal - normally I cannot feel my teeth - if this is a result of improved brain function I don't want it.

I guess I feel better after dinner than I did last night but I would consider myself moderately displeased with dinner tonight.

Steak Sandwich (by Biggs)

Finally, the wedding is upon us! Today was a huge day of packing cars, heading down to Wellington Forest, unpacking cars, regrouping, shopping, setting up cabins and making new friends. 

Just down the road from the wedding venue was Moody Cow Brewery. Somehow Mike and Amanda had convinced the brewery folk to use their wedding as an opportunity to trial opening for dinner so both families and a few added extras headed there for dinner (and a few beers). 

There were five dinner options - fish, chicken, vegetarian, salad and steak. I opted for the cow at the Moody Cow and ordered a steak sandwich. It came with cheddar, bacon, balsimatic onions, spicy tomato relish, lettuce, tomato, mustard and aioli.....and chips....and beer. 

I tried a few Grunta's Original Ales - bold, hoppy, malty - and a few Pale Ales. 

It was a great night of comradery and friendship accompanied by the friendly pub dog. 

Brats and Mashes (by G)

German Bratwursts - there is no better reward for two exhausting days of work following a 4 day weekend.

My plan was to have my bratwursts with two types of mash - which is kind of what occurred. The difficulty was that I was so looking forward to the sausages that I didn't take enough trouble with the sides.

For one, I only had one small potato so one of the mashes became a potato and cauliflower mash, which got a bit soggy and became more of a puree - I added a lot of parmesan to try and thicken it up a bit, instead it became strangely umami.

I didn't chop the pumpkin up small enough prior to roasting so only a few of the smaller pieces were soft enough to mash when it was dinner time - hence the quantity.

Despite this the bratwursts were very good. If there were more than 4 in a pack I would likely be dead right now... or at least very physically ill. I have no self-control when it comes to tubesteak.

 

In the course of my research I discovered something called the BRAT diet - BRAT is an acronym of Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast. It is a treatment for diahorrea not a diet for subsisting soley on German sausages.



Pizzas (by Biggs)

Today was family day as most members of Amanda's family gradually arrived throughout the morning. It was exiting and fun with lots of chatting, lots of laughing and lots of food. We went down to the river for a picnic (chickens supplied by the dubious Chicken Treat across the road).

Later in the day we all decided to go with the best dinner option when you've got a large group of people - take away pizza. There were ordered from a little cafe down the road and were absolutely delicious. We had a vegetarian, a hot and spicy one, an Indian pizza and one satisfyingly called 'Mary's Little Lamb'.

Great pizzas - the Indian one was well and truly the most popular. I'm going to try and replicate it soon at home.

Calamari and Chips and Potato Cake (by Biggs)

After a day of wedding chores us East-coasters were pretty keen to have a beer and watch the sunset over the ocean so we headed to Cottesloe. A walk on the beach, some shark-spotting, two beers, one gin, one sunset (over ocean) later and we were ready for some dinner. Mike and Amanda sensibly decided on leftovers but I decided on take-away fish and chips.

I was very happy when the chippy offered me vinegar but was disappointed in the potato cake (that's a potato scallop for you East-coasters). Oh, and when I say fish I actually mean calamari. I LOVE calamari.

A few beers, one Best Lady speech written and I'm ready for bed.

Corned Beef Hash Tortillas (by G)

This dinner is stretching the tortilla theme a bit too far.  It was based on using up some left overs. The corned beef is from the other night and the spicy onion jam was left over last night.

The hash was made by cubing up the left over corned beef and frying it with some pre-cooked potato, carrot and corn. I added some dried onion flakes and some garlic powder to give a bit more flavour.

The tortillas were quite weird - they are white corn tortillas from a packet. I think they were supposed to be fried and folded to make hard shell tacos - I just dry-fried them in a pan so they were part chewy part crispy, which was not really what I was looking for. The final result was a bit like a tostada.

You may notice in the photo that I had another topping - it was a mix of diced tomato and chopped parsley to lend a little freshness.

As previously stated, the corned beef was excellent and nothing I did to it tonight did anything to ruin that flavour.

Pork, pork, pork (by G)

Well, if you had to judge this dinner by the photo you'd think it was very unpleasant.  Fortunately that was not the case.

Oddly it seems I've been regularly buying pork chops but not actually eating them so I have to use some of them up some time soon.  One of the problems with bone-in pork chops is that the bone generally takes longer to cook up than the meat and if you put it in the oven the meat tends to overcook. After a critical analysis of the pork chop it occurred to me that I could take the rind and bone off the chop and cook them separately.

I seasoned everything with salt and pepper, pan fried the meat and oven roasted the rind and bones. 

I thought onion jam would go quite well with the pork so I chopped 3 onions, caramelised them with some salt and thyme then added some brown sugar and balsamic vinegar to jam it up. Oh, I also added a couple of jalapeno chillies to add a little kick.

Pork and onion jam is not quire a meal so I thick cut a potato, blanched it in water, pan fried it and oven baked it to crispy perfection.  I also oven roasted some pumpkin and carrot (sprinkled with cumin) then tried to mash it with some vegetable stock. Unfortunately the carrot was not exactly tender and in an attempt to get it mashed I had a little accident and managed to burn myself with spots of volcanically hot mashed pumpkin.

The potatoes were great, as was the pumpkin but the highlight was the pork bones. I'm seriously going to buy up a bunch of pork bones, oven roast them and gnaw myself silly... stay tuned for that gastronomic delight.



Spag Bog (by Biggs)

The agreement when the ladies left the household this morning to spend the day in Swan Valley wineries was that the gents would go fishing, we would go to the vineyards and together we would provide dinner - ladies gather the wine, gents gather the fish.

The gents did not gather the fish.

In absence of fish Amanda very generously agreed to make up a spaghetti for anyone who was in the house that evening. Turns out there were 13 people were in the house that evening so a massive vat of sauce had to be cooked up. Many veges, many meats and a few cans of tomatoes and dinner was on it's way.

The difficult thing was that 13 people meant 13 opinions on how to make spag bog. Every time someone wandered through the kitchen they would meddle. I'm still not sure who added all the water to the sauce but.....how many people does it take to make a magic spag bog? 13!

I personally put myself in charge of seasoning and stirring. Critical to the final product I think.

Beef Rib Roast and Vegetables (by G)

Being Sunday I thought I should go to a bit of effort with dinner - there was a beef rib roast in the freezer, that (along with some roasted vegetables) seemed just like the kind of thing one should eat on a Sunday.

I heavily seasoned and pan fried the rib roast until brown on each side then stuck it in a slow oven for about 3 hours. With about 45 minutes to go I chucked in some chopped carrots, pumpkin, corn and onion with salt, pepper and fresh thyme for flavour.

When everything was just about cooked I reduced some stock, red wine and butter for a sauce. I kind of over-reduced it so it turned out to be very syrupy but flavourful.

Our oven may not be too bright but it did a good job on the meat and vegetables tonight. The pumpkin was particularly flavourful.

BBQ Chips, Beer and Chocolate then Chinese (by Biggs)

Today we were in recovery mode. Bacon and eggs for breakfast and hair-of-the-dog before venturing down to the river for a BBQ in the afternoon. As a result no one was much in the mood for dinner so while Amanda dropped her friend Karina to the train station Mike and I cracked open a bag of chips, a few more beers and a Margaret River Chocolate Company Easter Egg the Easter Bunny (Karina) had brought me. We also classed dinner up with the Peroni beer glasses we were gifted when we bought a carton.

 

Dinner was done, we were settling in for some couch time and I started writing my blog post when Amanda bounded through the door with "dirty chow" from their local Chinese dive. It was life-giving. Especially the free (giant!) bag of prawn-crackers!

Lettuce Wrapped Pork Thingies (by G)

I got some pork mince out of the freezer with not much of a plan of what to do with it. In the end I decided to just add a whole bunch of flavours and hope for the best.

To the mince I added a lot of grated ginger and garlic, a bunch of coriander stalks, a red onion, a jalapeño chilli, salt, soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar, fish sauce and ketjap manis... phew!

After letting the flavours mingle for a little while I rolled the mince into little turds and fried them until correctly caramelised.

Just for fun I cut some cos lettuce squares, strips of carrot and cucumber and wrapped everything together and ate it.

The pork thingies were amazingly delicious. Eating all 16 of them in one sitting may have been a bit of a gastro-intestinal miss-step.

Beef Burger (by Biggs)

Tonight (and today) was spent pub crawling around Freemantle starting at Little Creatures Brewery and finishing at some awful grotty megaclub. Somewhere around dinner time we ordered some food to line our stomachs. I'm not sure where we were, I don't know how we got there but at the time this burger was seriously required.

It was tasty and juicy served with real chips, a tomato salsa and a pickle. The bun was a little sweet and American, very very soft but pretty good. The patties was disconcertingly rare. I don't mind a rare piece of beef but I don't think the rissole is the cut of beef that can handle that treatment. In saying that, I scarfed the whole thing in about 0.63 seconds.

Colin's Beef Ragu (by Biggs)

I arrived in Perth in the wee wee hours of this morning. It was immediately announced that Amanda's Dad was going to make is a Ragu for dinner and I knew I was home (note: not actually my home).

Sure, throughout the day we had some hot cross buns, an awesome coffee from Jac and Bean and a picnic lunch of salami and salad breadrolls by a lake but it was about at this point that Father Colin started getting anxious to be by a slow cooker and get his ragu dancing.

Tonight we were having dinner at Mike's sister's beautifully renovated house. She is generously allowing interstate interlopers to stay in the lead up to the wedding while her and her family are away for Easter. The kitchen is brand new complete with an induction cooktop that took some wrangling but once that was sorted Colin seemed to make himself at home.

Five hours later Colin was disappointed in the cook on the meat but two things...1) he was stuck with some shitty Coles blade steak, if it wasn't going to break down after that amount of time I don't think it was ever going to happen, and 2) dinner was delicious.

When I went back for seconds the flavours had really intensified.... especially the garlic, and the rosemary Colin stole from a neighbors garden.

Corned Beef Salad (by G)

After eating a lot of cheese last night - and another light snack of cheese today I thought maybe it would be a good idea to have some vegetables.  Just vegetables is not too much fun so I decided to cook up some corned beef to have with them.

I simmered the raw corned beef in water with onion, celery, carrot, black pepper corns, coriander seeds, Szechuan pepper corns, caraway seeds and fresh thyme for an hour and a half - then chilled it.

I didn't make too much effort with the salad - just cucumber, celery, cos lettuce and carrot.  I had meant to add some tomato as well but forgot, or perhaps I subliminally didn't want to add anything that doesn't begin with a 'c'.  Apparently I don't have any mustard pickle or mayonnaise so I served the salad with thousand island dressing, which was very successful.

This dinner may well have been a life saver, and the corned beef was excellent.

A Wheel of Cheese (by G)

Though Biggs is on leave for many, many days, I still get a long 4 day weekend.  In the spirit of a mini-holiday I celebrated with cheese - lovingly formed into the wheel you see below.

I do have a slight obsession/compulsion to have even numbers of things (like eggs and such) I've always thought that you should have an odd number of cheeses. Naturally my instincts are correct.

Tonight I had a smoked cheddar, Red Leicester, a blue cheese, a brie and gouda. At the hub of my wheel is chicken liver pate (also shop bought).

While the cheese was very satisfying I think I will have something a little healthier tomorrow in order to survive the long weekend.

Airport Mee Goreng (by Biggs)

Finally, holidays are upon me. Or, I'm upon them. Dinner was at the airport tonight before my flight to Perth to visit Amanda and Mike and witness them be wed.

'Wok On Air' Mee Goreng noodles were on the menu and I was thrilled to see a selection of beers also available. I plan to try every one. The meat in the noodles was suspiciously suspicious yet suspiciously delicious. If that was a pig it sure was a fatty one.

The cafe had those pub buzzer things to let you know when your meal was ready but I was warned not to venture more than a meter away as a "huge airplane had scrambled with the electrical signal". I sure hope it doesn't scramble with my plane's navigation signal because I know there are some pretty special meals waiting for me in Perth.

Shellaroni Cheese (by G)

I thought, as it was the last time I would be cooking for Biggs for a couple of weeks, I should let her choose what to have for dinner - she chose pork and noodles.  I was going to do that but decided not to.

I had some multi-coloured shell (and other) shaped pasta left over from the other day - also I had some pre-chopped pizza bacon (apparently that's a thing) so I decided to macaroni cheese.

Not much to this recipe. Fry up an onion and a shallot with some pizza bacon and garlic. Season with pepper and paprika. Boil up the shell pasta. Make a roux with butter and flour, add milk - then cheese (I got a 4 blend pasta cheese that went very stringy when I mixed everything together).

Once everything was mixed together I dumped it in a tray, topped it with cheese and baked in the oven for about half an hour.  Instead of garlic bread I fried some flour tortillas and brushed them with garlic butter.

I was pretty pleased with dinner - it was not too unflavourful and not too rich. I probably had about 2 forkfuls too many so I feel a bit queasy now.

Bird's Nest Yakitori (by Biggs)

Tonight was the last chance for Bonnie and I to get together before she disappears to travel the world for a few months and I disappear to Western Australia for a couple of weeks. We were both pretty grumpy being so tantalisingly close (yet no where near close enough) to holidays. But I'll tell you what will put you in a good mood - beer and yakitori.

I've been wanting to go to Bird's Nest since it opened. Now having experienced it I regret not going every night possible.

Bonnie and I simply went for the seven skewer set menu of: Tenderloin with Wasabi Mayonnaise, Thigh with Shallots, Thigh with lemon, Tomato wrapped in pork belly, Chicken Tail, Chicken Wing, Chicken Meatballs. All so very, very good.

We also ordered some edamame and were delivered some complimentary chicken soup. The photo could have been more thoughtfully done to capture the whole meal but I was too busy eating.

Next time I go I'm definitely going to try the full menu including liver, hearts, arteries and cartilage.

And of course.... TORIKAWA. I regret not having torikawa for dessert.

I 100% recommend that all 100% of you 100% try this restaurant.

Tortillas con Huevos Rancheros (by G)

Tortilla Tuesday on my own tonight so I decided to do something a bit simple - huevos rancheros, Spanish for rancher's eggs.

I don't do much ranching these days but I managed to fry off some onions, garlic, capsicum and chorizo (that was my inspired addition) - mix in some tinned tomatoes and sriracha and top with a couple of eggs. I was going to add some more huevos - glad I didn't because there was more than enough ranchero to fill me up (with ta side of packet tortillas).

All-in-all I'm one happy gaucho.

Spinach and Mushroom Cannelloni (by G)

I'm trying to clear out the freezer, which meant using up the last of the bolognaise sauce I made and froze some weeks ago.

Rather than just mix it through some cooked pasta I wanted to do something a bit more interesting - I went with cannelloni. The plan was to do a Spinach and Ricotta cannelloni filling (classic) and smother it in bolognaise sauce before baking (genius). The bolognaise was my idea for adding flavour to what is, essentially, a flavourless combination.  My other plan was to mix mushroom duxellle laced with garlic and thyme through the ricotta and spinach mix to add even more flavour.

The mushroom plan didn't work out too well, the filling was still quite bland but the whole combination was pretty edible.

Lamb Chops and Mediterranean Roast Vegetables (by Biggs)

Tonight is the last night I'll be cooking for G before I go on holidays so I wanted it to be a Sunday night special. I knew I wanted to cook lamb chops but wasn't sure what to serve them with. I had lots of different ideas but in the end turned to the internet and asked it about vegetable recipes, I decided this Mediterranean Roast Vegetable recipe looked pretty good.

I oven roasted some butternut pumpkin, red capsicum, red onion, olives and rosemary for about an hour then added some crumbled blue cheese right at the end. The green olives were Moroccan flavoured  which really added a satisfyingly spicy kick. A great dinner for this rainy night.

We might have a little bit more blue cheese for dessert too.

Hamburger (by Biggs)

The dinner that G cooked looked pretty good but I was having my own good time over at Cam and Liz's house.

We spent the afternoon drinking beer and eating chips in the sunshine then, it was BBQ time. Cam cooked up some wagyu beef patties from the Super Butcher (worth Googling) while Liz prepped some bread rolls, spinach, tomatoes, avocado, carrots and cheese inside and scoured the fridge for condiments.

My condiment of choice was a tomato onion relish that was a Christmas gift from one of Cam's work colleagues that really jazzed up my burger.

I have a fondness for Japanese cows so was really on-board with with dinner. Whilst these cows may not have exactly been from Japan I'm sure they at least spoke Japanese. Actually, I hope these cows were from Margaret River. I've heard they feed their wagyu cows with red wine.

I guess we added red wine to ours anyway by drinking gallons of it after dinner.

Rosemary and Garlic Salt Roasted Lamb Shanks (by G)

I've done a lot of things with lamb shanks in the past so I was looking for something new to do. I've wanted to salt crust something for a while and lamb shanks seemed like the perfect thing for that.  After looking around the dark web (no, wait - just the regular web) I found a recipe on BBC food by Tom Kerridge for lamb shanks roasted in salt dough so I did that. Basically I smothered the shanks in minced garlic and wrapped them in a dough made from flour, salt, rosemary, egg white and a little water - then popped them into a low oven for 4 1/2 hours, then rested them for half an hour before serving.

I basically stuck to BBC Tom's recipe with pickled cabbage and an onion salad (with rocket instead of nasturtium) - I think tom has a bit of a thing for onion because the salad consisted of regular onion, red onion, spring onion and garlic chives (they are a bit onion-y). There was chilli in there as well - that must have been a misprint.  I did stray from Tom's mustard mayo recipe in that I didn't add any sugar - that would be very, very weird. I'm glad I didn't add sugar because the pickled cabbage was already quite sweet. My only addition to the meal was boiled potato...

The lamb came out salty and quite flavourful - I liked it, but it was quite rich - you wouldn't want to eat too much (though Biggs did disappear to The Gap some hours ago and has not yet returned and I will probably put her portion down as well if she doesn't turn up).

Chicken Omelette (by Biggs)

Fi and I used to have a fairly serious Chicken Omelette Rice (C.O.R) habit when she worked in the city and we would head to Himawari on an almost a weekly basis. It's been a while (over a year according to the search I just did on the blog) since we've been but we had to do a communal chore in the city tonight so took the opportunity to go. Little did we know the last time we went, would be our last time. Horror of all horrors - it's closed. Fi thinks it's moved to Sunnybank be we weren't in Sunnybank tonight so went into a panic.

Fortunately there were plenty of little cheap and cheerful cafes in the same arcade and we chose a Thai one at which the menu mentioned chicken, omelettes and rice. In fact, when it came down to it, we both ordered Thai Chicken Omelettes (T.C.O) and a side of rice.

We also ordered take-away for Dan - a slow cooked pork with gailan. That sounded pretty good too.

I certainly enjoyed dinner and polished mine off as well as helping Fi finish hers. In fact, I ate it so quickly I was half-way through before I remembered to take a photo for the blog.

Pork and Noodles (by G)

Cooking for myself again tonight so I settled on pork rashers (which I simply salted and peppered and oven baked) and noodles (which I boiled and added fried red onion, garlic, green chilli, ketjap manis and chicken stock to then topped with packet fried garlic and peanuts).

The noodles were not too flavourful - I think because there were too many of them with not enough flavour added. The pork rashers were flavourful but not the right kind of flavourful - they tasted a bit rancid.  My suspicion is that they have been in the back of the freezer for a little too long and I will be terribly ill later tonight. The odd taste didn't stop me from eating the pork so I guess I deserve to be wretchedly unwell.

Rougail Sausage (by G)

I was watching Foodie Planet with Julie Andrieu on the weekend - she was on le Reunion Island, France and ate sausage stew (among other things).   I like sausages so I decided to make it for dinner - I was going to wait for a time when Biggs was not home, but it looked too good not to share.

The recipe I downloaded was a bit vague on quantities and timings but the general idea is to prick and blanch some sausages, fry them with some onion, then simmer slowly with the tomato rougail (tomatoes, garlic, ginger, chilli (I used habanero rather than bird pepper - whatever that is), lime zest (regular, not the kaffir called for in the recipe)).

The recipe calls for mixed legumes to be mixed with turmeric and fresh thyme to top the rice, I got a can of 4 bean salad and tossed that, with the turmeric and thyme, in with the sausages because I'm lazy and only wanted to use one pot.  I had to use dried thyme because I could not find the fresh stuff in the supermarket (we are supposed to be living in a democracy but apparently not everyone is entitled to fresh thyme as they are in France - the land of the free).

I served pepper on the edge of the plate as the recipe said you must always do.

I was dubious about the ginger but this recipe turned out to be quite the cracker or il n'était pas trop mal as they say in the France.

Asparagus and Halloumi (by Biggs)

My friend Kylie cooked me a version of this meal during the festive season last year. Given we're practically through this year already I thought enough time had passed to showcase this puppy again.

Halloumi, salad, asparagus, bacon and bread. Delicious.

Noteworthy is that the bread was fried off with some garlic and rosemary - an old trick I picked up so long ago I can't remember where I picked it up. Equally noteworthy is that I fried the asparagus in the bacon fat.

I intended to go up to Black Pearl in my lunch break today to buy some nice halloumi but forgot and headed out for sushi with some colleagues instead. As a result I just bought the cheapest stuff possible from the supermarket. It turned out to be the nicest halloumi I've ever had - creamy, lovely texture and only a little bit of squeak.

MYOT (by G)

I've bought 3 kinds of rice in the past couple of weeks so I thought it was about time I used some in a consumable capacity.

With a bit of forethought I saved the non-breast parts of the chicken from the weekend - it was already cooked so I simmered some legs, breasts and wings in onion, garlic, habanero chilli, cumin, paprika, tinned tomato and stock - just to give them flavour.

After about half an hour of simmering I removed the chicken and added some rice and simmered that for half an hour. Then to finish the rice I stirred through some fresh chilli, coriander and Mexican (sic) cheese. The chicken went under the grill to give it some colour and packet tortillas went into the pan to soften.

After all that I added some sour cream - hell, why not? There were already about a million ingredients in there already - one more couldn't hurt. That said, I did forget the lime for the side.

MYOT stands for 'Make Your Own Tortillas', in-case you were wondering.

Pork and Potato (by Biggs)

G and I both had a very very late night watching the Formula One so were a bit worse for wear today.

Whatever was for dinner was going to have to be very easy in the making. I was so tired I almost felt hungover even though I didn't have a drop of alcohol yesterday (rare for a Sunday) so I decided to focus on food I like eating when I am hungover - pork and bacon. You'll notice there's no bacon in this photo....that's because I couldn't handle waiting at the deli counter while two retirees dithered about buying a cube of feta at a time. After abandoning the bacon plan I decided mushrooms were a good substitute.

Then I went to get a bag of peas but somehow came out of the grocery store with a bag of potato things and some packet gravy. Dinner planning done.

I was frustrated when I got home and noticed how thick the pork was (about 2 inches) and realised how much effort would go into cooking it.....render off the fat while the pan was heating, fry on high heat to brown it, turn the heat down to cook through, dump it in the oven for good luck and some cutting board time to rest. Far more effort than I was originally committed to.

Dinner was fine. It's done and that's the main thing.

Hainanese Chicken Rice (by G)

This is not the first time chicken rice has been on the blog - I had it when I was last in Singapore. I've had a chicken in the freezer for about a month with not much idea of what to do with it - finally I decided to share the joy of chicken rice (mostly because I saw it on Food Safari recently).

I won't go into detail about how I made dinner, I pretty much just followed the recipe on the SBS web-site.

I was pretty disappointed with the end result - the sauces weren't quite right and I tried the absorption method to cook the rice which meant (as is usual when I use that method) that the rice was not cooked through. The chicken was cooked pretty perfectly - but I didn't manage to get much flavour into it.

I don't blame the recipe - I don't know what to blame. I just find it a bit galling that you can get a much better version just 6155 kilometres away, for a couple of dollars.

Beer Battered Fish and Chips (by Biggs)

I had half a bottle of tartar sauce burning a hole in my pocket and the only thing I could think to serve it with was some fish and chips. I get a bit nervous at the thought of cooking fish, particularly battering fish but if you're going to fail you best have some tartar sauce to back it up.

I was at the markets this morning for a coffee on the river with some friends and took the opportunity to visit the fishmonger. I was specifically looking for whiting but there were nice little boxes of gar for $5 so I went with that. I asked my friend how many fillets would be appropriate for two big eaters and he suggested 8 which I thought seemed reasonable. 15 fillets was definitely too many.

There's no batter option than a beer batter so I then had to take myself up to the bottle-o this afternoon (because I'd already drunk all the beer from yesterday's visit) to source the second secret ingredient.

I was really happy with the batter and the fry on the fish and was really happy that at the last minute I remembered I had bought lemon to go with dinner.

I was a little disappointed that, in the end, there turned out to be only about a tablespoon of tartar sauce left....especially given we have piles and piles of fish left to eat.

Dumplings Two Ways (by G)

Tonight I wanted to make dumplings - wanted is too strong a word perhaps because it is a bit of a dick around. I made dumplings two ways - not intentionally, there was just a bit of a hitch along the way.

I started out with half a kilo of mince and 32 gyoza wrappers. I divided the mince in two and added spring onions, grated garlic and ginger, rice wine vinegar, white pepper, soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, sugar and coriander to one half.

To the other half of the pork I added grated ginger and garlic, cabbage (which I salted and squeezed the water out of), spring onion, miso paste, dried chilli and a little sugar.

Then the time consuming chore of folding little lumps of mince into the dumpling wrappers. That went okay, the difficulty came with the cooking. My plan was to cook them all gyoza style, fried then steamed - one lot first and then the other then steam them all together for a little bit to get them all warm at the same time. After frying, then steaming the first lot of dumplings I found that they had all stuck to the pan and were effectively ruined - so I did what I always do in such circumstances - take a vigorous spatula to the whole thing and add some soy sauce. It turned out as a bit of a mince noodle dish.

To avoid a repetition of that little disaster I decided to boil the second lot of dumpling - that worked out okay.

The disaster dumpling turned out to be the best, probably because the addition of soy sauce gave them more moisture and flavour. The others were a little dry but not too bad.

Shepard's Pie Potatoes (by Biggs)

My friend Kylie told me about this little gem a while ago and I thought it was a genius idea. Shepard's Pie but inside a potato.

First I bought the biggest potatoes I could find and baked them. They were so big they took about an hour and a half to bake through well. I scooped out the innards, filled them with savoury mince, topped them with mashed potato innards and then grilled some cheese on top.....that's how it's done.

I was hoping the savoury mince would be a bit more savoury but despite adding stock, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, parsley, basil, sage, thyme, salt and pepper it was still a little unexciting.

We both decided to add a little sriarcha for good luck. We sure are lucky folk.

Bacon Hock Tortillas (by G)

As the one year anniversary of the blog I thought I should go to a bit of effort for dinner tonight. Not a lot of effort, just a bit.

Biggs seems to like bacon flavoured things so I thought bacon hock tortillas might be an interesting idea. I don't think it is a real thing, nor would I care to check if it is.

All I did is take one bacon hock and simmer it in water for about 2 1/2 hours - then chop the meat up for serving. I thought maybe bacon hock could be a bit greasy so I made a Roy Choi inspired sauce and Roy Choi inspired Korean style coleslaw.  I say Roy Choi inspired because I wrote all the ingredients down but got a bit confused which ingredients went with which other things.

The sauce I made by blending garlic, ginger, coriander, red onion, salt, lime juice and rice wine vinegar.

The coleslaw I made by mixing soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, Korean red bean paste, sugar, ginger and garlic and stirring though some left over packet coleslaw (with some fine chopped red onion mixed through).  I was going to make the flour tortillas, but that would have been a bit too much effort - even for an anniversary meal.

I was enjoying the complex flavours of this one - until Biggs pointed out that it tasted like a ham and coleslaw wrap - which it did.  That's not necessarily a bad thing though.

Margherita Pizza (by Biggs)

Tonight, perhaps in an attempt to avoid making tortillas, I demanded that Fi invite me over for dinner. Being the lovely obliging friend that she is, and despite the fact her kitchen is currently ripped out (in its entirety) for renovations, she invited me over for dinner. When I asked if I could bring anything she asked me to bring one cup of plain flour which got my mind racing about what would be for dinner.....'I wonder if you can cook pizza on a BBQ' I messaged her. It turns out you can cook (fabulous!) pizza on a BBQ.

Fi and Dan have been making great use of a $10 second-hand eBay bread maker for the past several months but it recently gave it's last knead before the ball-bearings disintegrated into a dough mix and they had to upgrade to a $50 second-hand eBay bread maker that mixed tonight's pizza dough to perfection.

After snacks of olives, white Castello cheese and some sourdough bread Fi topped the pizza dough with a simple concoction of tomatoes, basil (fresh from the garden), artichokes and cheese and popped the pizza in the BBQ for 20 minutes or so of us hovering around it speculating if 'just a few minutes more' was a good plan or not. It was a good plan. Dinner was delicious.

Dan was out of town for work which means I was honoured with the use of his childhood painted laminated plastic plate. His featured some finely sketched aliens in a colourful space scene.....or is it martians if they have antenna? Either way, super cool and made the pizza taste even more swell.

A few glasses of crisp white wine, a debrief about the frustrations of life and in bed by midnight full of doughy goodness.

Sausage Tortillas (by G)

Dining alone? Do what I do - eat your body weight in sausages, but be creative when doing it.

On the eve of the one year anniversary of Tortilla Tuesday I think sausage tortillas reflects a few of the elements common to a lot of dinners over the past year - it's a tortilla; it contains sausages; it is an indication of how lazy the cook felt when making it.

The flour tortillas came from a packet, the sausages were pan fried, the refried beans were de-canned and re-microwaved, the red stuff is sriracha, the coriander is just for show, it didn't taste as good as it looks, I ate 8 of them. That's about all you need to know about this one...