BBQ, Rocket and Feta Salad with Home-made Bread Rolls (by Biggs)

My last day of leave today so I thought I'd take advantage of having the afternoon free to knead dough and light a fire. Two very satisfying activities I'm sure you'd agree.

I love a BBQ so went right ahead and grilled some high quality meats for dinner. I took some time this afternoon to wander to the fancy butcher down the road and select something special - rump steaks that my friend Fi is convinced are the best in Brisbane (and, trust me, her and her husband have done some serious research in this area) and some chili sausages.

Somehow G reverse psychologised (?) me into baking bread. I can't remember how this unfolded exactly but we were talking about bread, he assumed I was going to try making some, I refused, but later thought....Hell yeah I'm gunna make some bread. I'm gunna make the shit out of some bread.

I didn't exactly make the shit out of some bread but I sure went pretty close. Delightfully light, lovely crust, perfectly cooked. Just a wee bit too much sugar. I'll ease off on feeding the yeast quite so much next time and think these babies will reach perfection.

The salad was an exact replica of the one that was served with my Rockhampton steak a couple of months ago - rocket, carrot, spring onions and feta.  

Sausage and Salad Lettuce Cups (by G)

Biggs and I had Romanian skinless sausages for breakfast and Serbian skinless sausages for lunch - I was hoping to complete the trifecta by having generic supermarket brand skinless sausages for dinner. Sadly skinless sausages were not available but I did find some tiny lamb sausages in the sausage section that caught my fancy.

I fried them up and served them with some lettuce cups and chopped up vegetables with a dash of tartare sauce (to balance out our meatcentricness of our recent dietary intake). Along with chilli, cucumber, onion and coriander I also added mint. I'm beginning to think mint is not as unpleasant as I once though. The sausages were extraordinarily good.

Burgers (by Biggs)

Today was spent trying many many many beers at ArmaKEGgon. Yep, that's right, ArmaKEGgon. So dinner was a direct result of the resulting state of being. It was burgers from a local burger franchise.

Pizza, Pizza (by G)

The household has a technical pizza ban on at the moment, but fuck it. I bought a spicy salami ('The Godfather') at the markets the other day and didn't want to waste it entirely on snacking. Being Friday I was not willing to go to too much effort. Salami, capers, whole black olives, tomato paste and cheese on store bought pizza bases - excellent.

Moonlight Magic Dinner Dance Dinner (by Biggs)

What's a Moonlight Magic Dinner Dance you ask? Only the best night of the year. A big night of dinner and dancing....like, lots of dancing....a serious, serious amount of dancing. I'd love to upload photos of us killing it on the dancefloor (we killed it on the dancefloor!) but this is a dinner blog.

The photo of dinner I will admit looks awful but I was at the big kids table so had to take the photo on the sly without Government and Board big wigs noticing. Dinner was in fact quite tasty. A simple chicken with peas and mushroom and figs. I wasn't too excited about the figs at first but they were charred to perfection so added a nice bitter edge. Aparantly the alternate alternate drop of shortribs was the winner on the night but I was happy with my chicken.

Dessert was photographed a lot more succesfully - I'd had enough champagne by this point not to care what people thought. I was a passionfruit something something.

Pork Belly and Fondant Potatoes (by Biggs)

I wanted to redeem myself after my terrible lamb effort the other night and cook a Sunday roast. Sunday roast on a Thursday I hear you ask?! Well, I'm on a few days annual leave at the moment so every day is Sunday for me.

Pretty simple really, jam a pork belly in an oven for several hours and dinner was done. I did have to slip the crackle under the grill for a minute to finish it off but all round fairly successful meat cookery.

What was less successful were the fondant potatoes. Until this morning I didn't know what a fondant potato was. Turns out it's a chunk of potato fried crisp on each side then cooked off in stock. I did that but sort of burnt them at the beginning then found them sort of soggy in the end. As you can see I managed to sort of burn the carrots as well.

I really am a better cook than this may allude.

Korean Pancake (by G)

To try and pep up vegetarian Wednesday a bit I turned to the Koreans. I found a kale pancake recipe (Kaeil-jangtteok technically) which was suitably lacking in meat.

The pancake batter is made by mixing kale, onion, green and red chilli, flour, hot bean paste, regular bean paste and a bit of water. From the photo you can tell that I overbrowned the pancakes maybe just a touch. Just pancakes is not a meal so I paired it with some kimchi noodles (I'm pretty lazy so let's not get our hopes up too high). The packet noodles were some Korean flavour - I didn't pay too much attention - which I mixed through with some chopped kimchi. There may have been some dehydrated meat with the noodles, there were definitely some grey lumps that could possibly once have belonged to an animal.

I was disappointed with the pancakes, but they were vegetarian so my hopes were not high to begin with.

Chorizo Salad with Corn Chips (by Biggs)

I had a bit of a disaster the other night so thought I'd play it safe tonight with flavours I know we love. I made a simple salad with corn, kidney beans, red onion, avocado, coriander, lime, tomatoes and chorizo. The recipe called for four chorizo sausages. I couldn't find them in the grocery store so instead went with two proper chorizos and two proper sausages. The salad was served with cheesy corn chips and was delicious. It was also nice and refreshing. A good thing given given it's about 30 degrees in Queensland right now.

Success!

Pasta and Meatballs (by G)

Crusted Lamb with Vegetables (by Biggs)

Disaster! I originally wanted crumbed cutlets for dinner but was going to the good deli to pick up some nice meat.....too nice to crumb so instead I crusted it with some pistachios and dukkah. The lamb was a nice butterflied lamb leg - good quality, price to match but I very much undercooked it which was a bit confronting. 

Then, I somehow managed to undercook the potatoes as well and then......overcooked the carrots. Sigh! Even G's magic butter couldn't fix the situation. G and I seemed to silently agree to choke it down and never speak of it again. 

Ploughman's Lunch for Dinner (by G)

I love a ploughman's but, not being a ploughman, I rarely get the opportunity to eat it.  I don't know how traditional a bacon hock terrine is but it is one of my specialties so I decided to make it as one element. It's pretty easy - boil a couple of bacon hocks with vegetables and aromats until they are good and tender then chop them up and mix through parsley, capers, mustard (I used dijonaise), a punt-load of butter. Next you're supposed to line a loaf tin with pancetta put the hock mix inside and weigh it down in the fridge, instead I decided to roll it into a sausage shape - which worked out brilliantly.

The only other thing I made on the ploughman's plate was the scotched eggs, using de-cased sausages. Everything else came from a packet - some rustic bread, cheddar cheese, pickled onions and cornichons. The scotched eggs were a bit lacking in flavour, otherwise dinner was fit for a ploughman.

All-I-Can-Eat Sushi (by G)

Biggs was away so I had no dinner making responsibilities - I decided to let someone else do the hard work. I haven't been to a sushi train in ages so decided to go down that route.

There's a sushi train up the road that Biggs used to frequent frequently, she's taken me along a couple of times for 'all-you-can-eat-sushi'. I can eat a lot so all-you-can-eat is pretty economical for me.

Turns out that, though they haven't changed the name or anything, the sushi train place has undergone a change of management - no more all-you-can-eat. I didn't realise that before I'd already sat down and tried to order all-you-can-eat. I felt a bit of a dill asking for it, especially as the waitress had no knowledge of the concept of all-you-can-eat. She tried to interpret it in her head to a potential dish I wanted, 'okonomiyaki?'. 'No, don't worry about it'.  She went and got a pen and paper and made me write it down. She sounded out all the words but still could not fathom what I was after.

All plates are now $3.50 and I ate quite a few platesful - as well as a small salmon belly sashimi platter. Pictured are some crab claw croquettes and spicy chicken pieces.

After about an hour I had eaten all I could eat, it cost me about triple what I had budgeted for but the food was pretty good and I didn't have to cook anything.

Beer and a Pie (by Biggs)

Another big work week. After flying in late from Cairns I was in the mood just to sit in front of the cricket with beer and a pie so....I did just that. A questionable diner perhaps but exactly what I wanted. Even the sad middle-aged guy working at the corner store criticised my dining choice. It makes me wonder what he knows about the pie that I don't.

Goong (by Biggs)

I like Cairns and happen to be here for work today. It's an absolutely spectacular place in terms of reefs and rainforests but....full of tourists and therefore crappy tourist restaurants fill the strip where my hotel is. So, I wasn't sure about what to do for dinner. Luckily my colleague was keen to take me out to one of her favourite local haunts - a Korean place called Goong.

After she'd (accidentally?) walked me into a sensual Korean massage parlour she remembered the restaurant was upstairs and my hopes were buoyed as I was led up a dingy set of stairs. My theory is that awesome Asian restaurants are always located at the top of a set of dingy stairs. And I was not wrong. Goong is awesome.

Cheap decor, twinkly fairy lights everywhere, no one seemed to speak a word of English, buzzers on the table and all their energy put where it should be....into creating big bowls of delicious food. This place was exactly my sort of place.

We both ordered Bi Bim Bap - mixed rice with shredded beef, lots of veges, seaweed, egg, something I couldn't identify that tasted excellent, chilli bean paste and a side of sea weed, kim chi, mushrooms and soup. Just perfect. And, when you ask for a glass of wine here they fill a huge glass to the brim. Did I mention this was my sort of place? Thanks Sally!

Loco Moco and Kimchi Rice (by G)

One of the enduring influences on what I cook is the show 'Man finds Food'. I was watching it the other day and saw one restaurant had a secret menu item that paired Hawaiian loco moco with kimchi rice. I decided to do that.

To make the rice I just cooked some rice and let it dry a little, then stirred through some kimchi and hot bean paste as it fried.

I don't exactly know what loco moco is - the internet was a bit unhelpful because there are about 1 million interpretations. I decided to do the simplest thing I could. Fried pre-formed hamburger patties from the supermarket melted over with some Swiss cheese and served with a couple of fried eggs. In my mind Korean food is an excellent excuse to have fried eggs toppers with dinner.

The whole combination was fine - with a little effort it probably could have been much better. The best thing was shopping for the ingredients at a Korean store in the city. The shop is filled with weird and wonderful Korean delicacies and they have K-pop blaring at maximum volume - it's almost like being in Seoul. There were a whole selection of kimchis - I went with a convenient single-serve sachet. I also bought some crispy fried wasabi flavoured seaweed on an impulse - a few shards of which I served with my dinner.

Tara Thai (by Biggs)

I stupidly arranged to provide some training for work this evening so was cutting it fine to get dinner on the 'table' (we don't own a table) so take away on the way home it was!

I went to the restaurant closest to work - Tara Thai - and ordered two favourites, the Pad Thai and Pad See Ew. Being Wednesday my hand was forced to order the vegetarian option so the meals came with, a quite delicious, bean curd.

I don't know that G was too impressed with dinner as he made several trips to the kitchen to add condiments - first ketjap manis, then chilli sauce, then soy sauce. I guess we can just be thankful he wasn't so uncouth as to add tomato sauce!

We both thought the spring rolls we flavourful and delicious. Good addition of several mushroom varieties I think.

Tlacoyos? Empanadas? Something like that (by G)

My intention was to make tlacoyos - football shaped filled tortilla like things traditionally made from blue corn. Two drawbacks - I didn't have any blue corn masa and it's trickier than it looks.

I made some dough from regular masa and a filling of re-fried beans, coriander and liquid smoke but when I tried to fill the former with the later my dough started breaking up, so I did the best I could. The final objects turned out to be a bit more empanada shaped than I had anticipated. I fried them regardless then popped them in the oven for a while to cook the dough through.

My ambition was to make this dinner beautiful so I made a couple of sauces - one from roasted red capsicum and red chilli blitzed with some sriracha the other with roasted green capsicum and green chilli blitzed with a green chilli sauce I have. To make the whole thing look a bit more like a meal I served with a side of tomato, red onion and coriander as well as some cubed pork ribs made crispy in the oven and some cottage cheese (in place of queso fresco).

Immediately after plating up I discovered that the meal I had made was not beautiful at all - not the kind of thing you would put on the picture menu of a restaurant. It was tasty enough though. I think I may have over-crisped the pork - the crackling had a slightly odd texture.

Steak with Wasabi Dressing and Lentil Salad (by Biggs)

G and I really need to sort our lives out. Regardless of what the blog says we're pretty well subsiding on only beer and beer sticks. A lot of beer and a lot of beer sticks. I decided it was time for an intervention so banned beer from our house and reached for my trusty cookbook 'Healthy Food'.

I found the recipe that looked most palatable and went with that. The steak topped with a dressing of yoghurt and wasabi and served with a salad of lentils, rocket and roasted onions.

It wasn't great. And, there wasn't even any beer to wash it down with!

Hasenpfeffer (by G)

I noticed the other day that the shop down the road sells rabbits so I was looking around for something to make with rabbits. Coincidentally I was watching 'Mind of a Chef' the other day (a separate day), an episode with the delightful Ed Lee, and there was a rabbit recipe. To quote Ed Lee:

'There's a really funny Bugs Bunny cartoon where, I don't know why, but Yosemite Sam is a chef and there's a king that says, "Where's my hasenpfeffer?". And Bugs Bunny happens to come in and, you know, hilarity ensues'.

...so I decided to do that.

It's a bit of a hasenfeffabout to prepare but not too difficult - other than trying to find a definitive recipe. The one I went with called for the rabbit to be marinated for hours in red wine with carrot, onion and aromats (bay leaves, pepper and such), then simmered in the same liquid for another couple of hours.

I did all that - the rabbit was fine. It was tender and tasted of red wine and aromats - not as good as I had imagined.

What was good was the pasta under the rabbit. I was looking to serve the rabbit with spatzle (without going to the trouble of making it) and, not finding any ready made stuff at the supermarket, decided just to cook the pasta that most looked like spatzle. After boiling the pasta I tossed it with some fried onion, bacon, shallot, garlic and some special butter that has a particularly cheesy character.

The result was excellent. Also good was the small amount of almost-burned-to-perfection cabbage underneath. Biggs and I are big into correctly burning things at the moment - I'm going to have another go at the cabbage.

T-Bone Steak BBQ (by Biggs)

I had to work today so was incredibly happy when I was done and my weekend officially began. I thought I'd celebrate with a BBQ. I'll admit that I was inspired by a late night watching of the "Fire" episode of Mind of a Chef featuring G's man crush Edward Lee last night. What a guy!

G has been observing my habits for over 3 decades now. While we were watching he turned to me and said "You like fire don't you?" Yes, yes I do. And, it's been too long since my last flame (in a non-pyromaniac way). So, time to burn.

Eddie got almost pornographically philosophical (is that a term?) about burnt (it's an ingredient!) tomatoes in the show so I thought I'd give them a crack. You wouldn't think that would be so hard but clearly 30 minutes on the BBQ was not enough. But, I couldn't wait any longer.

This is a classic BBQ combination from our youth - t-bone steaks, grilled tomatoes and chips. Happiness.

In other news, a man shouted at me in the street today. He yelled "Don't cook it in engine oil. Yuck". Sage advice. Sage advice that I took on board  with positive results.

Cubano Sandwich and Hash Browns (by G)

Biggs was due not to be dining at home tonight so I decided to go with something simple that could use up some of the left-over pork from the other night. A cubano sandwich is a grilled sandwich with pork (check), ham, Swiss cheese, mustard and bread-and-butter pickles - so basically I had to buy a whole bunch of other things just to use up some cooked pork.

I did fortunately have some hash browns in the freezer ready to be oven baked to perfection as a side to the sandwiches. Probably not traditional.

I thought the sandwiches are not too bad, the pickles overpowered the other components a little. In the end Biggs did turn up at dinner time so I was able to feed her cubunos rather than the delivered fast food chain hamburgers that she had planned.

Fish Curry (by Biggs)

I keep a list of meals I'm keen to cook and tonight as I headed to the supermarket I realised I hadn't actually decided what we were going to have for dinner so checked what the easiest thing to make on my list was - fish curry.

A base of onion, ginger, garlic, onion and red Thai curry paste. Coconut milk was added before cooking off broccoli and snapper in the mix. I did my best to balance it all with brown sugar and lime before adding some fresh coriander.

And eggs - the recipe called for eggs. Who am I to argue?

Smokey Chopped Pork (by G)

Pulled pork is about the best thing in the world and with my recently purchased smoke-in-a-bottle I figured I should be able to execute a decent pulled pork recipe (and perhaps rule the world).

I put a huge piece of pork rubbed with a garlic, ginger and cider vinegar mix in the oven at a low temperature then drank a few beers and took a 5 hour nap figuring the pork could take care of itself. When I checked on it again 5 hours later the meat was not as tender as I had hoped - so I cranked up the heat for the next 2 hours.  After 7 hours the meat had become quite tender but not pull-apartable so I chopped it in to little pieces instead. To give the pork some flavour I then mixed in a whole lot of slow sautéed onions and my secret BBQ sauce made from hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, liquid smoke and chilli sauce (well, I guess it's not a secret any more - but I bet you're not going to go to all the effort of mixing those 4 things together to make the world's best BBQ sauce).

Along with the pork I served a mixed chilli and cabbage pickle to cut through the fattiness of the meat. Also some slices of white bread (as is traditional in these parts).

"Carne Asada Tacos" (by Biggs)

There is a well known brand of "Mexican food products" that keep advertising these "Carne Asada Tacos" on TV and I got suckered. I got suckered bad. So, I bought the fixings. Actually, I didn't buy the fixings....I forgot avocado but replaced it with cheese.

So, sirloin steak (flavoured with a mysterious packet of flavouring from a box), tomatoes (flavoured with a mysterious packet of flavouring from a box that was meant for the forgotten avocado), onion, cheese, coriander and lime.

These were not terrible.

Chicken Salad in Pita Bread (by G)

BBQ chicken, capsicum, cucumber, tomato, coriander, olives, capers and tartare sauce stuffed into pita pockets. What could be easier or tastier? Well, there are plenty of things tastier, but it was pretty easy.

Pie (by Biggs)

I haven't put much effort into cooking lately so decided I should step up to the plate today. I thought a slow cooked something something would be good. I love a good pie so decided to make one. I slow cooked some beef in beer with a few veges all afternoon and slowly added herbs, spices and salts until I thought I'd reached perfection (perhaps a bit too salty for some).

The crust was cheese-laden flour mixed with butter and water until manageable. For sides I chose a buttery mash and buttery brocollini. A buttery dinner all round.

For a simple home-made dinner I sure did trash the kitchen....but that's a tomorrow problem now.

Pork, Pearl Barley and Vegetables (by G)

I've become a bit of a fan of the Berkshire pork since first trying it a couple of days ago. The plan this time was to try some of his ribs. In the interests of nutrition I also decided to include some vegetables.

First I chopped the ribs into little pieces and fried until crispy. Then I gave some vegetables a little fry - from memory there was zucchini and capsicum and cabbage and cauliflower.

Pearl barley is a new thing for me, I've never cooked with it but it turned out to be pretty awesome like rice but with more texture and... well, I don't know what else. It's bigger.

Anyway, I mixed the pork, vegetables and barley together and topped it with a hoisin, mushroom sauce and bottled smoke mix. Pretty tasty!

Friday Night Markets (by Biggs)

I got through a massively full on work week so wanted to celebrate with beers and food at the Friday night markets. G humoured me but I think only because he's been eyeing off the sign for Tom and John's Hot Wings for a while now.

We eased into dinner with some (fuckingly deliciously tender) meat on sticks then went for wings. The wing flavours were on a sliding scale from sweet to savoury to hot. I went with the hottest and the dry rubbed hot. Clearly I forgot I can't eat hot food. The dry rubbed ones were great. The hot ones were inedible but G heroically stepped up to the plate.

We also both got a snack for the way home. I chose a gourmet cheese sandwich which was pretty much just a cheese sandwich but G won the night with a Romanian sausage bun. A spicy skinless sausage on a bun with roasted capsicum salsa. I can't wait to try one of these babies.

Berkshire Pork and Vegetables (by G)

After discovering the new deli/market down the road I decided to try and shop there as much as possible rather than shop at the supermarkets (though the prices at the supermarket sure are competitive by comparison). The best thing is that they have pork labelled by breed (though I've only seen one breed - Berkshire).

So, I bought some Berkshire pork chops and mushrooms, carrots and potatoes and made a meal of them.

The potatoes were lightly baked, the carrots simply boiled and the mushrooms roasted with a butter that I had flavoured with thyme and garlic (which I also served on the side).

The pork chops turned out to be unusual shapes - I believe they are referred to as the scrag cut in the butcher trade, none-the-less they were pretty tasty once fried. There is an old saying in Berkshire, "Better the scrag cut from the finest beast than the prime cut from a diseased donkey". So true.

Vegetarian Cowboy Breakfast (by Biggs)

A lazy vegetarian Wednesday today. As a family we love a good Cowboy Breakfast....a throwback to our youth. I decided to try a vegetarian version. The good news is I accidentally bought smoke vegetarian hot dogs instead of the usual sawdusty sausages. They tasted almost exactly like meat hot dogs.....which I guess do have very little meat in them. Other than that there were tiny taters, baked beans and parsley.

Smokey Beef Tortillas (by G)

I bought a bottle of liquid smoke the other day and, keen to try it out, decided tortillas would be the perfect time to try it out.

I marinated strips of beef in paprika, onion powder, coriander powder, cumin, oregano and liquid smoke then fried it off. To pad out the beef a little I also made a salsa of cucumber, capsicum, red onion, red chilli and tomato. Regretfully I chopped then tip off one of my fingers while dicing the tomato and ceased all salsa production from that point so the balance between tomato and all the other ingredients was a little bit off.

I thought the meat was pretty flavourful - Biggs couldn't really taste the smokiness so I guess I'll have to ramp it up in future.

"Lasagna" (by Biggs)

Today represents the start of a massive week of work. As a result I actually forgot I was in charge of dinner so had to last minute panic shop. I really wasn't in any state to cook so bought a pre-made lasagna. It was awful.

Smoked Pork Chop with Rice and Beans (by G)

One of the ingredients I got from the new deli the other day was some giant smoked pork chops. I figured they may be similar to the gamon steaks I used to eat with gay abandon in my younger days. They were not quite the same, but they were smoked pork chops so they were not terrible.

To accompany the chops I made a wet rice - basically rice, garlic, tomato, stock, capsicum and broad beans simmered together and left a little sloppy.

The most memorable thing about this diner is that Biggs had to have a little vomit before eating dinner - rather than afterwards. Something about the look of dinner obviously did not appeal. I'll leave you to judge for yourself.

Pasta (by Biggs)

I had to go into work today and ended up having to stay there for much much longer than intended. So long infact, that the magical deli wonderland we discovered yesterday was closed before I had time to buy dinner treats.

Instead, I just bought a bunch of random shit from the supermarket and threw it into a pasta. Random shit was....chicken, bacon, timbered tomatoes, olives and grilled capsicum. Some of Fi's fresh dried oregano helped things along. As did a sprinkling of feta.