Spicy BBQ Crispy Duck (by Biggs)

It was Book Club night tonight and we met at Mons Ban Sabai a Thai Restaurant and Cooking School in Camp Hill. The restaurant had a delightful, friendly neighbourhood feel and the food was great.

 

A lovely night and lovely food. My duck got very rich but was quite delicious.

 

Oooo - there were curry puffs too which were a winner and made me want to cook my own.



 

Mince Rolls and Coleslaw (by G)

I have some vague memory from my childhood of soft white rolls filled with savoury mince.... why not.  Biggs is dining out today so I opted for something simple.

I simply heated up some defrosted bolognaise sauce I bulk made the other day (beef mince, onions, garlic, carrot, celery, tomato paste, tomatoes, red wine, pepper, stock and bay leaves simmered for ever) and stuffed it into some soft white rolls - job done.

The coleslaw is a classic cabbage, carrot, celery and capsicum mix dressed with store bought mayonnaise.  Not much effort for a satisfactory amount of calories.

Little Lamb Racks and Gardener's Pie (by G)

I got a box of vegetables this week which created a bit of a problem of space in our fridge. My solution was to chop a lot of them up and fry them down to reduce the amount of space they take up.  That was the extent of my plan - I put them in a little tray, wrapped them in plastic wrap and stuck them in the freezer... and yesterday I decided I should probably use them so I got them out to defrost. The easiest way to use the veg appeared to be to top the tray with some mashed potato and make a kind of meat-less Shepherd's pie.

Given that I still have a lot of cauliflower I thought perhaps a potato and cauliflower mash would be more appropriate with plenty of salt, pepper, butter and parmesan for flavour.  I was going to serve just the pie but thought maybe Biggs would revolt so I fried a couple of seasoned mini lamb racks then gave them a thin veneer of minced garlic and rosemary then oven roasted them.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed the vegetable pie better than the lamb - the vegetables were delicious.

For the record, the vegetables (that I can remember) that went into the pie were, spring onions, carrots, corn, carrot, zucchini, some spinach-y kind of thing - there was also a little garlic and vegetable stock for tastiness.

Gong Bao Chicken (by Biggs)

It was a very last minute decision about what to cook for dinner tonight and what I cooked was Gong Bao chicken which I think is the original version of Kung Pao chicken without all the fancy vegetables. I've lost track of what dinners we've had since the blog began (even though the blog serves the exact purpose of tracking dinners) so I'm sure we've had something similar to this before. Although, G thought otherwise.

This version had chicken in soy sauce and cornflour, peanuts, garlic, ginger, spring onions, Sichuan peppercorns and dried chili served with rice and sugar snap peas. I doubled up on the spices for good luck which I think went well. The spring onions were fresh from the garden, complete with splashings of 6 different neighbourhood cats' piss. That's all profit right there!

Picaditas (by G)

I e-mailed myself the word 'picaditas' the other day - just that, 'picaditas'. I figured it was food related - still not exactly sure what they are supposed to be - but my version is below. I think they are supposed to be like tortilla pizzas.

What I did is chop up some rump steak into little cubes, seasoned it with salt and pepper, then browned them off. After that I added some garlic powder, paprika and cumin, then some red onion, then some tomato paste... then I added some vegetable stock and simmered and simmered and simmered... at some point I also added some red capsicum and coriander stalks. They are absolutely the last things I added, except for some spring onions.

For topping I made a standard salsa of red onion, coriander, cucumber, capsicum and green chilli (wait, I also added green chilli to the meat). A sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of lime and the salsa was done.

The picaditas themselves were basically just regular flour tortillas which I rolled the edges on to give them a little lip. Then I blind baked the tortilla cases, topped them with the meat mix and some cheese and served.

The salsa was self serve - for the exercise benefit.

Mustard Pork Chops with Green Bean Salad (by Biggs)

This dinner involved a whole lot of dicking around for not a whole lot of payoff. I roasted tomatoes to make a vinaigrette base, I garlic-infused some oil, I bought some cider for the sauce....all of which wasn't really worth it.

The pork was nice even after two smoke alarm incidents but I sort of ruined it with a Nigella Lawson Mustard sauce....not her fault, it was just a bit too sweet and rich for my liking. It was a simple mix of cider, grain mustard and cream.

And, despite the effort I put in to the vinaigrette, the salad was a bit average. It was beans, tomatoes and basil with a sauce of oil, red wine vinegar, lemon rind and mashed roasted tomato.

I'm sure I would have enjoyed this if G cooked it but by the time it came to sitting down to dinner I felt like I was gagging it down a bit.

I also just realised I forgot two things:

1) I have some leftover sage I was going to fry up to serve with the pork. Sage probably would have improved the pork.

2) I was meant to add spring onions to the salad. I've even got some spring onions growing in the garden awaiting such an occasion. Spring onions probably would have improved the salad.

The Wole Bird - Chicken 4 Ways Japanese Style (by G)

This dinner is what I was going to attempt last weekend but got too lazy to do.

Basically the plan was to cut a whole chicken into a whole bunch of parts and cook them each slightly differently. After breaking a little bird into legs, thighs, wings and breasts I marinated each slightly differently - mostly just a combination of miso, soy, garlic, ginger, mirin, sometimes oil.

Once everything was marinated I oven roasted the legs and wings (actually, the wings got a soaking in sake then were coated in salt, white pepper and black pepper) and pan fried the chicken breast along with skewered up pieces of thigh meat.

I had the pan set pretty high at the beginning - I'd meant to turn it down once the breasts went in but forgot, so those particular parts of the chicken got a little over brown.

So that dinner was not just a pile of chicken parts I also boiled some soba noodles and mixed through some Asian greens (without which dinner would have been vegetableless).

The chicken wings were way too over salty and some of the other parts were a bit dark on the outside (but moist inside), otherwise dinner was not too bad. In hindsight I'd rather just pay someone else go to all the trouble of the various preparations - then they can deal with the washing-up.

Dahl (by Biggs)

To keep up my ideas for dinners I've been asking friends for inspiration - "What did you have for dinner last night?", "What's the best thing you've eaten this week?". When I asked Amanda this recently she mentioned she's had a great dahl so it went on the list.

I found a recipe for the "Best Ever Dahl" on the internet so decided to go with it. It probably should have been called the "Easiest Ever Dahl" because all I had to do was put various ingredients in a pot and cook them down for half an hour. The ingredients used were onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric, curry powder, bay leaf, lentils, sweet potato, capsicum, coconut milk and vegetable stock. At the last minute I threw in some spinach too. I also bought some naan bread and jazzed it up with a bit of cheese left over from pizzas the other week.

My only error in judgement was buying some lime pickle. I've got a huge bag of green beans in the fridge so I really wanted to use some up tonight and decided serving them with some lime pickle might harmonise the meal. In the end I decided the dahl was enough food so didn't cook up any beans. I still served up some lime pickle. It was quite intense.

Chicken, Olive and Chorizo Casserole (by Biggs)

In recent times I've really come around to the idea of slow cooking. It seems you can throw anything into a pot, jam it in the oven for an hour or two (or six) and it's delicious. Tonight, into a pot, I threw some fried off chicken thighs, onion, garlic, chorizo, rosemary, sage, stock and passata. After over an hour I added some kalamata olives and put some green beans on to steam.

I'm not going to be modest about this one. It was good. When I took it out of the oven the smell took me back to enjoying a glass of wine on the Mediterranean coast.....an experience I've never even had.

Meanwhile, I hope G likes green beans because we've got about half a kilo of them in our fridge so there's going to be plenty of them in our near future.

Winter Cobb Salad (by G)

A recent poll by tortillatuesday revealed that 0% of our readership has realised that, since the start of the year, Biggs and I have been alternating cooking nights.  According to the roster Biggs should have cooked tonight, but by prearrangement we swapped nights - so I'm cooking again. Just wanted to clarify that for the 0 people who will be lying awake at night wondering.

Anyway, I bought some smoked chicken legs last week with no real idea of what to do with them. When I realised I should do something with them at some point I did an internet search for 'smoked chicken leg recipes' - one of the results was a Winter cobb salad. It seemed good so here is the formula.

Pile a plate with lettuce, crispy bacon, blue cheese, celery, spring onion, chicken. Serve it with a side of bread, top with an egg, drizzle with a dressing of oil, vinegar, Dijon mustard and honey and viola - a Winter cobb salad.

I have to say, it all came together pretty easily - less easy was convincing Biggs that the smoked chicken was not smoked pig.

Comments: A1 tasty

Lamb and Couscous Lasagne (by G)

I had some lamb mince in the freezer and wanted to do something a bit (but not too) different. I had the - technically - genius idea of making a lasagne layered with couscous instead of pasta sheets. I couldn't find the good pearl couscous - had to go with the little grain-of-sand style.

To make the mince I fried off some onion, carrot, celery and dried spices (cumin, ginger, couldn't find coriander, all spice, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, couldn't find cinnamon - substituted Chinese 5 spice because I'm pretty sure it has cinnamon in it). Then I added the mince - got it cooked through - added tomatoes and some vegetable stock and simmered it until it got less liquidous.

With half an hour to dinner I filled a tin with layers of mince, couscous and pre-crumbled feta cheese then put it in the oven to cook through.  For freshness I unpackaged some salad leaves and dressed them with a white wine vinegar, oil, grain mustard and Dijon mustard mix.

The lasagne did not turn out as expected, the couscous didn't cook through as I had hoped - nevertheless, it was not as terrible as I'd feared - and it photographed brilliantly.

I'll have to put some thought into this one before I attempt it again.

Tandoori Chicken Chapati-Tortillas (by Biggs)

I was wandering the aisles of the supermarket a few weeks back and spied a giant yellow box that said "Tandoori Chicken Wraps" on it and thought that would be an excellent plan for tortillas.

When I looked closer at the box it said it enclosed some tomato chutney, a tandoori spice mix and chapati. While I thought a chapati wrap would be delicious I was worried I may be straying a bit too far from Tortilla Tuesday with this one. After a bit of research I established that chapati is pretty much whole wheat flour tortillas so went with it. Apologies to anyone who knows better!

I copied the picture on the box and marinated some chicken in the tandoori mix, served it with lettuce, tomato and cucumber, tomato chutney (from the box) and a yoghurt garlic mix. I was hoping that the tandoor chicken would char up nicely but all the flavour stuck firmly to the bottom of the fry pan.

Dinner was so good the thought of having to clean the fry pan didn't even mar it.

Ham Wrapped Sausage, Kimchi Noodles and an Egg (by G)

I had some kimchi leftover from the other day - I don't know too much about what to do with kimchi but, 'mix it through noodles' seemed like a safe bet.

I chopped up the kimchi a bit, mixed it though some noodles. I also fried and egg and wrapped some pork sausages in ham.  The egg got a sprinkling of fried garlic from a packet.

Biggs and I ate this, it's Monday, I'm tired. The end.

Red Lotus (by Biggs)

G and I don't name and shame if we're disappointed in a restaurant but there is absolutely no shame in relation to this name. Red Lotus was excellent, excellent.

I went to Fi's place for dinner and given her kitchen is in a state of disrepair,r halfway through renovations we decided on takeaway. She's pretty happy that there are some great little eateries popping up in her suburb that was previously a bit lacking in dining options (beyond seedy corner store fish and chip shops) and Red Lotus certainly sets the standard.

We chose a Crackling Roast Pork Vermicelli Noodle Salad and some Lemongrass Chili Chicken. They were both delicious. We did some brilliant ordering but I guess the credit should really go to the Red Lotus chefs who did some brilliant cooking.

Chicken and Vegetable Mush with Naan (by G)

Biggs is dining out tonight so I decided on something simple for myself using leftovers from, and not significantly different to, last night's dinner.

I chopped up some potato, carrot and garlic and oven roasted them in butter for a while. Once they were cooked I added some chicken, chicken stock, carrot puree, parmesan cheese and chickpea flour (to thicken).  Then I plated it and topped it with some fried ham and a side of plain naan.

The only reason I used chickpea flour is because I bought some the other day and have a huge surplus - it was pretty serendipitous decision because it turned out that it added a nice earthy taste.

Dinner was nothing special but it was not terrible.

Roast Chicken, Stuffed Potatoes and Vegetables (by G)

Well, I was going to make an effort today with a whole chicken but I didn't really feel like doing anything too complex when it came down it - instead I just roasted it, which turned out to be quite a fuck around anyway... mostly because I was inattentive.

I read the directions on the chicken packet and it said to roast the chicken for 25 - 30 minutes, I don't trust packet directions so I decided to roast it for 45 minutes. When it was almost too late I re-read the directions and discovered that you are supposed to roast for 25 - 30 minutes per 500g, my chicken was 3.4 x 500g so dinner was already running late. I rubbed the chicken skin with butter, sprinkled on some salt and pestle ground dry rosemary, put it on a bed of onion and garlic then bunged it in the oven along with a couple of whole potatoes. Half way through the cooking I added some jelly chicken stock to the pan for gravy.

As the potatoes were coming up to doneness I simmered some onions and chopped ham in butter, added some of the roasted garlic from the pan. When the potatoes were done I scooped out the flesh, mixed through the onion and ham mix and some parmesan cheese then stuffed it all back in the potatoes and put them back in the oven.

I read recently that David Chang believes the vegetables should be cooked in juice of the same vegetable for flavour reasons. I couldn't find any carrot juice so I bough a tin of baby carrots, blended them then cooked some baby carrots in that liquid. The carrots turned out a lot like tinned baby carrots, but not as good. I also steamed some snow peas as the carrots were cooking.

The gravy was a mix of pan juices thickened with a butter/flour rue.

I know the chicken portion shown looks a little stingy - I left the bone-in portions to cook a little longer so as not to kill us.

Pepperilli Pizza (by Biggs)

What's pepperilli you may ask?

Who fucking knows? But, these pizzas were a success. I used the three ingredient rule - tomato paste, pepperilli and mozzarella. I also used dough.

I had the day off work so spent 8 hours thinking about the dough and then one hour making the dough. Fortunately dough practically makes itself - flour, water, salt, oil, yeast - knead, knead, knead - leave it for 1/2 an hour and roll it out into pizza bases.

There was nothing not good about this dinner but I think the highlight was having to drink a bottle of wine to get the rolling pin.

Although, Aaron randomly turned up at our doorstep with a carton of beer to indulge in pizza so that was quite good too.

The only questionable moment was taking a phone call just as I was about to take the first two pizzas out of the oven. I left the boys to take them out of the oven and they promptly forgot. Turns out a pizza a little overdone is a good thing.

Pumpkin Curry with Onion Bhaji (by G)

Tonight's dinner turned out to be a morality tale. I decided to give the animals a break for one night and cook something vegetarian - this was a mistake. Take heed anyone planning to follow my lead.

A pumpkin curry seems simple enough - fry onion, add dice pumpkin, add curry paste from a jar, add water and coconut milk and simmer. I forgot to shake the coconut milk can and poured just the cream in, which subsequently caused the sauce to split - so I decided to mash the pumpkin (which was not my original intention). When I tasted the curry at this point it was disastrously sweet - so I added some onion flakes (whatever that is), salt, pepper, cumin and garlic powder. That helped a little.

For a side I chopped some onion slices, mixed in some minced garlic, lime juice, turmeric powder, curry paste, pea flour (I'm not sure if it is chickpea flour as required but I could only find pea flour) and a dash of water. Then I fried some big dollops of it.

Also, I oven baked some plain packet naan.

The bhaji was pretty good - the curry was not so. It was about the least pleasant thing I've tasted in quite some time.

Chicken Katsu Curry (by Biggs)

When I asked G what he wanted for his Birthday dinner he uncharacteristically asked for "not pork" so we had a chicken katsu curry.

I definitely wanted to cook something Japanese and initially thought I'd give a bento box a crack but laziness prevailed. Then I considered sushi but laziness prevailed.

There were lots of different katsu curry recipes on the internet and they all referred to katsu curry blocks. I didn't know what they were talking about so I took myself to the supermarket to discover spectacular little boxes of S&B Golden Curry Sauce blocks. After MUCH deliberation I went with the hot option - 6 on a scale of 7.

There were suggestions that carrot and potatoes go well in a katsu curry but I'm a purest and just went with the box recommendation which was oil, onion, water, sauce blocks and meat. The instructions on the box were to put the ingredients in a bowl along with your choice of meat and microwave the lot for 7 minutes. I instead went for the fry pan stove top option.

My choice of meat was chicken breast beaten flat and crumbed in panko bread crumbs.

I didn't have to add any MSG as it was generously included in the katsu curry blocks. Happy Birthday G!

Korean BBQ Pulled Pork Tortillas (by G)

Phase two of my plot for financial domination. Instead of buying all new meat for tortillas tonight I used some leftover slow cooked pork from Sunday.

To give the pork some flavour I fried some onions and onion shallots and leftover coriander stalks then chopped the pork and mixed it through... and then I added a homemade barbecue sauce made from soy sauce, brown sugar, red bean chilli paste, sriracha, minced ginger and garlic, along with mirin and rice wine vinegar.

I also decided it was time to hand make the tortillas again. I'm a bit out of touch and added too much oil to the dough, but they turned out okay.

To top off the beef I bought a tub of kimchi and chopped it up a bit to make it more manageable - also I de-packeted a packet of roast pork crackle and crumbled it up to add a little crunch.

I was pretty happy with dinner tonight - tasty and economical. Happily there is also quite a bit of kimchi left for another night.

Potato and Onion Cakes (by Biggs)

My plan was to make something healthy for dinner tonight so I referred to my trusty "Healthy Food" cookbook for ideas. Apparently potato cakes served with bacon is "healthy food" and sounded right up our alley. I regretted this decision as soon as it was too late to change my plan. 

I've tried enough potato rosti recipes to know that none of them work and I should have been particularly suspicious of this one. It suggested grating some potatoes, slicing an onion, adding a bit of oil and putting piles of this mixture (without any binding agent!) in the oven would result in cripsy potato cakes. Surprise, surprise all it resulted in was piles of loose, soft potato being stuck to an oven tray. Two more oven trays, an hour in the oven and a few minutes in a fry pan later and we had ourselves some nutmeg-y, weird, rubbery, potato....things.....resulting in panicked, hysterical laughter from the kitchen. 

The "healthy food" book suggested serving this with bacon and spinach, which I did. I was a little worried this wouldn't be filling enough for dinner so thought some olives wouldn't go astray. Then I remembered I had a capsicum in the fridge I should use so chopped that up and added it too. 

The bacon was the saving grace of the meal. It must have saved G because I caught him eating some more off the kitchen floor that I'd dropped during the cooking process. I think that really paint a picture of how average dinner was. 

Slow Roasted Pork and Some Vegetables (by G)

I have the feeling that this is going to be a very pork-centric week - I don't know if my arteries will manage it.

My plan was to slow roast a pork shoulder eat half today and the rest on Tuesday, budget style.  There were a few odd vegetable choices tonight due to online grocery delivery anomalies. Roasted pumpkin because they delivered twice as many as ordered, radishes ditto. I thought I'd ordered real carrots but instead ordered a tin of baby carrots (so I pan fried those in butter with salt and cumin powder).

The spring onions are in there because I had some left over.

I slow roasted the shit out of the pork (about 5 hours - the first half hour at full blast to get the crackle going). It turned out pretty tender for all that time in the oven - and the crackle was not too bad either. At the end I made a bit  of a gravy out of the pan juices and some chicken stock, it was pretty meaty and intense (and greasy - I should have drained more of the oil out).

Anyway, it was a pretty good meal to end the weekend and it will likely the end of Biggs and myself also.

Pork and Vegetables (by Biggs)

Tonight I chose the lazy option (again) and decided on a fried pork chop and some vegetables in oyster sauce for dinner. I fried a pork chop then some vegetables in oyster sauce.

More specifically the vegetables were carrot, broccolini and pak choy. I'd also planned to use capsicum but freaked out at the last minute that there were too many vegetables.....a common fear of mine. To be honest the capsicum would have been a great addition.

In the end I accidentally overcooked the vegetables and according to our smoke alarm I also overcooked the pork.

I might have overdone the oyster sauce a little because most of it ended up all over my dress.

Pizza and a Curry (by Biggs)

There's a bunch of new places opening up around West End and tonight Bonnie and I tried out Peel Street Kitchen.

The breads and dip were excellent with a beetroot dip and three different types of bread - a loaf, some flat bread and a fried one that made my arteries tick....in a good way.

Then we decided on the odd (but excellent) combination of pizza and curry.

The pizza was pulled pork with bacon, onions, capsicum and Tabasco spiked sour cream sauce. The curry was a braised beef in peanut curry sauce, snake beans, eggplant & bok choy. More specifically the beef was ox tail and it was super delicious.

The highlight of the meal though was a little amuse bouche of chilled corn soup with popcorn. It was delicious and light and fluffy like whipped cream. I want all my soups to be that fluffy in future.

Leftover pizza for a midnight snack. Win.

Viet Style Chicken Salad (by G)

Lately Biggs and I have been persistently battling against food wastage - tonight's target for me was a bunch of limes. Biggs is dining out so had all 3 of those sweet, sweet limes all to myself.

First off I made some nuoc cham sauce (or maybe it was nuoc mam cham - I'm not sure what the difference is) from half a lime, some sugar, fish sauce, white vinegar, garlic and chilli. Then I marinated some leftover chicken in sugar, fish sauce and - just before serving - the rest of the first lime.  I fried the chicken over a hot electric fire then added some spring onion tops, the rest of the garlic and some chilli.  Lastly I built a salad from grated carrot, cucumber (water squeezed out), spring onion, a whole bunch of coriander tops and the remainder of the chilli. From there it was a matter of dressing and plating up the salad, elegantly arranging the chicken and gagging it down.

Actually, this was a pretty good one - well balanced and fragrant and probably healthy, but in a good way...

Peas, Pies and Piles of Fries (by Biggs)

I'm very lazy and there was a bag of fries in the freezer so I was definitely going to use them tonight. There was also a bag of peas in the freezer so I thought why the hell not!

Next, I had to decide what to serve with them on my budget of $5. I was hoping for pork chops but it turns out my concept of how much things cost is a little skewed so I was forced to go with pies. This meal is a favourite in our household especially since G coined it "Peas, Pies and Piles of Fries" a few years back.

At the risk of declaring a First World Problem, it shits me to tears that frozen chip packets claim they cook in 15 minutes. They took an hour, as did the pies and I don't think our crappy oven was the entire issue.

The peas took about a minute to cook and were almost the best thing on the plate.

Chicken and Goats Cheese Pasta (by G)

I didn't have much of an idea of what to make for dinner tonight so I decided just to mix a whole bunch of stuff together.

I bought some chicken and fried that 'til brown then removed it from the pan and sautéed ham, garlic, grated carrot, grated celery, chopped spring onion, capsicum and some parsley (pre-chopped by Biggs). Once everything was a mushy mass I added the chicken back to the pan, added some cooked pasta and then quite a lot of fresh goats cheese. I was a bit worried that I'd added a bit too much cheese but it melted away almost immediately so I added a lot more (and a bit more on top for flavour).

There didn't appear to be enough starch on the plate for my liking so I mixed grated garlic with butter and smeared it onto some rustic rolls and grilled them.  The garlic, oddly, turned electric green - the internet says that garlic turns green when exposed to temperature change but I've never had that happen before - didn't affect the flavour though.

I was pretty pleased with this dinner - I was pretty un-optimistic when I was making it. The most satisfactory thing is that I managed to use up leftover bread rolls, parsley, capsicum, spring onion and most of a tub of goats cheese... efficientelicious!

Smoky Pork and Black Bean Tacos (by Biggs)

After I committed us to owning a giant bag of black beans the other week I thought I should probably find something more to do with them. I took a guess that pork and black bean tortillas would probably be a popular dinner in our household and found this recipe on the BBC Good Food website. I thought tacos may be a little controversial on a Tuesday night but, according to Wiki, tacos are just maize tortillas folded around "yum" so it fit the brief perfectly.

I ran into some trouble with the "yum". After cooking off some onion, garlic, pork mince, passata and BBQ sauce I was meant to add some fresh coriander. Turns out I bought parley.....idiot. Hopefully G can use that tomorrow night. I added some ground coriander seed from a jar instead but I don't think that had much impact.

The next problem was the avocado. I had to visit three supermarkets to even find one avocado and when I found it it cost me $3.50. Then when I got it home it was half rotten hence the very small pile you can see below.

The only two things that went right were that the lettuce leftover from Sunday night didn't freeze in our vegetable 'crisper' and G bought a bag of limes on the weekend. The limes helped things along.

I wasn't super thrilled with dinner.

Kinda Pork & Chicken Gumbo (by G)

For some reason I bought a jumbo bag of okra at the markets on the weekend. I have done this before and left them to disintegrate in the fridge... not this time...

Stereotypically I decided to make a gumbo with my okra - using little bags of assorted leftover meats I had stashed in the freezer over the past couple of weeks, and some chorizo I bought specially.

First up I browned some chicken tenders, cubed pork, pork schnitzel and chorizo while making a roux from some of the butter I got from the markets and some flour I got from the supermarket some time ago.  Once the roux was nice and dark (though probably not dark enough for gumbo purists) I added some more butter, some chopped onion, loads of garlic, celery and green capsicum and dry fried it for 10 minutes, then added some Worcestershire sauce and cooked it for another 10 minutes, then I added the meat, some hot water and some chicken jelly stock.

Once all of that had simmered for 45 minutes I added the last of the kale and half the bag of okra then popped the lot in the oven. After another hour I took the almost gumbo out of the oven, stirred in some spring onion tops and let it rest for another 5 minutes.

You can't serve gumbo without cornbread... I couldn't be fucked making corn bread so it's pretty lucky this wasn't a proper gumbo - I just used a couple of bread rolls from a packet.

This was not too authentic but I liked it. No leftovers.

Hamburger (by Biggs)

We have a bag of oven chips in the freezer so I was trying to think of something to serve them with. I also spent most of my grocery money on booze this week so whatever it was had to be cheap.

I was thinking of what we would have had for Sunday night dinner in our youth given we had a family of five living on a moderate income and remembered hamburgers made a regular appearance. I intended to make them authentic with frozen cardboard patties and toast but couldn't walk past the fresh mince and bread rolls. The bread rolls were a nice grained knot roll. The mince was 'heart smart' (?) and already shaped into ovals.

Beyond that I tried to keep the burgers fairly simple.....salt and pepper on the burger, fried onions, cheese, lettuce, tomato and tomato sauce. There was some stress around the layering order but I pushed through and dinner was cooked and eaten within half an hour.

30 minute meal done. I forgot to use the chips.

Roasted Lamb Shanks (by G)

This morning I went to the morning markets and got some lamb shanks, eggplant, kale, artichokes, carrots, garlic and rosemary, fresh goat cheese and farm fresh salted butter.  I cooked all of these things in various styles for various lengths of time and came up with the below:

 

 

To be more specific, the lamb was browned off in a pan and roasted for a couple of hours along with some rosemary and whole cloves of garlic. With an hour to go I added some chunky chopped carrots.

 

I tried to crispy up the kale in oil, that didn't work, it was soggy.

 

I spent a lot of time prepping the artichokes to end up with some little slivers that I fried off in some of the market butter and roasted garlic.

 

I was kind of excited about the eggplant dish - I saw something like it on 'Surfing the Menu' with Curtis Stone and Ben O'donoghue and an eggplant farmer. They made fried slices of egg plant, goat's cheese and red wine look good - mine did not turn out so well.

 

I also made a sauce of beef stock and red wine - it over reduced a bit so there was not much of that on offer.

 

All in all it was a pretty good dinner - except the eggplant, it was not great.