Rump Steak and Things (by G)

I had a bit of a different plan for dinner tonight but some of the things I wanted were not available so I improvised.  The main thing was to use a ginormous rump steak that was part of my grocery delivery.

I seasoned the steak then pan fried it and brushed it with some garlic butter then rested it to grey perfection.  Earlier I had boiled some potatoes which I then brushed with garlic butter and baked in the oven. Along with the potatoes I put some garlic butter coated mushrooms that I later topped with a little gruyere cheese.

To add a little bulk to dinner I brushed some garlic butter on a rustic bread roll then toasted it in a pan - and for a little variety I softened some onions and added some little tomatoes. I didn't add any garlic butter, instead I added some liquid chicken style stock.

The steak got a little cold by the time it had been rested and plated, the cheese didn't add much value to the mushrooms but the onion and tomatoes were a winner.

Lamb Burgers with Beetroot Salsa (by Biggs)

This dinner was what I had planned earlier in the week and I'm now glad it was saved for a Sunday night. It was a bit special....what with the lamb and all.

This recipe came from one of the Delicious cook books and I was drawn to it because I like burgers and it looked easy. It also seemed promising because it had lots of flavours. The lamb was mixed with mint, parsley, garlic, onion and cumin. The beetroot salsa was flavoured up with coriander, onion, lemon and more cumin.

I was disappointed that the goat cheese didn't really melt on top, it also wasn't very salty but neither G were too phased by the time we were scarfing the burgers down.

Chicken Drummies and Carrotey Noodles (by G)

As I was only cooking for myself tonight I decided to go for economy over style.

I sprinkled some drumsticks with cumin, white pepper and salt then bunged them in the oven for a while. Also, I blanched some noodles and fried them off with some onion, garlic, fresh green chilli, carrot (for the vegetable component) - then stirred through some savoury chilli sauce.  Because I like chilli (and none of my actions have consequences) I squirted some sriracha on top.

The skin of the drumsticks got nice and crispy - they split a little but that's not an issue, they were tasty.

Istanbul Sublime (by Biggs)

That title got you interested didn't it?

Tonight Anita, my best friend of nearly 30 years, came to visit so we went on a little dinner date. There is an excellent Turkish restaurant 5 minutes walk up the road so, in the interest of simplicity and laziness, we headed up there.

When I called to make a reservation the guy almost encouraged me not to come because they only had a table on the back veranda and warned that it was going to be blustery and we best bring a jumper. Thanks to a bit of pre-storm humidity it was actually quite lovely.

Caravanserai is well-know for it's platters so we went with the platter for two, Istanbul Sublime with shish kebab chicken, chargrilled garlic prawns, kofta meatballs, haloumi, bean salad, rice and pide. We also had some lovely tart Turkish lemonade. Dinner was lovely. Anita was insiting that the platters used to be more interesting with beetroot and chorizo but in reality we just didn't have enough people for one of the fancier platters. So, my advice, if you're going to Caravanserai take a bunch of people and order everything on the menu.

Better than the food was the lightening show over the river. The photo hue is compliments of the romantic candlelight.

Anita's a fan of dessert and since our household has a serious dessert glut after Alex's visit I cooked (heated) up the sticky date pudding when we got back home and served it with cream. Quite good and perfectly themed to our dinner of Turkish delights.

Bahn Mi Hotdog (by G)

All day at work I was craving my regular Saturday morning Bahn Mi - so much so that I decided to make a few bahn mi for my dinner. To make it interesting I decided to do bahn mi style hotdogs.

There's not much to say about this one except - probably don't do it.  I say probably because it was actually not too bad but the pork sausage spoiled what was an otherwise quite decent sandwich.

For the record my bahn mi had pate, garlic butter, some quick pickled carrot and cucumber, some fried red onion (because it's a hotdog after all), some mortadella (I don't know what goes into a real bahn mi but the texture of the meat is similar), fresh chilli, coriander, mayonnaise and... of course... a pork sausage.

Crab and Prawn Squid Ink Ravioli (by Biggs)

Spaghetti House is popular amongst our book club members so, much to my delight, we were back there tonight for our monthly 'meeting'.

I was planning to just have a simple spinach and ricotta dish but was then offered this special by the waiter.

I don't know what to say beyond.....it was marvellous.The sauce was a perfect creamy pesto which was great with the squid ink and seafood.  Further enhanced by a couple of glasses of Italian red.

Pork chops with Chorizo Fried Potatoes and Snow Peas (by G)

Biggs had advised me earlier in the week that this week is bacon week... or perhaps pork week.  I decided to cover all the bases by having pork chops with a side of bacon.

My original idea was to see what would happen if I slow roasted pork chops instead of quickly pan frying them and finishing them off in the oven. Part way through the day I discovered that Kensington Pride enthusiast and all-round enigmatic character Alex was in town so I invited him over for dinner and decided not to get experimental and just do pork chops the usual way.  Unfortunately I started cooking the chops a bit early and ended up doing a sort of half-slow cook/half fast-cook combo that is probably not the best option.  I also oven baked the side bacon for some reason - it would have been much better just fried.

The potatoes were just par-boiled then fried along with some diced chorizo, onion and garlic. The snow peas were quickly blanched and served for the sole purpose of adding colour and non-porky nutrition.

With this dinner I could have done better but it took very little effort so I guess that is an acceptable compromise.

Alex had suggested he bring a cheese cake for dessert - unfortunately he couldn't get one so he came with a sticky date pudding that serves 8, plus a Vienetta and a family sized block of chocolate.  We all had a slice of Vienetta. I'm not much of one for desserts but this was a pretty good option - creamy and not too sweet.

Party Pies and French Fries (by Biggs)

I had a GRAND plan for dinner but due to circumstance (financial incompetence) I had less than $8 to spend on ingredients. So, whilst I'm sure there are many fresh (and perhaps vegetarian) dinner options for $8 and less, I panicked and purchased party pies....and some oven chips.

Once again I'm going to gripe.....the packet said it should have been all cooked within 15 minutes but that was never going to happen, and I didn't believe it for a second. I'd love to see the test kitchen that can make that happen. G's suggestion is you're only meant to have a couple of pies and a handful of fries which would cook quickly. But, we partake in a different quantity of dinner.

Oh yeah, and we had a sausage amuse-bouche but that's a story for another time.

Zesty Prawn Tortillas (by G)

I think this recipe came from the website of one of the big supermarket chains - never-the-less it was pretty good.

The prawns were flavoured with lime zest, coriander, garlic, ginger, cumin and cayenne pepper... and oil if you'd count that as a flavour.  There was also a salsa of corn, fresh red chilli, coriander, avocado, red onion and lime juice - also some salt because you can't spell saltsa (sic) without salt.

Because this was an easy dinner I decided not to complicate it up with a whole bunch of home-made tortillas so these ones came out of an authentic packet.

Sausage Gnocchi (by Biggs)

When I was dabbling about on the Jamie Oliver website the other day I noticed this recipe and thought it looked like a cracker.

Alas, something went horribly wrong....I'm just not quite sure what. The sauce was sausage meatballs, fennel, rosemary, red wine and pasata. I can't work out why it tasted so odd in the end.

Perhaps I over-reduced the pasata, perhaps I shouldn't have tried to add flavour (mixed herbs and chili flakes) at the end, perhaps I shouldn't have bought $5 wine. It was most likely the wine, G even asked halfway through dinner if I had added vinegar. No, just cheap wine.

There was also packet gnocchi, some broccoli and yoghurt....none of this helped the situation.

Mr O suggested serving dinner with a kale salad, I served dinner with garlic bread.

Bali Fried Chicken and Festive Rice (By G)

I was casting about for a curry recipe the other day but could not find exactly what I was looking for - the search led me to 'The Complete Asian Cookbook' by Charmaine Soloman. I didn't find the curry recipe I was looking for but I did find a recipe for Balinese style fried chicken.  As is so often the case these days I decided to make something based solely on the name.

Firstly I dissected a chicken into 10 pieced then fried the pieces and popped them in the oven for a while to keep warm. Next I fried a pre-whizzed mix of green chilli, onion, garlic, ginger and macadamia nuts (as a substitute for candle nuts) - then I added sugar, lemon juice and coconut milk and placed the chicken back in the sauce and simmered it for nearly half an hour.

Given there is a whole Indonesian section in the book I concluded I should do an appropriate side dish.  Festive rice is basically fried onion and garlic with rice, turmeric and curry leaves simmered in coconut milk. There was an option to add pandanus leaf but it wasn't convenient for me - also it should have been served in banana leaf. That was also inconvenient though I concede it would have made dinner somewhat more festive.

Roast Beef (by Biggs)

It's the weekend so I thought a roast dinner was in order!

I lazily bought a mini-roast of beef from the supermarket and cooked it in the oven for an hour. I also wrapped up some potato quarters in alfoil and put them in the oven for the same period.

While the beef was resting I fried the potatoes in a winning combination of butter and duck fat, steamed some broccoli.and mixed up half a litre of packet gravy. Half a litre may seem like a lot but the beef mysteriously leached it all up on the plate so I think it was a good decision.

Disgustingly, when I cut of the net of elasticised string off the beef it flicked cooked beef skin and oil all over me. Gross. Dinner, on the other hand, was not gross.

Sausage and Mushroom Ragout (by G)

I was going to have this dish on a night that Biggs was dining elsewhere but I decided it was probably going to be much too good not to share. It turns out that was not the case.

I'm going to apportion some blame:

- 10% of the blame goes to me - I didn't actually follow the recipe, I just guessmembered.

- 60% of the blame goes to the recipe for including water chestnuts in this meal (though if I mis-guessmembered the water chestnuts I'll take 10% of the 60% of the blame apportioned to the recipe).

- 30% of the blame goes to the Asian grocery store where I shopped for my ingredients for not having 2 of the 4 things I was looking for (though I should probably accept some of this blame for being too lazy to go somewhere else to find the ingredients).

This mix of sausages, tomato paste, green onions, dried shiitake, canned straw mushrooms, mushroom re-hydration water and butter was not too bad, but nothing like as flavourful as I had imagined based on the name.  For the record the grocery store did not have shallots (so I substituted green onions) nor fresh mushrooms (which I substituted for canned mushrooms).

All afternoon I've had 'The Gnu Song' stuck in my head with the word Ragout in place of Gnu... damn Flanders and Swann...

Ham Steaks, Corn, Potatoes and Kale Chips (by Biggs)

I knew I was going to be home from work late tonight so I planned something simple for dinner.....big slabs of pig.

To compliment the ham steaks I cooked up some corn, mashed some potatoes and baked some kale.

Nancy sent me home with the left over kale from the other night so I decided to turn it into chips. I was pretty surprised that with a bit of oil and salt the kale really does crisp up. Unfortunately, I salted the chips before and after baking so they got a little too salty but, good.

When I got the kale out of the bag I noticed Nancy had sent me home with the left over thyme as well so I decided to mix it through the mashed potato....along with a stick of butter.

Pork Chop with Potato Shredlings and Lettuce (by G)

Somehow I misunderstood Biggs' complicated dining schedule (it's probably not that complicated but I forgot it anyway) and was not expecting her home for dinner tonight and subsequently did not plan to make anything too palatable.

The main part of dinner was just a pork chop (each) moderately heavily salted and dusted with white pepper, then pan fried, then finished in the oven - where the rind was already crackling.

I had planned to do a kind of potato and carrot rosti with chorizo and onion shallot but I burned it at the critical moment. After I had turned it out and picked off the crispy black crust I put it back in the pan and stirred it about in an attempt to get crispy little strands of potato. It didn't work out too well crispy wise but the flavour was not too bad once I'd added some packet fried shallots.

Biggs had some leftover lettuce and lime from last night's dinner that she instructed me to use in tonight's dinner so I chopped up some lettuce and added lime juice as a dressing, also some rice wine vinegar and sesame oil. The taste was not quite right so I topped the lettuce with commercial mayonnaise - that fixed it right up.

To tie the meal together I made some gravox brand gravox gravy.

Pork Tacos with Refried Beans and Avocado Green Salad (by Biggs)

Jamie Oliver calls this recipe 'ultimate pork tacos with spicy black beans and avocado green salad' but I couldn't find any black beans and 'ultimate' is probably a bit beyond me. It was good though.

The pork was diced and fried with paprika and fennel seeds. I used a can of refried beans and cooked them up with spring onions, garlic and cumin.

The tacos were also served with an ungainly Jamie-style salad of lettuce, coriander, avocado, tomato, chili, apple, soy sauce and lime.

The chilies were thanks to Nancy who sent me home with some treats last night. I made G try them for heat and he suggested they were probably just capsicums.....he was wrong, my brain almost exploded.

Whilst this wasn't a 30 minute meal I thought I'd give it a crack within half and hour anyway. G was surprisingly tolerant of dinner being 5 minutes and 35 seconds late.

Editors note: This is in fact a Jamie Oliver 15 minute meal so apologies to our readership for Biggs' stupidity, the recipe is also grossly misrepresented so apologies to Mr O too.

Soba Noodle Bowl (by G)

Biggs was off eating vegetarian tonight so I thought I should do something simple (but tasty for myself).

 

This was a really simple dinner, just a soup made from bacon bones boiled in plain water for about 2 hours. I removed the bones from the water and added in some wholemeal soba noodles, then stripped the little bacon pieces from the bones.

 

Biggs has to get a partial credit for tonight's dinner because she had some mince left over from her dinner the night before. I heated it through, placed it in a bowl, topped it with the noodles and some of the bacon stock then added some goodies. The bacon bits, a boiled egg and a mulch of spring onion, chilli flakes, coriander, garlic, ketjap manis, soy sauce and sesame oil.

 

This was an excellent dinner - though I do say so myself.

 

If I had positioned the egg a bit to the right and rearranged things I could have made dinner look like the cookie monster - life is filled with missed opportunities...

 

Orecchiette with Butter Bean Sauce and Vegetables (by Biggs)

Nancy invited me over for dinner tonight and I never pass up the chance of a home-cooked meal....at someone else's home. And, I never pass up the chance of hanging out with my friend Nancy.

Dinner was orecchiette (quickly becoming my favourite cut of pasta) with a butter bean sauce and some vegetables. The butter beans were wizzed up then cooked off with some garlic, thyme and cream with broccoli, peas and kale. Lots of pepper and cheese was added. It was delicious and I scored the left-overs for lunch.

Because Nancy had a dinner guest (even if it was just me) she decided to make dessert. I'm not entirely sure when she did this in amongst cooking dinner, feeding me wine, entertaining and bathing her kids, getting the dog fed and listening to me drivel on with useless crap but she did. I don't understand the physics of self-saucing puddding and, since I drank wine instead of helping, I still don't. It's a magic beast. We enjoyed it with a glass of sticky sherry. Life is pretty good sometimes.

Koulakli Manti and Salad Olivier (by Biggs)

I was wanting to make some type of dumplings and thought these little Greek ones looked do-able. It's just a simple dough, filled with beef mince and oven-baked. I 'flavoured' the mince with salt, pepper, onion and parsley but, even served with garlic yoghurt, they were still fairly dry and flavourless.

What was good was the Russian salad I served with it. Why I chose a Russian salad to go with the Greek dumplings I have no idea and realised too late in the plan that I had accidently stumbled accross a horror fusion.

The salad is potato, carrot, peas, pickled cucumber, eggs, spring onions, dill and liverwurst (in place of bologna) in mayonnaise. Sounds weird right? But, 'twas actually quite awesome. I replaced the bologna with liverwurst because the only bologna I could find in the supermarket was in a half kilo block which I really thought was a bit too much bologna for one household to own.

Duck and Pork (by Biggs)

Tonight I met some friends at Depo for dinner. I've been wanting to go to Depo since it opened (exactly a year ago according to the complimentary 1st Birthday champagne we were rewarded with upon arrival). I have been for drinks there a couple of times but was super excited to upgrade the experience to dinner.

It. Was. Awesome.

We went with a two course wine pairing and all chose the bresaola of duck breast with duck rillettes, grapfruit and fennel for entree. Lightly cured duck and piles fo slow-cooked duck.

It. Was. Awesome.

Next I had the pork eye fillet with serrano ham, parmesan, basil, gnocchi, brussel sprouts and mushroom sauce.

It. Was. Awesome. Especially the brussel sprouts.

The photos are awful and really don't do the meal justice but they were taken in haste so as not to appear like a hipster douche Instagraming my food.

I'm hoping I get back to Depo again soon for dinner. Although after the wine pairings, champagne and discovering it was International Gin Day I have concerns about how I'm going to feel tomorrow.

Osso Buco (by G)

To be honest I forgot that Biggs was dining out today - I probably wouldn't have made such a large and hearty dinner otherwise. I already had the veal shins so I went ahead regardless.

It's a really easy dish if you've got 6 hours for it to slow cook. Dust the veal shin with flour and fry them to get some colour. Saute some carrot, celery, garlic and onion, add tomato paste, wine and some tinned tomatoes along with some stock and Italian herbs then just pop it in the oven and leave it for hours and hours. I don't have wine so I used sake.

I made some awesome mashed potato with heaps of salt and butter to serve my osso buco on. The osso buco tuned out a bit intense because (at the critical moment) I forgot I was halving the recipe and added twice the amount of tomatoes required.

Osso Buco is Italian for 'bone with a hole' so as long as you get the right cut of meat you can't really fail.

Pizza (by Biggs)

The intention was to order take-away pizzas tonight but then I remembered I was going to make more effort with cooking because you only get a limited number of dinners in a life-time. So, instead, I put together some home-made pizzas. I've been really enjoying making pizzas lately and am slowly getting to be a dab-hand at it.

My last dough was a bit of a disaster but this one was a ripper. It probably helped that I heated the kitchen up a bit frying the toppings.

One pizza was chicken and bacon with some basil, onion and capers. The trick was frying the onions in the bacon fat, then the chicken in the oniony bacon fat.

The other pizza was piled with two types of salami.

The chicken pizza was well and truly my favourite. Unfortunately the first one came out a bit underdone so I had to jam it back in the oven for a bit. Then, the second one I left in the oven for a bit too long so that's a shame. G described the second one as "a bit past it's prime" so I'm off to cry myself to sleep.

PS: Anyone counting along might think this adds up to four pizzas for two people.....but that would awfully gluttonous wouldn't it?

Duck with White Bean Puree and Veg (by G)

There have been a couple of duck breasts kicking about in the freezer since I made cassoulet - not the nice fancy looking ones you get in the supermarket, they were a bit raggedy because I'd broken down the duck myself.

I coated the breasts in a dry rub of allspice, cumin, garlic powder, white pepper and a pinch of cayenne pepper (note that I've avoided all double entendres relating to rubbing and breasts - kudos to me). You can't just fry duck breasts at a high heat like other proteins, you have to treat it right to render the fat and crispy the skin. I was a bit too respectful and cooked the duck at too low a temperature - resulting in not very crispy skin.

I tried to make a white bean puree as well - I succeeded in that it was a puree but it did not quite live up to my expectations. It was a blended mix of white beans, garlic, shallot, thyme, bay leaf and chicken stock - I took the bay leaf out before blending but I think it had already added too much flavour.

Also for sides I fried a pre-packaged vegetable medley (new to my supermarket of choice - a brilliant overpriced mix of carrot, celery and onion) - I added some chicken stock at the end because vegetables are evil and chicken juice is a good influence).

I also oven roasted some tiny kipfler potatoes because they were tiny and I had to own them - they didn't roast up too well.

Noodle Pork Mince Rolls (by G)

As Biggs was meant to be out this evening I decided, once more, to not make too much effort with dinner.

I filled some cheap soft white rolls with hokkien noodles which I first partially re-hydrated (in simmering water) then de-hydrated again in super-heated oil.  Also there was a mince made from pork, red onion, garlic and the sauce I made for the tortillas last night.

I topped all of this with some crispy fried shallot, coriander, red chilli and yellow capsicum.

The whole combination was soft and adequately delicious.

Turkey Tortillas (by G)

I had a brilliant idea to make tortillas out of turkey meat - naturally this is something that has been done before according to the internet.

I got some turkey breast chunks and flavoured them with a dry rub of paprika, cumin, oregano, garlic powder, salt, white pepper and cayenne pepper. After it had marinated for a while I added some lime juice and marinated it again. After a sufficient amount of time I fried the turkey pieces then rested them.

To the flavourful pan I added some sliced red onion, green capsicum and red capsicum. When the vegetables were soft I sliced up the turkey and added it back to the pan.

I thought the turkey mix may not have much flavour so I made a sauce from fried red onion, green capsicum, red capsicum, garlic, coriander stems and some mulato chillies softened in boiling water.

I thought it might be a nice idea to add a bit of freshness so I also made a salsa from coriander, cucumber, the capsicums, red chilli, red onion, salt and lime juice.

I won't say that the tortillas were so tasty that I forgot to take a photo, but they were pretty tasty (though the turkey was indistinguishable from pork) and I incidentally forgot to take a photo. What is shown below is a little bit of each element served - except the handmade flour tortillas.

Ham, Cheese, Pickles and Chip Toasted Sandwich with Chips (by Biggs)

I asked G to make a key ingredient suggestion for this public holiday Monday and he went with 'chips'. I immediately turned to the internet to ask for suggestions of 'recipes with chips'. It suggested a few wacky things so I went with what seemed the most palatable - toasted sandwiches with chips on them. The internet told me to use crisps but I thought fries would be better. But to be on the safe side I served the sandwiches with crisps.

Not sure what else to say. The order was fairly critical to the success of this meal I think. It was cheese, ham, pickles, chips, cheese.

Pork with Potato Lumplings (by G)

Dinner tonight was a bit of a debacle. I had made sauerkraut some weeks ago and I decided today was the time to use it - with pork knuckles and potato dumplings. When I checked the sauerkraut I was disappointed to discover that it had some mould growing on it (some of the cabbage had floated above the pickling liquid).

 

Undaunted I went to the butcher to get the pork hocks and discovered they had sold out. At this point I should have just come up with a different plan, but the monomania set in and I decided to go ahead with a pork loin roast.  I seasoned the loin with salt and pepper and oiled and salted the skin then roasted it for hours on a bed of once fresh but now dry rosemary. I should have amended my cooking times because the loin meat is not as fatty as the knuckle - subsequently it came out dry. The crackle was not the bubbly kind but the thin sticky kind, which was still pretty satisfying.

 

The potato dumplings were a bit of a failure. I mixed boiled potatoes, eggs, salt ad flour to the exact proportions listed in the recipe. I thought it was not doughy enough but decided to go with the recipe rather than trust my instincts (they have been a bit off lately).  When I boiled the dumplings in water they started to disintegrate so I pulled the misshaped lumps out and heated them without water in a pan. They were pretty stodgy and quite cold when served.

 

In place of the sauerkraut I salted some purple cabbage for a few hours then braised it in a mix of beef stock, brown sugar and red wine vinegar with a little garlic for flavour. I was not really in the mood for the regular sweet and sour cabbage and this turned out to be much more to my taste.

 

I did not shine with this roast - I even managed to fuck up the packet gravy. Luckily even bad pork is good and Biggs and I managed to gag it all down.

 

 

BBQ (by Biggs)

Tonight I had dinner with some old work friends and the plan was BBQ.

I was really impressed with both the quantity and variety of food that came together with seemingly little effort. I'm sure that's not true but I sure didn't put in any effort.

The variety of meats included rissoles, chicken wings, sausages and a massive slab of cow that some people thought was underdone but I thought was pretty good. Chef Noel was going to cook some slices a bit further but then the BBQ stopped working. I'm really glad it didn't stop working earlier in the day.

Sides were some pretty special vegetables - BBQd potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes with chutney, spinach with garlic and cream and haloumi with sesame seeds.

My feeble contribution to dinner was breadrolls....I didn't bother eating any.

Delicious.

Noodles with the Lot (by G)

With Biggs off eating BBQ tonight I decided to go to as little effort as possible with dinner and use as many things as I could find in a noodle dish.

The noodles were ramen (allegedly) but had a texture more like thin udon noodles.  The noodles had the following flavourings:

- Red and Green fresh chilli
- Cabbage
- Kim Chi
- Brown Onion
- Coriander
- Spring Onion
- Chilli Sauce
- Ginger
- Ketjap Manis
- Soy Sauce
- Red Korean Hot Bean Paste

I'm sure there were some other things. In fact I recall that I forgot to add ginger while cooking so added some grated stuff at the end of cooking resulting in a strong raw ginger flavour. Despite that this was a pretty flavourful dinner - something like very, very spicy tinned spaghetti.

Dwaejibulgogi and Sides (by G)

I had a Korean Kraving and after some recipe research decided to make Dwaejibulgogi - pork belly in a marinade of pear, grated onion, garlic, ginger, spring onion, ginger, soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and hot bean paste.

Despite marinating the meat and frying it the resulting flavour was a bit muted so I added the pork back into the marinade, added some chilli paste and cooked the crap out of it in a smoking hot oven. Once done I sprinkled it with some roasted sesame seeds for added authenticity.

One think I like about Korean food is the multitude of sides so I decided to do as many as I could do in a reasonable amount of time. The sliced green chilli and garlic was easy. Also the kim chi (which came pre-made from a tub). The snow pea shoots were not hard - snow pea shoots, minced garlic, salt with sesame oil and sesame seeds to finish. Also not difficult was the bean sprout salad - quickly boiled sprouts with chilli flakes, garlic powder, soy sauce, sliced red chilli and sesame seeds and oil to finish.

My lasting impression of this meal is that it was pretty flavourful and not at all difficult to make. If I didn't have a massive aversion to washing-up I would do this again but with a dozen side dishes (and maybe a more intense marinade).

Best Basic Vegetable Soup (by Biggs)

For my birthday Nancy gave me a brilliant soup zine called 'Stock Tips'....part gift, part inspiration as to what Tortilla Tuesday could one day be. Tonight is the first time I've cooked from it and it was a grand success. I chose a soup recipe by Amy Plitt called The Best Basic Vegetable Soup.

The recipe is onion, celery, carrot, garlic, tomatoes, beans, stock, spinach, bay leaves, Italian spices, sriracha, salt, pepper and pasta. Her advice is to put it all in a pot, leave it alone for a while, taste it, if it tastes good (which it is guaranteed to) - eat it.

I like this Amy Plitt lady because her recipe is specific but then goes on to advise how you can adapt the soup. The adaptation options are: use any veggies you want, any beans you want, don't use tomatoes if you don't want to, don't use pasta if you don't want to but, that you absolutely must, 100%, no questions asked, use the sriracha.

G had an annoying day today so, as a treat, I added some fried ham and served the soup with garlic bread.

I don't know who Amy Plitt is but I like her! I like her soup even more.

Thai Pork and Vegetables (by G)

My only objective for today was to use some leftover pork neck from Monday. I like watch 'Duncan's Thai Kitchen' most weekends and he seems to cook with pork a bit - unfortunately there are only 2 of his recipes on the entire world wide network and neither of them have pork in them, so I just searched for Thai Pork Neck.

In the end I marinated the pork in brown sugar, oyster sauce, fish sauce, tamarind, garlic, ginger and chilli sauce - then I stewed it in a pan (it was supposed to be fried, but the heat didn't work to optimum capacity). To get the pork a bit browner I chucked it in a super hot oven for about 20 minutes.

The vegetables were really just for bulk. It was just a packet of 'Asian Stir Fry Vegetables' fried in coconut oil (along with garlic, ginger, mushrooms, spring onions and chilli), then simmered in a sauce of coconut milk, fish sauce, lime juice, soy sauce, chilli flakes and brown sugar. Oh, and I also added some cooked rice noodles and then thai basil at the end.

I thought the pork was pretty good. Mostly the pork was good because it was good pork.

Moo Shu Pork Tortillas (by Biggs)

Tonight I made tortillas from scratch! I know G has done that for years now but I've intended to do it since the begining of the year and FINALLY did it. I'm pretty proud.....they weren't great but I'm pretty proud.

Don't get me wrong, they weren't bad but there's room to improve. G had to answer about 750 questions throughout the cooking process and what I learnt is that if you're going to ask a question you should probably listen to the answer.  He suggested that 2 cups would make 10 tortillas. I instead made 12 so they were quite little. I also think I should have mixed the duck fat through the flour a little better and I definitely shouldn't have left them out to dry while I was watching Hell's Kitchen.

At the start of the year, when I initially decided to make tortillas from scratch, I chose a simple pork mix to put inside them. The moo shu pork is just shredded pork with hoi sin, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, ginger and spring onions.

The recipe said to serve it with coleslaw and tortillas.....so I did.

Cassoulet (by G)

This was the meal we were meant to have on Sunday but I didn't get around making to due to beer related demotivation.

I think it was supposed to take about 4 hours to cook but, being a Monday night, I squeezed the cooking into 2 hours.

I won't go into too much detail other than to say that I almost exactly followed a recipe by Guillaume Brahimi (he speaks with a French accent so I'm pretty sure it's the genuine deal).  The main differences were that veal stock was not available in my limited field of shopping opportunities so I substituted with a mix of beef and vegetable (which is virtually the same thing with less animal abuse). I also couldn't find the correct beans so I got white beans - I don't know what white beans are exactly but they were the right colour and they were called beans so they seemed okay. I also substituted brioche crumbs for Krummies brand bread crumbs (and way to many of them at that) so the cassoulet turned out a bit thick.

I was pretty impressed with the result given my lack of enthusiasm for cooking something so complicated on a Monday.

Burgers (by G)

Biggs had to do some complicated Sunday afternoon alcohol research and invited me for a beer at a place that serves such beverages.  One beer turned into many beers thanks to a pool table being handy.

My plan to make a very time consuming dinner went out the window and we instead got some burgers, chips and onion rings on the way home. I was a bit tipsy so I don't remember much about dinner I'm pretty sure I Hasslehoffed it (but with my shirt on).

I do recall having a couple of the onion rings and thinking they were rather good - sadly they were all gone before I went back for a third.