Fish Tortillas with Tomato Salsa (by Biggs)

I thought my idea for tortillas this week was so good I moved Tortilla Tuesday to Tortilla Thursday as I was out on Tuesday and decided we had to eat this as soon as possible. I was wrong.

As some of you may remember I had to order a packet of beer batter when I purchased my old bay spice a few weeks ago so thought some fried fish tortillas would be nice. Unfortunately I forgot the key ingredient in the batter - the old bay spice! Damn it! So, the fish didn't taste like anything. Trying to learn from G's mistake yesterday I ordered more than a handful of whiting fillets.....a lot more, too much more.

The salsa was de-seeded tomatoes, red onion, jalapeños, coriander and lime. It was meant to have avocado in it but the one I bought wasn't quite ready for consumption.

We don't eat a lot of fish but I hope the double-dose of brain food this week will make up for past damage done.

Fish Curry (by G)

I was going to try to make a good dinner tonight - it turned out okay but I had to battle against fate to get it to an edible level which was more effort than I was hoping for.

The first difficulty was that the fish I was hoping to use for dinner was not available so I went with little fillets of whiting "about a handful". One of the fundamental laws of cooking is that "about a handful" of protein is not enough for two people.

Anyway, I started out working from a recipe but I was unable to find so many of the ingredients that it became a bit of a freestyle-a-thon. The curry sauce I ended up with contained shallot, garlic, ginger, kaffir lime leaves, lime zest and juice, turmeric powder, pepper, coconut cream - I think that's all to begin with. When it turned out that the sauce had no flavour I added curry powder, then fish sauce, then some chicken stock... and then some chilli flakes.  I'm pretty sure that's it.

To make up for the lack of protein I decided to make some potatoes. They were parboiled and roasted with onion, garlic, cumin seeds, turmeric, chilli flakes and lime juice.

Add a side of plain rice and top it all with roasted almond slivers and coriander and you have dinner.

Stir-fry (by Biggs)

Dinner was at Nancy's tonight and was a really delicious stir-fry. As detailed on this blog I'm pretty crap at making a stir-fry so always appreciate sitting down to a good one.

The stir-fry was super savoury with marinated tofu, broccoli, capsicum, carrot, snow peas and mushrooms. Perfectly umami. My favourite of all the flavours.

I made a blood donation this afternoon and the staff suggested a dinner of mushrooms and greens. Lucky I was at Nancy's tonight and not at home. You don't often come across a green in our household.

Beef and Black Bean Tortillas (by G)

I had a feeling this one would not turn out too photogenic so I served it on a pink plate and topped the meat with a sprig of coriander.

Biggs was dining out so I made only a negligible effort. Beef, onions, garlic, coriander, paprika, cumin, black beans from a tin and some stock. Yeah, I could have had more vegetables and stuff - I didn't though.

The tortillas were some ancient ones from an open packet I found in the freezer.

Jambalaya (by G)

Whoops! Missed the cut off time by a few seconds - this dinner was actually consumed on the 28th from precisely 7:30 pm.

I saw a jambalaya cookoff on the 'Hairy Bikers' (the North American HBs - not the good ones) and decided it would be a good wintertime dish.

The key seemed to be to fry the chicken to as dark a colour as you dared - I fried pieces of our corn-fed chicken in lard for extra emphasis. It was pretty dark by the time I was done with it. After draining off a bit of the lard I then fried some onions, red capsicum and celery - also chorizo and garlic until soft, then I added rice, some Worcestershire sauce, tinned tomatoes, old bay seasoning (because Biggs convinced me "That's what they do in the South"), onion powder, black pepper and chicken stock as well as the chicken and simmered it until the rice was done.

I was pretty happy with this one, stodgy rice dishes rate pretty highly with me.  The corn-fed chicken didn't taste anywhat superior to the regular fed ones but that may have been because I had been fried to dry nuggets.

Chicken Tikka Masala Skewers with Coriander Dressing (by Biggs)

Sometimes Sundays in our household are a bit sad because it marks the end of rest and relaxation. I thought perhaps a BBQ would make us less sad and I knew chicken skewers would definitely make G less sad.

I didn't really have a particular plan in mind but thought it was likely that the Delicious magazine would have a chicken skewer recipe and it sure did. The chicken was marinated in tikka masala paste and yoghurt, threaded onto skewers then charred over some super hot coals.

The skewers were served with a cucumber salad and a coriander dressing. The cucumber was served simply with lime.

The coriander dressing was a cracker - ginger, garlic, sugar, lime, coriander, oil and yoghurt. It went well with the char.

Pulled Pork Roll Supper (by G)

I had grand plans for dinner - then ruined them somewhat by taking a nap in the afternoon and not waking up until about 45 minutes past dinner time.

Essentially the plan was to slow roast a delicious pork for about 4 1/2 hours then serve it with home-made tomato sauce and a pickled slaw. That is basically what happened except that the tomato sauce I was making became too bitter from the lemon rinds I had left in there for hours and the slaw became just shredded cabbage for reasons of expedience and the pork turned out to be less delicious that I had expected.

The pork had been seasoned in old bay seasoning before going in the oven - this flavour did not really come out in the final product.  The tomato sauce I ended up serving was basically just tomato ketchup with roasted garlic and Dijon mustard stirred through - it was not too bad but there was only about 20ml of ketchup in the fridge so the quantity was lacking.

Poor Biggs had already fixed herself a kwiki-mart feast by the time I had rolled out of bed, so she was not really receptive to a whole other dinner.

The cornichons were excellent by-the-way.

Debreziner and Kransky (by Biggs)

A work collegue recently went to our formerly much-loved German Club and it made me think it's been a while since a German feast. Then I noticed spaetzle in the supermaket. It was meant to be.

My memory of German Club spaetzle is that it had plenty of butter and parsley in it so I used the same theme. I also chose a couple of types of sausage, a comforting kransky and a tasty debreziner, and served them sliced and fried....reminiscent of the 'sausage taster' I once had at Duckstein in Swan Valley.

I thought mustard would go well but stupidly dumped half a jar of hot English on each of our plates and almost killed my brother. Shame. Lucky he had a great last supper.

I also served a vegetable - broccolini - but made it a bit healthier with the addition of bacon, garlic and chili.

Happy Friday, Readers!

Meaty Mush with the Lot (by G)

I had a cracking headache when I finished work today and was not really in the right frame of mind to shop for dinner. I bought some stir-fry steak and a packet of instant stir-fry vegetables and a mushroom.

My headache had passed by the time I got home but somehow my brain had not re-booted. I tried to fry the beef but only managed to stew it a bit. After that I fried some red onion, the mushroom, some cooked rice I found in the freezer, some ham hock (I had originally defrosted this for dinner but forgotten about it). Then I added the stir-fry vegetables and the beef along with some uncooked 2 minute noodles. After this had simmered down to a sludgy mush I flavoured it with a sauce of soy, ketjap manis, sake, rice wine vinegar, garlic powder, a little bit of chicken style stock, the flavour sachets that came with the noodles and some corn flour.

I don't think Biggs and I own anything edible that did not go into this dinner. It seemed to taste okay before I covered my serve in sriracha, after which it tasted predominantly of sriracha.

Pork and Noodles - have I already done that? (by G)

Biggs is away so I was cooking for myself again. The original plan was to have a kind of meaty noodle salad - somehow I came out of the supermarket with some suspiciously cheap pork loin, a capsicum and some 2 minute noodles. Not really the cornucopia of fresh ingredients I hoped for.

What I basically did is combine all of those things, along with some garlic, on a plate.

I did fry the pork and then baste it in a savoury chilli sauce before roasting it to perfection.

Noodles and Things (by Biggs)

Tonight I had a very important 'Women's Conference' held at the Brisbane Night Noodle Markets over cider and, er.....noodles.

We started with Bang Bang: Xinjiang cumin lamb skewers (from Bang Bang) as well as steamed vegetarian dumplings and steamed pork belly buns (from New Shanghai). Our palates were mighty sated, particularly by the tasty, full-flavoured dumplings so we were keen to try a bunch of other things but were quickly overwhelmed by the hordes of noodle-eaters.

After a quick breather, some more cider and a sit down on the river bank, we went back in for more and ordered soba noodles with pork for me, chicken for Fi and rice noodles with chicken for Kirst....which I think came from Sake. A perfect nightcap of delicious meaty broth and fixings.

 

Tortilla Pi (approximation) and Chips (by G)

Today is pi approximation day as well as Tortilla Tuesday - a quandary that I solved by making pie shells out of tortillas, filling them with mince, topping them with cheese and calling them pies.

The mince was a mix of beef mince and left over roast chicken that was simmered in tomato and stock, along with red onion, garlic, paprika, oregano, cumin and garlic powder.  I may have under flavoured the meat a little.

A pie isn't a pie without chips so I store bought some chilli&lime corn chips - I thought they were a bit heavy on lurid red artificial dye.

In-case you would like to make tortilla pie casings yourself at home (or in the office) all you have to do is invert a muffin tin, press the tortillas between the lumples and oven bake them for about 15 minutes.

Savoury Noodle Soup (by Biggs)

Dinner tonight came from the back of a thin egg noodle packet and was meant to be chicken noodle soup. I made some substitutes and variations but it didn't go too far wrong.

The stock was some of G's chicken-style stock in a pouch with spring onions, soy and fish sauce, sesame oil and some dried mushrooms. The recipe suggested 6 mushrooms, I used about 30 which turned the stock into a savoury mushroom soup....definitely not a chicken soup.

There was also some chicken that had been poached in the stock, an egg, some fresh spring onion and I replaced the recipe suggestion of bean sprouts and lettuce (?) with bacon.

Dinner was fine. I cooked about 5 times too many noodles. I could only find one bowl which meant I ate my soup off a plate but the meal was definitely not as offensive as others I have cooked.

Roast Chicken with Baked Potato, Sweet Potato and Fennel Mush (by G)

Today I was looking to do a simple roast chicken meal - it turned out to be a bit more complicated than I was hoping for but the result was suitably rustic.

I brushed a raw chicken with garlic butter than dusted it with salt and white pepper then put it in an oven bag along with some chopped onion, garlic and sage - oh, and I shoved a hot lemon up her back passage.  The bird was enormous so I consulted a few sources as to how long I should cook it - they all mostly agreed that 2.5 hours at about 190 deg C should do it. Unfortunately that overdid it, but that is better than the alternative.

The potatoes both sweet and plain were roasted in the oven for about an hour - I freaked out when they were still hard after that time so I blitzed them in the microwave. The regular potatoes got a topping of diced ham hock, gruyere cheese and sour cream. The sweet potato got a simple topping of garlic butter.

The fennel mush was nothing new, onions, garlic and fennel stewed in chicken style stock - I did add the remainder of the cheese and ham hock in there.

I also made a chicken gravy by making a butter/flour roux and adding chicken style stock - I also added some parsley for something different. It was probably the best thing on the plate.

Shrimp Boil (by Biggs)

The second G noticed me glad-wrapping our rarely used dining table he knew what we were having for dinner - a Louisiana Shrimp Boil. We've seen people enjoy various crawfish boils on TV, usually Bourdain is involved,  so I thought it was time for us to experience the joy. Instead of crawfish I went with a shrimp boil as shrimps (prawns) are far more accessible, even off-season, in Brisbane.

The critical ingredient of a shrimp boil isn't the shrimp - it is the Old Bay Seasoning. A bunch of food forums indicated that Old Bay Seasoning is illegal in Australia as it has ingredients in it not allowed through customs. Turns out, for the princely sum of $40, you can get half a kilo shipped from Melbourne. I didn't intend to spend  $40 but it cost $18, then $20 for postage and, as a result of minimum purchase requirements, I also had to order an out-of-date packet of beer batter.

Another $40 spent on the remaining ingredients, some glad wrap and the ever-critical newspaper and it turns out this is the most expensive meal I have ever cooked.

Worth every penny!

I made up a stock of water, Old Bay Seasoning, beer and salt. Once boiling I added potatoes, onion, kransky, corn and then, at the last minute, some prawns. Fixings included srirarcha, thousand island dressing, lemon, melted butter and more Old Bay Seasoning.

The whole lot was dumped on newspaper, we rolled up our sleeves and tucked in. I anticipate many more shrimp boils in my future. It was magic. First though, I have to try all ten recipes available on the Old Bay Seasoning tin.

Lamb with Pasta and Rice (by G)

One odd food combinations that I am very fond of is mixing pasta and rice on the same plate. There is something about the combination of textures that really appeals to me.

 

As Biggs was out I didn't go to too much effort with the rest of it. Forequarter lamb chops fried to add colour then oven roasted at medium heat to get them jerkyesque - in hindsight adding colour in the pan was a bit un-necessary.

 

The sauce was just a mix of leftover pasta sauce from the meatball recipe the other night with a butt-load of cream added.

 

It was a weird combination of flavours, textures and colours but one that I found very satisfying.

Huong's Banquet (by Biggs)

Aaron was visiting from Toowoomba so we rallied some troops and headed to Huong's. Being intimidated by the 150 dishes on the menu we went for the simplicity of ordering a banquet. Since that only narrowed the choice down slightly we decided on Huong's Banquet....because it had Huong's name in it.

I was pretty happy because, along with san choy bow and some fairly average Spring Rolls we also had spicy quails that were tops.

Mains were special fried rice, Vietnamese beef salad (100% beef just the way I like it), Mongolian king prawns, sweet and sour pork and a satay coral trout dish. Or I should say an excellent satay coral trout dish. 

Dinner was cheap and cheerful, exactly what I was in the mood for. It was topped off with deep fried ice-cream, some beers, plenty of wine and the soothing sounds of a live Guqin player in the background.

Gremolata Turkey (by Biggs)

I asked G to make a protein suggestion for this evenings meal and he decided on turkey. I looked up a bunch of turkey recipes on the internet but they were all fairly uninspiring so I turned to a ' Delicious' magazine I got on the weekend. It didn't have any turkey recipes in it so I just went through all the chicken recipes that I thought could be enhanced by turkey.

I think I've only eaten turkey three times - once I ate a whole turkey leg at the Minnesota State Fair, then I ate (almost) a whole Turducken last Christmas and once I tried turkey tortillas. My memory of each of  these occasions is that turkey is a super meaty meat.

The recipe I went with was a nice Summer dish of vegetables and gremolata. It wasn't really enhanced by turkey but it did require a mandoline and as you know I am very new to mandoline ownership (and still not in hospital - success).

The vegetables were cute little baby asparagus, some peas and beautifully mandolined zucchini. The vegetables were cooked off with some butter and lemon. The turkey was oven roasted with butter, lemon, red onion and chili.

Dinner was topped with gremolata - a "chopped herb condiment". I should have used the description on Wiki as the recipe - would have been tastier. It was good but would have been much nice if it wasn't the middle of Winter.

Oh, there was also parmesan.

 

Spaghetti and Blue Cheese Stuffed Meatballs (by G)

I had some leftover blue cheese so I stuffed it into some meatballs and topped spaghetti with them.

The spaghetti sauce consisted of slow fried onion and garlic, tinned tomatoes, lemon zest, paprika, garlic powder, some sour old white wine, lemon juice and just about a whole bunch of fresh basil.  The sauce was a bit bland when I tasted it so I added some soy sauce - I don't know if that did anything but the sauce turned out not to be terrible.

Crumbed Chicken Tortillas with Citrus, Coriander Salad (by Biggs)

I walked into the supermarket today with no idea what we were going to have for dinner. It was likely going to be tortillas so I let that idea lead the way and headed straight to the Old El Paso aisle.

I saw one pre-made packet plan of crunchy chicken crumbed in spicy something and thought it looked splendid so went with it. I opened the box, removed the tortillas, the crumb mix and got rid of the remaining processed sauces and spices.

The crumb mix was nice and savoury and salty so I tossed some chicken tenders in it and oven baked them. They were then served with the tortillas, some sriracha, sour cream and a salad of packet coleslaw, coriander and the juice of a lime and some left over lemon.

The only unfortunate thing was, as soon as I served dinner up it went cold in our crisp 'Sunshine State' weather. If only we were in Florida right now.

Steak with Blue Cheese Sauce (by G)

I bought blue cheese on an impulse the other day. Rather than just eat it as a snack I decided I should probably share the joy and incorporate it in dinner.

Nothing says blue cheese like blue cheese sauce so I made one of those - simply by adding blue cheese to cream and applying heat. It turned out a bit grey because I later added fried meat pan juices.

There are four vegetables with dinner because I bought mushrooms forgetting that I had corn at home. I remembered when I got home, then immediately forgot about the corn again until about 5 minutes to dinner being served. The carrots were simmered in magic chicken style stock so I used the left over to stock to quick cook the corn.

I attempted to make a potato rosti - as usual it turned out to be shit. The mushroom was not as great as I'd hoped because I bought 'buttery' non-butter instead of butter and it did not add the flavour to the mushrooms that I was hoping for - I added some gruyere to the mushrooms to add a touch of blandish cholesterol.

The steak was pretty gristly but all in all it was an edible dinner.

Halloumi and Other Bits (by Biggs)

This morning, all I knew about dinner is that it was going to feature halloumi. Throughout the day I decided on different things to add to the meal.

First a Greek salad of cucumber, tomato, olives, red onion and feta. Then, some bread with olive oil and garlic. And, lastly some pork meatballs in tomato sauce. The meatballs and sauce were exactly the same as I put in the pig dogs the other night. Given their success they're bound to feature heavily in our future.

Dinner was quite satisfying.

Portuguese Style Chicken (by G)

Today, Portuguese style chicken - it turned out pretty well.  The sauce was the star - a mix of oil, lemon juice, raw garlic, birds eye chillies, oregano, paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper blitzed up. Biggs is a bit sensitive to heat so I used the minimum number of chillies recommended in the recipe (4) and doubled the quantities of the other ingredients. It turned out to be like a spicy garlic aioli.

I marinated the chicken for about an hour then oven baked it, then added some more sauce and grilled them to get the colour.  I wasn't too sure about appropriate sides so I cut a sweet potato into chips and oven roasted them and boiled some sweet corn.

My dinner in particular would have been amazing if I hadn't dropped it on the ground - no matter, it was still pretty good.

The sauce was great, someone should bottle it - they would make a fortune.

Curried Roast Lamb (by G)

I was searching around the internet for something to do with some left-over roast lamb. The lamb did not turn out to be too good when I roasted it so I was waiting for a night when Biggs would be out to have the rest.

This recipe seemed promising because it had curry powder in it - I was a bit dubious because it also had milk. It turned out to be really simple and delicious (which is a good thing because there was a vast quantity for only one person).

First I made some melted butter by melting some butter, then I made a roux by adding flour, then turned the roux into a white sauce by adding milk. The white sauce became a curry sauce when I added curry powder. After that I added some salt and pepper and lamb. It was a bit flavourless so I added some magic 'chicken style' stock and that fixed it.

The lamb mix went into an oven proof pot then I topped it with some crushed boiled potatoes, then cheese, then a small packet of crumbled potato chips. After baking for a little while it was ready eating.

It was phenomenal - the meat had tenderised and picked up a nice savoury curry flavour. Not much on the vegetable front which is no bad thing.

Soup and Pizza (by Biggs)

Tonight I was at my friend Snipes' 40th birthday gig. I had fun....a lot of fun.* I also had soup. And pizza. Snipes' wife Liz had boldly taken it upon herself to feed everyone and catered the affair herself.....pretty impressive.

She had the genius idea, given we were all loitering in the cold drinking cold beer, to serve a huge pot of minestrone soup. It was teamed with garlic bread and was delicious. It was an absolute hit.....everyone was keen for another pot to be brewed. If you're having a party any time soon I seriously suggested you make soup. The people respond well.

 

I feel pretty bad because I promised Liz in advanced that I would help her with the cooking but the second someone put a beer in my hand I completely forgot my offer of assistance. Fortunately she had some friends much more helpful (and competent) than me. There was a real production line going in the kitchen to get these pizzas out. Brilliant work all around. I certainly stepped up to the plate to help eat them though. In the aftermath, I'm a little fuzzy on what was on them. I remember pepperoni, and some bacon and mushrooms. I saw a pumpkin in the kitchen but am unsure if it made it to a pizza.

 

Liz also made a salad which I neglected to try. This was put together with the assistance of a pretty impressive mandolin. When I saw Liz prepping the salad I noticed she wasn't using the mandolin guard which had me nervous but fortunately most of the party guests were nurses so I guess we were safe if it all went wrong....which it didn't. After the party I was lucky enough to be gifted a mandolin so stay tuned for devastating blade injuries in my near future.

 

 

*Fun in this context actually means alcohol. I had alcohol....a lot of alcohol.

Pasta Bake (by Biggs)

I'm still a bit sick, work was a pain in my arse and I'm quite a lazy person on the best of occasions so I totally half-arsed dinner tonight.

I made the easiest thing I could think of. Pasta bake with pasta sauce from a jar. A while ago I swore I wouldn't ever again buy pasta sauce from a jar......for obvious reasons. But, it was okay.

I cooked up some bacon to stir through the pasta......for obvious reasons......and also mixed though a little left over chicken from last night.

Not my proudest entry on the blog but dinner was warm and edible. Good enough!

Meanwhile, something just occurred to me.....just because the garlic bread comes in a 2-pack it doesn't mean you have to cook both of them. Hot tip!

Chicken Drummies and Rice (by Biggs)

Tonight (the night before pay day) I decided to use one of the cheapest cuts of meat I know of to make dinner - the chicken drumstick. $3 a kilo.....amazing. I bet the chicken aren't too happy about that. I sure as hell wouldn't sell one of my legs at that price.

In an attempt to do them justice, I marinated them in honey, soy, garlic and ginger and sprinkled them with sesame seeds. After quite some time in the oven the soy almost caramalised to vegemite. Luckily we like vegemite.

After racking my brain all day about what to compliment the drummies with, I was super pumped with my sudden genius idea of fried rice. No one has ever thought of that before!

The rice worked out exactly how I wanted. Some rice fried off in bacon fat, with bacon, frozen veges and a little egg mixed through.

I hope it tasted okay. I have a pretty bad head cold so can't actually taste anything. Time for bed.

Flour Tortilla Taco Trial1 (by G)

It's getting difficult to think of new tortilla related meals - I did have another plan for this tortilla Tuesday, but the supermarket and I experienced irreconcilable differences. Instead I decided to make a flour version of the traditional (not really traditional) hard corn tacos.

For this job I decided that packet tortillas would be best to experiment with. After making a filling of store-bought barbecue chicken, red onion, coriander, diced tomato, packet taco seasoning (a first for me) and cheese I divided it amongst a few flour tortillas, folded them over and placed a tray on top (and bottom) to ensure they didn't try and unfold - then stuck them in the oven. To get the tops browned I stuck them under the grill for a couple of minutes. The tortillas did not get as crispy as I was hoping, 'asi es la vida'.

I also made a fresh salsa of cucumber, capsicum, onion, coriander and lime juice (partly because I find the fine dicing cathartic) and I sliced up an avocado (mostly because I like the fan shape it makes).

The packet taco seasoning was surprisingly sweet but otherwise a bit flavourless. I had considered adding a little magic 'chicken style' stock for flavour but decided against it - to the detriment of Biggs and myself.  That said, they were not too bad. They were about 1000 degrees Celsius for a long time after I had served them so they were extremely difficult to eat.

Savoury Strudel (by G)

I like strudel - at least I probably would do if I liked sweet things, or - perhaps - if the strudel was savoury.

Biggs and I swapped cooking nights so tonight was my opportunity to try a savoury strudel.  There was a recipe but I forgot to look at it and ended up free-styling. I gather filo pasty is brushed with butter and layered. That process was a bit more difficult than I'd anticipated - once done, however, I put a mix of soft leek, onion and mushroom (with some seasoning, magic chicken style stock and corn flour to soak up the liquid)... and cheese on the filo and rolled it up. Then I brushed the top and tucked it in the oven.

I don't know what goes with savoury strudel so I made a quick potato salad to use up some things I had potatoes, olives - the coriander was pre-left over from tomorrow's dinner. I also added some Dijon mustard and mayonnaise.

Tonight's dinner took about 5 hours fewer hours (and involved only a fraction of the washing up) as last night's dinner and was significantly more tasty and satisfying.

Sunday Roast Lamb (by G)

I got a 2.7 kilogram leg of lamb the about a week ago (kind of by accident) - I've been excited for days at the thought of cooking it.

Unfortunately it did not turn out as I had hoped. For something different I decided to slow cook it Greek style (allegedly). I studded the leg with 50 slivers of garlic then coated it in a mix of salt, pepper, paprika and garlic powder then stuck it into an oiled oven tray and then into a super hot oven.

After a turning to get it all brown on the outside I added some onion, more garlic, thyme, rosemary, dried oregano, white wine, lemon juice, oil, bay leaves and some hot water the simmered it in a slow oven for hours - basting and turning the meat regularly.

As dinner time approached I put some blanched potatoes and chopped pumpkin in the oven. The potatoes were for wedges (which turned out to be not too good), the pumpkin was for a salad (of sorts) that turned out to be rather good. The other salad elements were blanched green beans, chorizo and haloumi cheese. No prizes for guessing how the salad turned out so well.

The meat (as it turned out) turned out to be a disappointment - it was not as tender and flavourful as I had hoped and dreamed.

There are a few things I probably could have done (in hindsight) to make the lamb better but, as they say, 'if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas'.

Pig Dogs (by Biggs)

Based on ingredients G saw in the kitchen he thought we might be having hot dogs for dinner. Little did he know we were acutally having pig dogs.....meatballs subs made with pork sausages.

First I de-skinned some sausages, balled them up into meatballs and fried them off. Then I made a sauce with tips from G's dinner from last night - half a head of garlic, an onion, a tin of tomatoes, vegetable stock, sugar and salt. 

The sauce was slopped on the meatballs. The meatballs were slopped on a long roll. Then cheese was added before toasting them in the oven for 10 minutes.

Umamirama!

Moroccan Style Chicken with CousCous and such (G)

I had chicken drumstick so I Moroccaned them. After browning the legs I fried some onions and garlic, then added lemon juice, cumin, cardamom powder, ginger powder, half a stick of cinnamon, a tin of tomatoes and a couple of cups of chicken style stock. Once the chicken was cooked I removed it, added some honey and black olives to the sauce and reduced it until thickened. At the last minute I added some fresh coriander.

Everyone knows that a dinner is not Moroccan without couscous. This one was simply made by frying off onion and garlic then adding couscous, chopped tomato, olives and stock and simmering until cooked. After that I added coriander, lemon zest and toasted almond flakes.

For no real reason I also oven baked some pumpkin (with the same spices as the chicken) and fried some halloumi. I didn't think halloumi was Moroccan but the internet has plenty of Moroccan recipes with halloumi so it must be true...

Beef Singapore Noodles (by Biggs)

My strategy tonight was to cook dinner from a recipe on the back of a noodle packet. There was a huge choice of noodles, and therefore recipes but for some reason I went with the most uninteresting recipe available - beef, Singpore noodles. I'm sure beef noodles in Singapore would be amazing but in our household (when I'm cooking) they are AVERAGE.

I'm so crap at stir-fries. This is known. A well established fact. I shouldn't have tried dabbling in it again.

Everyone else finds stir-fries quite easy but I just can't get them right.

This one had beef mince, garlic, ginger, carrot, baby corn, mushrooms, bok choy, now peas, kecap manis and oyster sauce. Oh yeah, and ZERO FLAVOUR. Damn it! Also, a really weird amount of liquid leeched out of everything any time I added an ingredient.

Sausage Casserole (by G)

There's nothing like a warm sausage casserole on a cold Winter's evening - that was my thinking, so I made it happen.

Sausages, onions, garlic, vegetables, cumin, paprika, chorizo - then some tinned tomatoes and chicken stock and simmer. I cut the onions myself but the other vegetables came pre-packaged in a over-priced-reduced-price-do-it-yourself soup pack, I was too tired to chop the vegetables myself and was willing to pay the price not to.

I also made mashed potato. Warming.

Chicken Tortillas with Warm Corn Salsa (by Biggs)

Tonight I thought I'd make up my own recipe for tortilla innards and started with the idea of corn, capsicum, bacon and feta. I had to use up some left over coriander which I thought would be a bit weird with bacon and feta so I cut those ingredients and included lime with the coriander instead.

The corn salsa was served warm with some pre-cooked chicken that had been sprinkled with cumin and a sauce of yoghurt and sriarcha.

Whist dinner was good it didn't brighten my life as much as the photo my imply.