Fried Chicken Necks (by G)

At the moment I'm trying to keep my meat intake to a sustainable level (about 111 grams per day) just to see what the future holds for mankind.  I've since realised that if I'm willing to eat the bits of the animal that most other people are not then I can probably eat as much as I like. Chicken necks, I think, fall into this category.

All I did is marinate the necks in a mix of fresh coriander, garlic, lime zest and juice, sriracha and olive oil then put them into a low oven to cook them through and get them nice and tender.  After that I let them cool, dusted them in a mix of flour, garlic powder and onion powder then fried them to a golden brown colour and crispy texture in some peanut oil.  The result, if I do say so myself, was wonderful.  Fried chicken necks are delicious, not the meatiest part of the chicken for sure, but still plenty meaty.

On a deliciousness scale of 1 to 100 where one is Choko and 100 is pork ribs I would rate chicken necks a 98 - they are truly the pork ribs of the chicken world.  If I had drive and vision I would open a market stall selling fried chicken necks (with a healthy markup because they are so cheap). Within a couple of years I would have a worldwide chain of chicken neck stores. At that point I would retire.

Beetroot Fettuccini with Basil, Cherry Tomato and White Wine (by Biggs)

Tonight I'm in Mackay for work. I was going to go for a wander to forage for food but things seemed a little quiet on the coast so instead I ordered room service.

As far as room service goes this was pretty good.....very generous, not awful, a little bit different. I sure Gordon would have spat it into the bin but I was quite satisfied.

Carrot Gnocchi and Carrot Cake (by Biggs)

Dinner tonight was with my friends Brendan, Mandi and Minnie the miniature schnauzer.

Brendan and I go way back and have shared many a meal over the years, mainly cooked by him. He has quite the dab hand in the kitchen so I was looking forward to what he had in store. I particularly knew I was in for a treat when I had to tip toe through a great little vegetable garden to get to the front door.

Things seemed promising when I found Brendan delicately shaping gnocchi and stirring a pan of homemade tomato sauce. A salad was pieced together straight from the garden and a loaf of potato bread was sliced up. Dinner was a treat, particularly as it was my first home cooked meal in a little while.

It was then topped by a beautiful carrot cake Mandi had cooked earlier. It was fruity and nutty and reminded me of why carrot cake is one of my favourites.

 

The best thing about dinner was that there was an Iron Chef style theme ingredient.....THE CARROT! The gnocchi was actually a carrot gnocchi made from carrot and feta blended and bound with flour. It didn't necessarily taste a lot like carrot but I definitely liked the concept. I wonder what else you can make gnocchi from.

Guacamole (by G)

I spent most of the day eating so I thought I should have something not very substantial for dinner. There was a deal on avocados at the supermarket and they seemed to be ripe for a change so I had picked up a couple.  Because guacamole was not my original idea for dinner it is not particularly authentic - just thrown together with what I had... avocado, shallot, coriander stalks, cayenne pepper, tabasco, salt and pepper. To serve I crisped up some Turkish bread in the oven and broke it into rustic pieces.

I've got to say, guacamole is a pretty satisfying thing on a warm night.

Mushroom Terrine (by G)

I had a hankering for one of those vegetable terrines set in aspic or gelatine, when I was looking for a recipe I found a recipe for a mushroom terrine - it was pretty much not what I was looking for at all but the quantity of mushrooms tempted me.

 

Because I had bought the mushrooms the day before they had spent about 19 hours in a warm fridge (blackout) and had acquired a bit of a funky sweaty smell.  Regardless, I fried the two types of mushrooms (field and bella) along with some shallot and garlic, added some fresh parsley and an egg and cream mixture (it was supposed to be crème fraiche but I couldn't easily find it and life is too short to be spending it in the dairy aisle).  The whole mix went into the oven and was baked for about half an hours. I don't know why I needed a recipe for that. It was, predictably, okay.

 

I decided to serve it with the garlic bread I had planned to have the night before but couldn't cook (blackout) - it was a weird texture.

 



Pizza and Mystery Pie (by Biggs)

I'm in Melbourne tonight visiting Red. She's house sitting for a few months and had only just moved in. As a result we decided to do the easy thing and order pizza from a nearby vendor - La Cassareccia. We had a couple and when ordering were trying to work out what a Quattro Staggioni was. We knew it wasn't four cheeses. I suggested it might be four cured meats because pepperoni also ends in -oni.

Turns out I was wrong (surprise, surprise). It was actually four types of pizza in one - capricciosa, marinara, Mexican and Hawaiian. We also had another capricciosa. They were excellent.

So, the other thing that happened was that, at some stage, Red discovered the homeowner had left her a homemade 'welcome to the house pie'....how generous is that? As the house is being renovated there's no oven at the moment so we cranked up the BBQ and got the pie cooking. We made numerous guesses as to what might be inside but in the end it turns out two pizzas is enough for dinner and the pie was all too much so we still don't know. 

What I do know is that lunch tomorrow is going to be awesome. 

Cooking in the Dark - Gnocchi with Spinach and Pine Nuts (by G)

Another day, another super-cell storm hits Brisbane.  Fortunately this time I was in the supermarket when the storm hit, unlike last Wednesday when I got caught in the middle of it.

This storm was more violent - hail smashed a skylight at the supermarket and sprayed glass over the fruit section.

I spent a quarter of an hour waiting out the storm before getting home to find there was a black out.  I tried to wait out the blackout by sitting in the dark listening to music and drinking beer. At about 9:30 it was pretty clear the power was not going to come back on in a hurry so I reluctantly went with plan (b).  I say reluctantly because plan (b) involved cooking dinner using the portable gas cooker - I don't think it has been used for years and I thought there was a high probability it would blow my hand off when I tried to light it.  Happily it lit with only a bit of cajoling and minimal explosions.

Using the light of my phone's torch I managed to toast some pine nuts, boil some packet gnocchi, wilt some spinach, combine everything together and add some freshly grated parmesan - sort of... my phone battery was getting pretty low so I had to use it intermittently.  The plating up was done by the light of the gas stove - I should do that more often because it is more elegant than most of my efforts.

All in all I was pretty impressed with my efforts. The gnocchi themselves were pretty terrible, having come from a packet, but I'm glad I didn't try to make them from scratch as I'd originally planned.

In-case you were wondering, the strange calamariesque things on top are shavings of parmesan. I couldn't find the peeler so I used the slicing part of the grater. They did not turn out to be the attractive curls of cheese I had hoped for.

Ottoman Platter (by Biggs)

Oh boy! I just witnessed (and indulged in) the biggest platter of food in the world! Scary big.

I only know one family in Canberra, Amanda's brother, his wife and baby so I forced myself upon them this evening. Bob picked me up from work and we headed straight down the road to a Turkish place that apparently has queues around the block at lunch and dinner times. Fortunately we were pretty early so after an impressively efficient ordering process (there's literally a sign at the counter that says "Move On!") and a quick tallie while we waited, we were presented with about 6 kilograms of food. 

Chicken, beef, lamb, rice, pide, breads, dips, salad, cheese pastries, koftas, it was endless! We were all so intimidated I don't think we even ate 1/10 of the food between 3 of us (plus the baby who cheekily dumped at least one kilo on the floor). Amazing! 

Amazing! I almost forgot to photograph dinner so you'll need to use your imagination:

Garbage Fries (by G)

I'm sick of spending money - every time I make dinner I end up spending $20 or $30 at the supermarket on my why home from work, and with Biggs away that means I'm doing that every night. During the day I decided to take a break from the super market and just use whatever I had at home (I knew I had oven fries so I was not too worried). Garbage fries are a great way to use stuff up.

My fries are flavoured with some coriander Biggs left with me, some caramelised shallot and garlic, a three cheese blend from a packet, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, sriracha, tomato sauce and mayonnaise.

I wasn't prepared for how delicious these fries were - savoury good. That is not to say that a little bacon would not have gone astray.

Mixed Vegetable Injira (by Biggs)

Hmmm....I'm a bit disappointed in myself. When I asked Kirst (who used to live in Canberra) for eating suggestions she definitively said "Canberra institution - Griffith Vietnamese". Tonight was the night but I got myself a bit distracted this afternoon. I'm hoping that when she hears my excuse I'll be forgiven.

My excuse: I was walking the streets and found a tiny sign, next to a door, in a non-descript wall that said something like "alcohol served, 97 person capacity". I opened the door, wandered down a few flights of stairs, found another door and guess what was behind that door??! A speak-easy style whiskey bar? No kidding. There were barrels, cocktails, an upright piano and hanging meats and cheeses. No kidding. This is a real thing that happened. I had an Old Fashioned, a Mint Julep and generous bowls of nuts and olives. Soooo good and lovely to re-discover that beauty of a brown liquor. 

After that I was very warm and comfortable and incapable of finding Griffith Vietnamese so instead I went to the food venue closest to my hotel. Happily it turned out to be an Ethiopian Cafe. I chose mixed vegetable injera. I forgot how awesomely sour injera is. The vegetables were a yellow lentil, a red lentil, a pumpkin mix and a cabbage thing. One of them tasted incredible but I couldn't quite tell which one....maybe the pumpkin. Meanwhile, $8, served in 30 seconds. Wow!

Tofu, Egg and Chips (by G)

I'm glad Biggs had something tortilla related because I completely forgot it was Tuesday - so focused was I on having tofu, egg and chips (as a play on steak, egg and chips).

It wasn't as good as I had expected the pre-marinated spicy tofu wasn't really spicy at all - I jazzed it up a bit with some sriracha.  The eggs were good, the chips were good, they both would have been the perfect accompaniment to a big juicy steak...

Vegetarian Burrito (by Biggs)

I was wandering the streets of Canberra tonight looking for dinner and remembered it was Tortilla Tuesday just as I was walking past a Mexican take-away.....so, I went in. I was really hungry so ordered a quesadilla with my burrito. 

When the guy asked what filling I wanted and I said "vegetarian", he responded with "what, in both of them???"  I reluctantly said "yes" but boy, was I rewarded. The vegetable mix was fucking delicious. Really savoury and cheesey. 

I do ponder on how magically delicious the strip steak or slow-cooked pork would have definitely been though. 

Chakalaka on Toast (by G)

There was a certain inevitability when I made all that chakalaka the other night that it would have to feature again on the dinner menu. As Biggs is not home and it's a Monday night I decided to have a simple supper of toast topped with chakalaka topped with an egg.

I didn't just have one piece of toast... I broke the second egg yolk and vanity got the better of me so I only photographed the egg with the perfect yolk.  I also realised that the egg was covering the chakalaka so I dumped some on the side, luckily I had plenty to play around with.  I also realise that you can't really see the toast in this photo - no biggie, I'm guessing you've seen toast before. This toast was thick cut from a supermarket country loaf.

I'd have to say, the chakalaka tastes even better the next day, I'm a fan of chakalaka and will probably forget to make it ever again.

Vegetarian Pizza (by Biggs)

Tonight I flew to our Nation's Capital for work. Even though I did have a snack at the airport, after a two hour delay and the most turbulent plane trip I've ever been on I was ready for a proper dinner.

It was midnight in Canberra, I was exhausted and staying in a hotel is a bit of a treat for me so I ended up ordering room service. I chose the most affordable thing on the menu (I work for a not-for-profit and am struggling with the concept of them paying for my dinner, I think maybe I'll just pay for my dinner ongoing). The pizza was happily vegetarian. I mean, I was happy, not the pizza.

It was.....fine. Goat cheese and mushrooms always a good thing I think.

I also ordered a beer. The chips were a bonus.

Pork Ribs with Chakalaka (by G)

Biggs is out of town for the next couple of weeks so I thought I should relax the meat free rule for a night and make some ribs. Somehow or other I came across a recipe for chakalaka - I don't know how, to the best of my recollection I wasn't specifically looking for vegetarian South African dishes, it just popped up and seemed like a fun mix of vegetables that may even be flavourful so I decided to give it a bash. 

To make it you just grate a shit load of carrots, add that to some fried onion along with chopped red, green and yellow capsicum. Then add chilli, tomato paste, some curry powder and a tin of tomatoes and cook it down for a while. Once it looks edible you stir trough some baked beans and you've got yourself a lifetime supply of chakalaka.

The recipe suggested serving it with a slice of bread (check - I got an unsliced white loaf so I could cut of some thick pieces) and/or grilled meat.  Apparently they eat pork ribs in South Africa so I went with those instead.

I marinated the ribs for 6 hours in a mix of tomato sauce, apple cider vinegar, paprika, cumin, brown sugar and hoisin then placed them covered into a moderate oven for an hour and a half.  To give them some colour I popped them under the grill until they had a healthy tan - glazing them the whole time with the marinating liquid and meat juices that I had collected from the bottom of the baking tray and reduced down to a thick sauce.

Boy, it was good to have ribs again - they are even better than I remember, and these ones were amongst the finest I have personally cooked.

'Numbing' Chicken Noodle Salad (by Biggs)

Bonnie gave me the gift of a book called 'Pepper' a little while back and until tonight I hadn't had the chance to cook from it.

I chose a salad featuring sichuan and white pepper. The recipe called for Chinese leaves so I, er...got some of those and mixed through coriander, spring onions (from the garden), cucumber and rice noodles with a dressing of sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine and sichuan pepper.

The chicken was marinated in some hoisin and soy sauce, rice wine, ginger, salt and sugar and fried off in sichuan and white pepper. The salad was also topped with cashew nuts in a mix of salt, sugar and lime zest.

Dinner really could have been a bit more numbing but was really delicious.

For those of you worried about our citrus crops I was sure to heat the peppercorns to 70 degrees to kill the canker bacteria.

Vegetarian Hotdish (By G)

I was reading on Grubstreet the other day about how the New York Times created fury amongst Minnesotans by suggesting grape salad as a classic thanksgiving recipe from that region. To placate the Minnesotan masses the Times is going to replace the salad recipe instead with a recipe for hotdish.  I had never heard of hotdish so I looked into it. Grape salad sounds disgusting but hotdish seemed like the kind of deliciously wacky combination of unlikely ingredients that I like to make.

I gather the classic hotdish is made with a layer of fried beef and onions, overlaid with a layer of corn and beans, then a layer of cream of mushroom soup, then a top layer of potato gems.  Because I've committed us to a reduced meat diet for a little while I made a vegetarian version (I did find one vegetarian version with wild rice instead of meat but Biggs is not a fan of rice. Turns out it is just cheap rice she doesn't like - the fancy wild stuff is apparently one of her favourite things in the world).  Anyway, in my version the first layer of the hotdish was fried mushrooms mixed with par-cooked pearl couscous (cooked in fake chicken stock with some porcini mushrooms added for meatiness).  The next layer was also a bit different in that I just used a packet mix of peas and corn rather than beans.  Everything else was authentic - cream of mushroom soup and potato gems...

It was pretty good, I can't imagine just how tasty the meat version is.

Pizzas (by Biggs)

I had a huge week and it's oppressively hot so I couldn't face making dinner tonight. Instead, I made a man bring us dinner.

To stick with the 'don't ruin the planet by eating too much meat' thing we're up to at the moment I went with two vegetarian pizzas. They were virtually identical except one had a basil pesto on it.

I thought I'd miss the meat but really the meat that this particular pizza vendor puts on their pizzas is pretty low quality and light on so it wasn't missed at all.

Fish, Chips 'n' Peas (By G)

Biggs was originally not going to be home tonight so I thought I would have a play on steak and eggs and chips with some grilled spicy tofu instead of the steak.  When it turned out Biggs was actually going to be home I decided to change the plan (she is beginning to get that look in her eye where one more non-meat product might cause long term damage).

Every Wednesday afternoon on my walk home from work I pass through the city markets but never ever buy anything so today I decided I would go to the fish place to get a tofu substitute - problem is that just as I was nearing the market a very violent tropical thunderstorm hit the city. I had an umbrella but it was virtually useless against the horizontal sheets of rain, I got so wet within about 20 seconds that it was virtually impossible for me to get any wetter so I pressed on.  Most of the marketeers  were either packing up or had already left but I found the fish people huddled in the back corner of their tent.  I didn't spend much time deciding on the type of fish, I asked for something meaty and the guy suggested wahoo - I don't know if it's sustainable or not... at the time I couldn't really care less.

After drying out at home I pan fried the fish and served it with some oven chips and peas (I though eggs would be weird - also, my plan was to get eggs on the way home but I was so soaking wet that I wasn't really in a fit state to go into a shop).  The fish was really nice, like mackerel and Biggs had some left over lemon which really added a touch of class to the whole meal.

Sweet Potato Burritos (by G)

Still on a meatless jag - tonight's offering is sweet potato burritos. I wasn't looking for vegetarian burritos or sweet potato anything, they just appeared randomly while I was looking for recipes on the internet.  They seemed like a good idea so I went with it.

Basically it is just mashed sweet potato (I roasted mine in the oven), cheese and a bean puree - the beans were supposed to be kidney but I had a tin of cannellini beans in the pantry so I used those instead. The beans were cooked with some onion, garlic, cumin, chilli flakes, fake chicken stock and a dash of water - then I mashed 'em up good.

It was a pretty unusual mix that's for sure, pretty tasty - the worst thing was that my wrapping technique. Abysmal.

The French fries are there because I didn't really have anything else as a side so I used half the packet of fries I got for tomorrow's dinner.

 

Packet Penne and Caesar Salad (by Biggs)

I attended some training for work today and was sharing a house with a bunch of work colleagues. We were all so tired after the training we decided to just pick up dinner from the supermarket.

I chose a frozen pasta that was satisfyingly warm with chili and a Ceasar salad that was satisfyingly meaty with salty, salty bacon (30 grams).

Not much else to say.  

Fake Spaghetti Bolognaise (By G)

To be honest, I was having fun cooking vegetarian dishes for a while this spaghetti bolognaise was a step too far though. There's some kind of non-soy (possibly fungus based) mince substitute on the market - it looks a lot like meat mince so I thought I'd get some and make a traditional bolognaise sauce with it.

 

Carrots, onions, celery, tomato paste, tinned tomatoes, herbs from a jar, some fake chicken stock - I even added some porcini mushrooms and their soaking liquid for a little more flavour. And some red wine - I meant to add that at the start but forgot so added it near the end of the cooking time which is not ideal.

 

I was pretty confident that this was going to be a good meal - it turned out not to be so. It was okay, edible certainly, but the fake mince had a strange texture (I don't know if you're supposed to simmer it the way I did) and tasted faintly of cinnamon (which was unpleasant on my taste buds).

 

The cheap garlic bread was good, I would like to have had more of that but I accidentally left the second loaf in the oven and it burned.

 

Quail and White Bean Fricasse (by Biggs)

When G decided we were going to limit ourselves to just over 100 grams of meat a day it occurred to me a quail (my favourite mini-bird) must weigh just over 100 grams. Turns out I was right.

The first quail recipe I came across was a James Martin number. I trust that guy so went ahead with it.

The quail was dusted off and fried then added to a big pot of garlic, onion, cannellini beans and stock The recipe suggested veal stock but given that would probably blow out the use of land animals pretty significantly I went with vegetable stock.

I added peas at the last minute and dinner was served. I only went astray at one point when I misread pickling onions as pickled onions but, who doesn't like pickled onions?!

Mushroom Ragout (by G)

There is something about the word ragout that appeals to my senses, mostly my sense of hearing I guess. To limit my meat intake to a sustainable level I decided to do a mushroom ragout.  Of course, there are about a million ragout recipes all very slightly different in one way or another so I decided to add things until I was happy.

My original concept was to have a huge variety of mushrooms in the ragout but the range at the supermarket was limited and I also remembered that huge variety comes at a huge cost so I decided on using the little shimeji mushrooms and some regular field mushrooms - I also had some porcini in the cupboard so I decided to steep them in some hot water and add them to the pot for extra flavour.

The ragout was pretty simple fried mushrooms, stock, red wine, fake chicken stock, I had some peas so I added them, I forgot to get cream so I added some ricotta cheese I found in the fridge.

Probably the biggest disappointment of the evening was assuming I had couscous at home because I was going to cook some of that up in place of polenta but apparently I had already used all the couscous so I substituted it for some pasta.

The ragout turned out to be quite good a rich shade of grey that appeals to the eye.  I'm kind of glad I didn't end up getting a huge range of mushroom - sure the flavour would have been great but the blog photo would look pretty much exactly the same as the one below:

Cheese and Mushroom Toasted Sandwich (by Biggs)

Because I ate the leftover lamb for lunch dinner was to be vegetarian. Dinner was also at a pub so the pickings were slim. 

I decided on a mushroom and mozzarella toasted sandwich with pesto - it was excellent. Bonnie ordered a sandwich as well and made the executive decision of ordering some cheeses and dips on the side. Great move. 

The soft cheese was amazing and because Bonnie's not a fan of olives I had the responsibility to eat all the tapenade. A responsibility I was born to meet. 

Lamb with Brussels Sprout Salad (by Biggs)

Woah! My mind is blown. I just looked up Brussel Sprouts and discovered for the FIRST TIME in 33 years that they are actually Brussels Sprout....popular and perhaps originated in Brussels. At least I'll always know how to spell it from now on.

I wanted to make a Brussels Sprout salad to go with some lamb tonight and the first (and most interesting) recipe I found was sprouts, smoked almonds, dried cranberries and cheese. The recipe suggested I used manchego cheese but I used Swiss....that's sure to piss off the Spaniards. Sorry Alonso! I've since learnt they are very different cheeses. Oh well! The salad still tasted good. The dressing of oil, white wine vinegar, garlic, lemon juice and zest, maple syrup and grain mustard was particularly good.

The salad was to be served with bagel chips which, until tonight I didn't know what were (I sure am learning a lot this evening!). 

The lamb was coated in Dijon and roasted. 

Stir Fry with Tofu (by G)

Yeah, so, I have to save up about 2 kilos of land protein for my solo Christmas dinner so you're going to see some pretty meatless dinners coming up.

I do not know too much about tofu (or is it pronounced tofu?) so I did some research. Apparently, much as chicken is improved by brining, tofu is improved by brining.  I brined my tofu then dusted it in flour then fried it on a high heat to get it crispy. It did get crispy, then I fucked up the crispiness by adding red capsicum, green onion, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, oyster sauce, chilli flakes - and such, which sogged the crispy some.

Further sogginess came from the spinach and beet leaf mix that I added.  I could have maintained the crispy of the tofu if I wasn't so determined to serve dinner close to dinner time, which involved me tuning the heat down and stewing the whole thing for quite too long.  I added some home roasted peanuts because Biggs likes then (also because they are a good thing).

The tofu (of tofu) was super tasty, I'm currently a fan. I guess it is like when you are trying to force children to enjoy things - if you make them cook it themselves they are forced to enjoy it. I enjoyed it. Here's a picture:

Chipolatas and Vegetables (by Biggs)

I try to remain calm as I write this post but I am suffering from shock, confusion and inner turmoil at the thought of the new house rule.....111.11111111 grams of meat per day. We are carnivorous to the extreme, G doesn't give a shit about people, planet or physical health, how did we end up in this mess??! Damn thirst for knowledge, damn competitive nature.....and damn my vaguely social conscious.

I had already bought a tray of chipolatas when I was introduced to the new meat portioning concept but, tonight, I calmly put 10 chipolatas in the freezer and fried up 6 (105 grams each). To pad out dinner I cooked up two large mushrooms as well as a mix of carrot, peas and asparagus. 

I had broccoli in the fridge and figured I should use it. I feared dinner would be a bit bland with all those vegetables so decided to deep fry the broccoli in beer batter. G thought it was a bit weird but I thought it was like satisfying doughy dumplings of indecipherable origin. 

Turns out three chipolatas are frustratingly enough. 

Minimal Pork and Kiwi Fruit Tortillas (by G)

Do you guys remember the time I found out that if we all didn't eat one vegetarian meal a week the whole world will be fucked?  Possibly not, it was before you guys' time - for some reason Biggs took up the challenge and we used to have a vegetarian meal every once or twice a fortnight.

Anyway Biggs stopped doing the vegetarian thing and now we're more fucked than ever before. I discovered last night that we're all fucked unless we eat, on average, less than or equal to 111.1111111 grams of land farm animals a day.  Tonight I decided to take action to avert the apocalypse (beats me why, I hate people and I hope they all die of vegetarianism).

I kind of thought that 110 odd grams of pork would equal about 5 thick slices of pork each. I was wrong, it came to 4  one millimetre thin slices of pork. So anyway, I fried off the slices and sprinkled them with a dusting of garlic powder, onion powder, cumin powder, oregano powder, paprika and salt for some flavour.

Yesterday Biggs requested something fresh for dinner so I decided to make a fruit salsa. I've done mango before so I decided to try Kiwi Fruit (given that it has a bit of a citrusy flavour anyway).  The salsa consisted of 3 peeled and diced K Fruit, red chilli, coriander, mint and lime juice.

Once again I was too lazy to make the tortilla wraps.

I anticipated that dinner was not going to be a winner for an insurmountable number of reasons - it turned out to be about 1000 times better than expected. Partly due, no doubt, to the bottle of Thai sriracha I bought today.

Chicken Pie (by Biggs)

We love pies in our household so when I had some left-over 'faux-lapin a la moutarde' the other week I immediately decided I was going to stuff it inside a pie. G very observantly suspected there were two types of chicken in the pie. To bulk up the pie a bit I mixed in some chunks of chicken thigh in with the slow-cooked flakey chicken. I also added some bacon, parsley and peas to freshen the mixture a little. Some of you might argue that bacon doesn't 'freshen things up' but, you'd be wrong.

The vegetable component of dinner is some tiny taters and tiny asparagus. G loves baby vegetables and I do what I can to make the consumer happy.

Southern Style Fried Chicken and Rice Salad (by G)

I had some buttermilk left over from Friday's Biscuit Debacle (as I refer to it). I've always wanted to use buttermilk to make fried chicken so it seemed like my chance.

Rather than fry all different chicken parts I just got some thighs with the bone in. The recipe calls for the chicken to be brined in an elaborate mix of water, salt, lemon, thyme, parsley and bay leaves - in the interests of not fucking the recipe up I decided to just do what the recipe said. In hindsight I don't thing any of the ingredients except the salt added any discernible flavour.

Anyway, once the chicken was brined I coated it in flour, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, salt, some regular black pepper and (my own little addition) - old bay spice. After one coating with the flour the chicken parts went into the butter milk, then got another coating of seasoned flour. After that it was just a matter of frying the chicken in some hot peanut oil until brown then finishing in the oven. Unfortunately Bigg's piece was still pink in the middle and had to go back into the oven for a bit.

I don't think rice salad is a traditional accompaniment to fried chicken but I though I should probably add a healthy salad yin to balance out the greasy chicken yang (or vice versa).

The salad consisted of cooked brown rice, blanched carrot and asparagus, frozen peas, mint, coriander and parsley - then a lot of mayonnaise (which probably reversed any of the health benefits of the vegetables and herbs).

I kind of wish the chicken hadn't turned out quite as salty as it did.

Avocado and Chickpea Salsa with Baked Snapper (by Biggs)

I thought a fish dinner might be a nice idea for dinner so went and bought the most expensive fish I could find figuring it would be the best - snapper is what was on offer today. I dusted it in a salt and pepper flour before frying it off and baking it in the oven.

While the fish was cooking I made a salsa of avocado, cherry tomatoes, chickpeas, chili, lemon, lime and coriander. The original plan was for dinner to be nice and fresh but sometimes I fear that fresh equals flavourless so I also sprinkled in a bit of Old Bay Spice.

I thought dinner was quite tasty, the fish was super meaty.

Sausage Gravy with Biscuits and Prawns (by G)

Ever since I discovered that sausage gravy is a thing, some days ago, I have been trying to come up with a perfect pairing for it. My initial idea, obviously, was to pair it with sausages - that seemed too much like a trap. Then I remembered the delightful southern biscuits Biggs made the other day - that seemed just the thing. Biscuits and sausage gravy didn't seem like much of a meal so I decided to cook up some prawns to go along.

The gravy is easy to make, fry up the innards of a few pork sausages, add some flour, some milk, salt and pepper and cook until thick and gravy like.  The prawns were also easy to prepare - boil some water, add some old bay seasoning, drop in the prawns and extract them exactly 4 minutes later.

The biscuits seemed easy at first - I used exactly the same recipe Biggs did. I did forget to read the recipe all the way though and assumed they would rise into nice tall biscuits. Apparently they don't really rise at all and the dough should have been about an inch thick before cutting and baking. My dough was about half a centimetre thick so the resulting biscuits were very flat and disappointing. It's a bit galling that Biggs is better at biscuit making than me. I'm tempted to try and make them again just to prove that I can...

Chicken Tagine and Moroccan Meatballs (by Biggs)

Dinner tonight was at Fi and Dan's house. I really haven't appreciated their fancy fancy new kitchen enough since they renovated. But tonight, it was well and truly appreciated.

There were five of us at dinner so Fi and Dan sensibly prepared two tagine-type dishes - Fi's famous meatballs and a chicken dish with garlic olives and preserved lemon (home-preserved lemon - FUCK YEAH!). Dinner was served with rice and green beans (one of my top five-favourite vegetables).

Next came individual rose water panna cottas (yeah, you read that right). At this point I realised life is pretty fucking perfect....and I'm really good at picking friends. More specifically, Fi and Dan are excellent at making dinner for people.

It didn't stop there....not only did I drink all the alcohol in their house but Kirst and Ryan brought a variety of chocolates for post-dessert treats. Individual handmade caramels and chocolates came first. In case that wasn't enough (which it wasn't) there were also cocoa-dusted nuts. Incase that wasn't enough (which it wasn't) there were also chocolate-covered freeze-dried strawberries.

It just occurred to me I was planning for one of those strawberries to be my last bite of the evening but I stupidly filled my stomach with all of the booze.

Notice how the photo is glowing? That's how good dinner was.

Fried Pork and Udon Noodles (by G)

I've still got a big chunk of pork neck left over from the other night - I'm cooking for myself tonight so I decided to slice off a couple of thick pieces and fry up.

The noodles were boiled tender then mixed through some fried red onion, mushroom, garlic and green chilli. Next I sprinkled in some sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce and a little spoonful of tamarind puree. In an attempt to freshen the whole thing up I added a bunch of some green and purple leafed vegetable and some Thai basil.  The greens pretty much disappeared and didn't freshen up shit but I think they added some good flavour.

It may not be the sexiest plate of food ever photographed, in-fact it looks a bit like something that fell behind the fridge sometime in the 80's and was only recently discovered, but I really nailed the flavours - it was super tasty.

Lamb Cutlets with Carrot and Coriander Salad (by G)

I was looking to make a budget option for dinner - then I remembered lamb cutlets... they're not the cheapest protein around, but they sure are delicious.

I simply cooked the chops under the grill and finished them off in the oven.

For sides I took the lead from a recipe on a supermarket website.  A salad of carrots and coriander dressed with sugar and lemon juice. The mix was a bit off, too sweet, so I added some lime juice, and then some white vinegar. It was still pretty sweet but palatable.

As there was some left over Turkish break I crisped that up in the oven and served it with ricotta and feta blitzed together with some sour cream mixed through to thin it down (I was supposed to use milk but I forgot to get any).

It only just occurred to me that it is a pretty shitty thing to do - eat little baby sheep but they are mostly to blame for being awesomely tasty.


Chipoltle Pepper Tortillas (by Biggs)

I found a recipe that suggested mixing chipoltle peppers through pork for tortillas and I thought that would be a great smokey idea. I'm not sure I actually know what chipoltle peppers taste like but I've always imagined they'd be smokey. Most conveniently G has dried chipoltle-type peppers in the pantry.

I soaked the peppers in hot water and added some lime before mixing some through strips of pork and some through fresh corn kernels. I was going to serve things seperately but after cooking the pork I ended up dumping the corn in with it and stirring through some coriander.

The good news is I finally got off my arse and made tortillas from scratch. They were pretty good. Probably a little thick and a bit like plasticine but still, pretty good. Very pliable which is always helpful when stuffing a tortilla with pork.

Warm Pork and Dumpling Salad (by G)

I have a bunch of recipes waiting to be made by me, problem is - I got a hankering for pork part way though the day. So pork it is.

One of my favourite porks is the neck bit so I got a large hunk of that, cut it into some irregular chunks then marinated them in a mix of minced garlic, soy sauce, fish sauce, sriracha and some ground coriander (also a sprinkle of MSG). After a couple of hours I fried the meat to get some colour on it, then stuck it into a hot oven to get it a bit charry. Unfortunately the oven treatment caused the meat to get a bit salty, no matter.

To emphasise the porkiness of dinner I added some packet pork and chive dumplings. For green there was some spring onion, green stuff with purple leaves, coriander with no coriander flavour and what I think was thai basil also with no flavour.  I also added some toasted peanuts for no particular reason.

I don't know that this recipe is ever going to take off but I did get to eat chunks of pork so I'm satisfied.

Faux-lapin a la Moutarde (by Biggs)

I wanted to do a rabbit dish this weekend so called up my local butcher and they assured me they would have rabbits bits ready for me.

When I arrived and asked for rabbit bits the conversation went a little something like this:

Biggs: "Can I please have some rabbit bits"
Butcher: "Yes, no problems" (walks out the back)
Butcher: (come back out) "The rabbit's frozen, is that okay?"
Biggs: "Yep"
Butcher: (walks out the back)
Butcher: "Nope, we don't have any rabbit"
Biggs: "Sigh"

I can't imagine what happened out the back. Instead, I bought some chicken thighs. So, not so much lapin in the end.

The chicken thighs were coated in dijon mustard, salt and pepper before being fried in plenty of butter. Separately, I fried off onion, garlic, mushrooms, thyme, sage and bay leaf. The flavours were dumped in with the chicken and water and wine were added. At this stage the sauce was equal parts water, wine and butter.

The whole lot was put in the oven and cooked for a good hours. I cooked some beans, thickened the sauce and this was the result:

Doro Wat (by G)

Food Safari has been good to Biggs and me over the last few time periods. I saw the Ethiopian episode a couple of weeks ago and liked the look of this chicken meal.

I guess, with a little effort, I could have located some berbere spice but it seemed easier just to make my own spice blend substitute.  It's just a mix of cumin, cardamom, all spice, fenugreek, coriander powder, clove, black pepper, chilli flakes, ginger powder, turmeric, salt, paprika and cinnamon - phew...

One of the things that most appealed to me about this dish is the huge quantity of onions required - I reduced the recipe by half and still had to chop 1 1/2 kilos of onions - good thing we now have a mandolin.

The huge quantity of onions is cooked (without oil) on a low heat for an hour, then oil is added, along with a healthy dose of the berbere (substitute) and niter kibbeh (a spiced clarified butter - I just used ghee - don't worry, there are more spiced to come). Once that mix had simmered for a while I added a blend of cardamom seed, nigella seed, fennel seeds, black pepper corns and salt (another omission was dried African basil).  After all that the chicken is added, I broke down a little one and soaked it in a vinegar/lemon juice blend as directed.  Once the chicken was cooked I then added some boiled eggs that had been scored to allow the flavour to penetrate.

I had planned to make some injera bread to go with the chicken but I forgot to start preparing it 2 days prior to serving so I substituted with Turkish bread.

The chicken was good - the sauce was a little less thick than I had expected and I managed to spill most of it over my shirt front.