Tandoori Chicken (by Biggs)

I was keen for something simple and delicious tonight and what's more simple and delcious than chicken and tandoori paste from a jar?
I marinated the chicken in yoghurt and tandoori paste for most of the day and dumped it in the oven. Served with rice and a cucumber and tomato salad dinner should have been pretty good.

The cookery on the rice was great alas, the cookery on the chicken was not. It turns out if you leave small cuts of chicken in the oven for an hour it gets very, very dry.

G didn't complain but he also didn't compliment me on my magic plating skills so I don't know what to trust anymore.

Beet on the Brat (by G)

Food Charades! Mine is pretty literal Beetroot on Bratwurst (beet on brat - pretty cleaver). Beat on the Brat is a Ramones song for those who don't know.

The main difficulty I had tonight is finding bratwursts, they are normally in the supermarket but neither the deli counter nor the cured meats section had any. I asked the Wurst-meister guy at the west end market if he would sell me some raw ones but he wouldn't. The Swiss deli was my last option - they had sold out. I went with continental frankfurters instead.

The hotdog was pretty simple: sauerkraut, fried bacon, Swiss cheese, the sausage and some tinned beetroot glued on top with a mayonnaise/Dijon mustard mix.

In the interests of fairness I thought I should mention to Biggs that the sausages were not Bratwursts as intended but continental frankfurters - I thought it might also switch her on to the fact we were actually playing food charades without saying it directly. She did not twig.

I told her of my dramas in trying to get bratwursts because it was particularly important that I get bratwursts for these particular hotdogs. That didn't spark anything.

I told her that I would like to have put the beetroot under the sausage but I couldn't. Still nothing.

Biggs commented that they were pretty good hotdogs, to which I replied that I couldn't fully appreciate them because they were not made with bratwursts. "I guess I'm just not as hung-up on the bratwursts as you are", was her response to that final hint.

Finally I worked out how to get Biggs into the game - I asked if she would like to know what I call my hotdog creation... "No! Wait!", she said and proceeded to start guessing.  She got it in the end - probably not by the strict rules of charades, but this is food charades and anything goes.

Life of Pi (by Biggs)

G came up with a whacky idea the other day. He decided we should play Dinner Charades....miming the title of a book, movie or song through food. An added twist was that the other person wouldn't know what night they would be a participant in the game. Any one dinner presented during the next two week period could potentially be a Dinner Charade.

I chose tonight. I actually thought I'd be pretty safe and that G would have forgotten he ever came up with this idea. But, the second I presented dinner he exclaimed "American Pie?!!". He was wrong but it was a pretty good guess. I gave him a couple of clues but he timed out when he finished his last bite. I win!!

Dinner was a chicken and egg pie. So, obviously, chicken and egg pie was Dinner Charades for Life of Pi. Chicken and egg = Life, Pie = Pi. Life of Pi.

Now, 95% of the credit for this genius idea has to go to Bonnie. I was just going to make a pie with lots of things in it but she suggested the chicken and egg thing. It sounded a bit gross initially but I found a good recipe on the Internet. Chicken, boiled eggs, peas, corn, cheese and cream of chicken soup.

Pressed Corned Beef Sandwich (by G)

It has been so hot lately that I was determined to serve a cold dinner (even though the weather took a cool turn pretty much as soon as I decided that).

The idea was that I would take slices of corned beef that I had cooked the day before, layer it up on some Turkish bread with some roasted vegetables (zucchini, egg plant and pumpkin), some Swiss cheese, some chopped capers and a touch of Mexican salsa from a jar then press it flat. Everything went to plan, except that the surface area of the thinly sliced vegetables was such that I had to do it in batches - which took an awfully long time...

For sides I roasted some mushrooms then quick pickled them in a cider vinegar/olive oil vinaigrette (pepped up with some home grown mixed herbs and roasted garlic).  I also griddled up some wedges of cos lettuce and dressed it with the remaining pickling liquid.

The mushrooms were good. The sandwich was soggy - which I was hoping it wouldn't be but knew deep down that it would be. The lettuce was weird, it wasn't as tight as I had expected so it didn't griddle well and it was quite bitter.

There was a spare sandwich that I chucked on the griddle and toasted up after dinner. It was much better - not soggy, melty cheese - I really should just have done that in the first place.

Shredded Pork Tortillas (by Biggs)

Turns out G and I couldn't quite eat a whole two kilo pork shoulder the other night so, tonight, I heated up the rest with some onion, capsicum, old bay spice and cheese. 

Jammed into some pre-made tortillas it was pretty sensational. 

Red Rooster (by Biggs)

I accidentally offered to do some training in Bundaberg on today's public holiday. I was however lured there on the promise of 'something nice for dinner'.

We had a quick half hour available between sessions and the offers made were McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, Red Rooster or Sizzlers Take Away. All-you-can-eat takeaway?! That sure had me intrigued. Do you just put it in a garbage bag?

In the end we decided on Red Rooster. Turns out it was this Red Rooster, not this Red Rooster.

Disappointing.

Lamb Shank and Pasta (by G)

I was on a bit of a meat buying frenzy lately and picked up a couple of lamb shanks, I also picked up a packet of some cool pasta shapes kind of like open macaroni on one side and with ridges on the other - scientifically designed to trap the flavour.

 

Firstly I marinated the shanks in red wine with a couple of bay leaves in it. After a few hours of that I fried some leftover red onion, garlic, some tomato paste and a chopped tomato then added the shanks, wine and bay leaves. I also added some vegetable stock and home grown thyme for flavour.

 

After simmering all of that for a couple of hours I took the shanks out, strained out the solids, and boiled the crap out of the liquid to reduce it down to a thick sauce. The weather was a bit warm so I decided to wait on dinner for a few minutes while I refrigerated the shanks, cooked pasta and sauce - then I combined them all in an attractive manner on a plate then topped it with some chopped fresh herbs from the garden.

 

The sauce was pretty rich after all that reducing but it was pretty tasty. The pasta shapes were awesome.

 



Pork and Slaw (by Biggs)

This year I'm trying to cook more things I've never cooked before. Embarrassingly, I've never cooked a pulled pork before. So, I took myself off to the butcher to buy a shoulder of pork and jammed it in the oven for 7 hours.....pulled pork done.

I did skip my afternoon nap to lovingly baste it every half hour but, other than that, it cooked itself. I spiced it up with salt, pepper, chili, mint and paprika and served it with some rubbery 'crackling'.

I also dug my mandolin out of the cupboard to slice up some cabbage, carrot, onion and apples. Mixed with mayonnaise and red wine vinegar it made a nice side.

Early Australia Day BBQ (by G)

Biggs won't be in the country for Australia day (she will be in Bundaberg) so I though we should have an early celebration with a relaxed after work barbeque.  My plan, which was ultimately not unsuccessful, was to cook a variety of things on the barbeque in stages and maximising the heat of the coals.

Also, I have recently planted a herb garden - it's been 6 days now and I think it is about time it pays its way.

Firstly I picked some of the oregano, Greek basil and thyme chopped it up added some minced garlic and drowned it in a bath of olive oil.  This is the base with which I flavoured everything.

Firstly I marinated the prawns in the oil then foil wrapped a couple of lamb chops and chicken drum-sticks and kipfler potatoes in foil after drizzling over a bit of the flavour oil.

The foil wrapped things went on the BBQ up front, and, after they had been going a while I skewered up the prawns and some seasoned pork belly and bunged them over the coals. Once the pork and prawns were cooked to my satisfaction I de-skewered them, tossed them in more flavoured oil then served them up. 

Meanwhile, the foil wrapped items went into a low oven.

After eating the prawns and pork I de-foiled the chicken, lamb and potatoes and put them over the coals for some colour.

The lamb was ready first so I served the chops up with the potatoes.

Once the chicken was done I served it up with a salad I had made earlier with a tin of 4 bean salad, capers, some finely chopped red onion, some of the herb oil and some finely-chopped-home-grown-triple-curl-parsley.

All of the meats were cooked to my satisfaction - especially the prawns. I think I could have seasoned most of the meats and the salad a little more, but they were cooked through, moist and 100% home cooked.

Wait! I forgot to mention that I had pre-brined the chicken drummies in a garlic brine and used Biggs' newly acquired flavour injector to inject the brine directly into the meat.  The brine didn't come across very aggressively but I think it helped the chicken stay moist throughout my radical triple cooking method.

Cop-out Barbeque Chicken and Salad (by G)

I spent all day wet and cold and hungover (thanks Nakka whiskey, beer and anonymous whiskey). I was not in the mood to make dinner so I bought barbeque chicken, a pasta salad and a potato salad from a supermarket.

So I didn't feel too guilty at not cooking anything I griddled some leftover Turkish bread.

The chicken was good, I ate the whole thing. The salads were less so but very convenient - shitty good is as far as I would be willing to go in terms of praising the salads.

It warmed and filled me, what more could one want?

Rice Balls, Mushroom Burger and a "Cup of Tea" (by Biggs)

Tonight Nancy and I were at Future Beauty Up Late at GOMA and took in everything on offer - fashion, art, talks, bands and of course food and booze.

First, rice balls with tuna...delicious little treats especially with champagne.

Next we had a mushroom burger. It was less impressive. Quite sweet with a brioche bun but nicely crumbed mushrooms. And, you can't really complain about anything teamed with champagne. 

It's always nice to have a cup of tea before bed so we dropped by our favourite Depo on the way home. Although, don't be fooled....this pot was laced liberally with gin. Best cup of tea I've ever had. 

Bird's Nest (by Biggs)

Last time I went to Bird's Nest I 100% recommend that all 100% of you 100% try this restaurant. G hadn't yet taken my advice so tonight I forced him out of his couch and we headed here for dinner. It. Was. Good. 

G has spent a lot of his life in yakatori bars in Japan so knows a thing or two about what goes down....meat on sticks, that's what goes down. 

We ate:

Leba Pate

Tori Karaage

Tenderloin with wasabi mayonnaise



Thigh with shallots and chicken wings



Cherry tomatoes wrapped in pork belly, chicken meatballs and chicken tails (YUM!)

Lastly, chicken skin for dessert.

That's sort of a lie though, after a fair few beers and whisky with dinner we then had more beer and whisky after dinner and the inevitable happened late at night on the way home.....how sweaty and gross does this hot dog look? It was excellent.

Spicy Baked Sausages (by Biggs)

G was a bit frazzled after work so I thought I would treat him to a childhood favourite - Spicy Baked Sausages.

For the uninitiated, Spicy Baked Sausages are oven baked sausages filled with a tomato sauce flavoured with mustard powder, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce.

Things that went wrong:

* I automatically bought pork sausages. This recipe is about the only occasion when beef sausages are more appropriate
* We didn't have mustard powder
* I couldn't locate our vinegar
* G has been drinking A LOT of Bloody Mary's lately so we also didn't have any Worcestershire sauce
* I accidentally purchased Mexican tomato sauce (what the fuck?!)

Things that went right:

* I accidentally purchased Mexican tomato sauce (that stuff is good!)

The spicy mix ended up just being the tomato sauce and some Hot English mustard but that worked out just fine....as did the pork sausages in the end.

I served the sausages with some fried potato, onion and garlic and peas. The potato was probably a little overcooked and the peas were probably a little undercooked but it didn't matter at all. Dinner was pretty great.

Mini Tortillas (by G)

I had planned to make burritos for dinner but I forgot to pre-cook some rice to go in them. I could have cooked some fresh and dried it out a bit in the oven - I decided against this, however, when I assessed how much meat I had defrosted.

The meat is some of the leftover 8kg leg of pork that I cooked for my Christmas dinner, and some miscellaneous pork that was labelled 'slow cooked pork requires seasoning 2 serves'. Those two serves referred to the time that I decided Biggs and I should trial reducing our meat intake to save the planet so it wasn't all that much.

Anyway, I fried some red onion, garlic, jalapeno and spices (paprika, coriander and cumin) then added the meat along with a tin of tomatoes, some vegetable stock and water. Then I just let that simmer away until the meat was tender.

I also did a bit of a guacamole with red onion, spring onion, jalapeno, avocado, lime, salt and pepper. I forgot to buy coriander because I just planted out a herb garden and I kind of got into my head that I would never have to buy coriander again... the coriander plant is still rather small at the moment so there was no real opportunity to use home-grown. I did cut off a couple of sprigs for garnish and then promptly forgot to add it.

As for the tortillas, I hand made them. Almost immediately I could tell the dough wasn't right - too springy - and that subsequently the tortillas would not be right so I divided it into about 14 portions and made tiny not-quite-right tortillas. They were a bit thick and ridged...

Pollo a la Cerveza (by Biggs)

Tonight it was my turn to make a meal based on title and description alone. I think I had it pretty easy when G challenged me to make Pollo a la Cerveza. You don't have to speak Spanish to know what that meal might involve.

My version was a base of garlic, onion and paprika, a tin of tomatoes, a bottle of beer and some chicken thighs. I wasn't sure what to serve it with so threw in some potatoes for good luck and sliced up a French stick.

Dinner was almost called off when I came home without tomatoes. It's about one million degrees outside so dashing up to the corner store was quite the challenge. Lucky I had beer in the fridge. In fact, halfway through dinner G accused me of having drunk all the beer instead of putting it in dinner. I cannot confirm nor deny if that's what took place.

Dal Paella (by G)

I had the idea the other day to get inspiration for a meal by having Biggs tell me the name of a dish with a brief description and try to make it based on no other information. Biggs was prepared with a dish, 'Fideua' a paella made without rice.

The obvious thing to do would be to replace the rice with risoni but that didn't seem like much of a challenge so I decided to substitute with some little dried beans. Well, I couldn't find small enough beans when I went shopping so I said, 'Fuck it' and bought some dal. How bad could it be?

Never having even cooked regular paella before I just fried some onion, garlic and chorizo in a pan then added the dal, some peeled and deseeded tomatoes and some vegetable stock along with some saffron I'd soaked in boiling water, then simmered the shit out of it. For the protein component I went away from the classic seafood combinations (mostly because it is so hot at the moment I was a bit worried about the seafood becoming re-animated and crawling away) instead I went with chorizo sausage, chicken thigh and some roasted pork belly.

When the meal was thick enough to eat with a fork I slopped it on a plate and topped it with some thin sliced raw onion and fresh coriander.

It turned out okay - I forgot to add lemon. The best thing was the various meats, I should have just cooked an all meat paella.

Lemon Apple Cider Chicken (by Biggs)

For Christmas I was gifted a marinade injector and can't believe it's taken me this long to use it. I went with a menu-style dinner tonight where G was allowed to pick the marinade type from an extensive list that came with the marinade injector. For reasons unknown he chose Lemon Apple Cider - perhaps he thought this flavour would result in a pork dinner....alas, it did not.

I chose chicken legs because that's what they used in the marinade injector instructions. The idea is that you make a marinade, suck it up into the giant syringe that is the marinade injector and inject away. As suspected most of the marinade immediately came pouring out of the meat but I pushed on.

After baking the chicken in the oven for an hour they came out pretty pale so I gave them a quick fry up to add some colour. I can't say that injecting the marinade made much of a difference but there was a subtle cider flavour to the meat so I'm willing to give it another chance.

I sent photos of the fairly gross injecting process to a few friends and received mixed responses including:

"Wow, it's a lot more surgical than I imagined"

"Geez....does marinade need to be injected....I like it, but seems excessive"

"This is exciting"

"I'm not sure how I feel about marinade injector day. Was it excellent?"

It was not.

What was excellent were the sides. I made up a salad of green beans, bacon, parsley and grain mustard that was simply delicious.

That's all for now but stay tuned for more marinade injector tales!

Roast Belly Pork and Noodle Salad (by G)

Despite the fact I still have some leftover Christmas pork in the freezer I bought a slab of pork belly today because I was craving some crackle and I ate all the Christmas crackle weeks ago.  For once I erred on the side of moderation and chopped the belly pork into 3 portions, the other two to be used some other time.

To make the salad I simply seasoned the pork with pepper and sprinkled some salt over the skin and chucked it in the oven for a while. For once the crackle crackled as good crackle should. I cooled the pork a little and sliced it into about 4 millimetre slices. The pork was then tossed through some cooked and cooled udon noodles along with water spinach, spring onion, coriander (helpfully provided by Biggs who bought it by accident thinking it was parsley) and some roasted crushed peanuts.  The dressing was a freestyle classic - brown sugar, fish sauce, a dash of soy, lemon juice and tamarind.

Excellent.

Steak Sandwich (by Biggs)

I was well enthusiastic about it being Friday night tonight. It's the weekend and I had tickets to the Asian Cup with a bunch of fine folk. Instead of going home between work and the soccer I headed straight to the pub.

A pint lead to another pint which lead to a pint and a steak sandwich. I don't order a steak sandwich often but when I do I really enjoy them. Such tender steak, so cheesy, so good.

Potato, Halloumi and Asparagus (by Biggs)

I knew I was going to make something with halloumi and asparagus tonight. I also thought a griddle pan might be involved and bacon would most likely feature. But, when I was looking for inspiration today I disovered a series of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipes in The Guardian called "Three Good Things on a Plate".

The three good things on this plate are potatoes, asparagus and halloumi, all oven-roasted with garlic and served with a squeeze of lemon.

My new pepper grinder got a good workout tonight too. It's a bit squeaky.... just like roasted halloumi.

Pasta with Olive Tapenade (by G)

I bought some olives the other day planning to make tapenade - turns out I didn't have any of the other required ingredient to make tapenade.

This time I made a real effort and managed to have black olives, garlic, capers, anchovies and olive oil all at the same time. There are various other things you can add - I was going to add pine nuts if I happened to have any handy. Generally, when you think you may have pine nuts you generally don't - and I didn't. Lemon is another possible ingredient, I had a lime so I squeezed a bit of the juice in after having blitzed the rest of the ingredients together.

Somehow or other I managed to miss my dinner deadline of 7:30 - too complacent, the pasta water took ages to boil.

The bread on the side was a garlic bread substitute. A peeled and seeded tomato with a dash of salt and pepper spread on some griddled Turkish bread.

I thought dinner was A-Okay, the bread was especially good. Biggs demanded pork with dinner at the last minute so I sprinkled some shredded and fried ham on top which turned out to be a fine addition.

Hot Chip Tortillas (by Biggs)

I had this idea a while ago when we were all about the vegetarian meals. I thought it might be a bit like a chip butty but in tortilla form. And it was. 

I cooked up some oven chips, made a chunky guacamole and a salsa. For some reason I couldn't remember what was in a good salsa when I was in the supermarket....it's been too long. I went with tomato, capsicum, onion, cucumber, lime, chili and coriander. It was fine but I probably shouldn't have made 3 kilos of it....

I also grated some cheese and fried up some chorizo. Chorizo wasn't in the original vegetarian plan and almost wasn't in this one. Fortunately, when I freaked out having forgotten to buy any, G came to the rescue and found some in the freezer. How that snuck past our constant snacking I have no idea but I took fine advantage of it. 

Pork and Cabbage Fried Rice with Prawn Omlette (by G)

I was looking to do something simple and tasty this evening, Biggs is back from house sitting so I wanted to step up my game a little (but without any additional effort).

Fried rice is easy, I had some rice left over from last night which I froze to dry it out a bit. I had also bought some Chinese BBQ pork a couple of days ago especially to make fried rice. Unaccountably I tried one little bit to test it for quality and, before I knew it, there was no BBQ pork left. I had to make a special trip on my way home from work to get a replacement piece.

The main purpose of making fried rice was to get rid of a large amount of cabbage I've been storing. I chopped up a good quantity of the cabbage and added it to the diced and lightly fried pork along with some garlic, spring onion, some red curry paste from last night and coriander. When I added the rice it was soon clear that it had not dried out enough and the rice was going to be a bit gluggy. I pushed on anyway and added soy sauce for flavouring. There wasn't too much flavour to the rice so I also added some strange chilli shrimp powder I bought on an impulse months ago.  The rice turned out okay but, as I say, gluggy and the other flavours overpowered the joyous taste of the BBQ pork.

Just for fun I was also going to make some oyster omlettes. I couldn't find any oysters I was happy with so in the end I went with prawns. Quickly blanched then added to a basic omlette mix (with some more red curry paste for luck). I think I used too much egg in the omlettes - they were quite thick.

Thai Pork Mince Curry (by G)

I should state that this is not an authentic curry as far as I know. It is just a curry of Thai eggplants, pumpkin, water spinach, coriander, spring onion and pork mince. My original idea was to make a pork curry with something like the neck but the butcher was closed being Sunday and the supermarket was too a step too far on such a humid day.

Looking in the freezer my options were roast pork or pork mince. Roast pork seemed like a wacky idea but I went with pork mince rather than go the vegetarian route.

I did make a red curry paste from scratch. A whole bunch of ingredients (over a dozen) blitzed and then hand ground in the mortar and pestle. I also added some chicken style stock and coconut milk.

The result was good, a bit lacking in spice but it had a little hum to it.

Verjuice Mushrooms (by Biggs)

I caught up with Bonnie today and she surprised me with the gift of a GIANT pepper mill and some verjuice. When I asked what I should cook with the verjuice she pointed out a mushroom recipe on the bottle. Given I had nothing but mushrooms in the fridge I decided it was fate and dinner was decided.

Nice and simple. Some garlic and shallots fried up with the mushrooms. Once cooked through the pan was deglazed with verjuice, parsley was added and I served it up on some potato and chive bread.

Fucking delicious. My only regret is I forgot to use my new pepper mill! Fear not, there will be much pepper in the future. Seriously, the pepper mill is huge!

Water (by Biggs)

Things took a turn for the worst this afternoon so I have since been on a strict diet of water. I don't know if this counts as 'dinner' but it is what I consumed this evening.

Cold Beef Salad (by G)

As today was hot and muggy and unpleasant I decided early on to have a salad for dinner, so I hauled ass to the Asian grocery and bought up a bunch of ingredients.

The salad was a pretty simple to assemble. Chop up the water spinach, coriander, spring onions and red chilli and mix that through a handful of mung bean sprouts. I grated in some lemon grass and a little clove of garlic then dressed it all with a scant amount of fish sauce, sugar, rice wine vinegar and savoury chilli sauce.  As I was tossing the salad with my hands the hollow water spinach made a sound like trickling water - delightful.

I had already seared and chilled a little beef steak so I sliced that really thin and arranged it on the plate before piling a healthy dose of the salad on the top. I was pretty happy with the rose pink colour of the beef.

Had I thought of it I would had dressed the beef as well as the salad to give it a bit more flavour, otherwise the salad hit the spot.

Tuna Casserole (by G)

What more could you want of a Friday night than tuna casserole?  I probably would not have made this if I had been feeding any one but myself but I was feeling nostalgic for a home cook classic.

When it came to actually make the casserole I was not actually sure what to do so I took a few pointers from a random recipe online. Turns out you just cook some pasta, mix through a plain white sauce, tinned tuna, peas, top with cheese and breadcrumbs (though the recipe I found called for crushed weetbix) and oven bake.

I was a bit dubious about the flavours so I went off piste and added some black olive pieces and chopped parsley.  I was tired and could not work out if I should put the breadcrumbs on first and then the cheese or the other way around.  After a long period of mental effort I decided incorrectly to put the breadcrumbs on top, I do not know why I did that.

Anyway, no harm done. The olives were a good addition to what would otherwise have been a pretty bland meal. Some mustard in the white sauce would have been a good addition.

Mushroom, Asparagus, Goat Cheese Pasta (by Biggs)

Urghh. It's been a big week, that followed a huge fortnight, that followed a massive month. I've very rarely cooked in the past couple of months so tonight was a bold night to invite friends over for dinner.

I suspect they even thought it was a bit ambitious given they kept suggesting takeaway. Alas, I powered on....without an actual plan....but, I powered on.

After a wander around the grocery store I came out with some mushrooms, asparagus, pasta and goat cheese thinking that might create a thing.

It sort of did. I fried up the mushrooms and asparagus with shallots and garlic then made a sauce from the goat cheese and some parmesan. The sauce was initially lovely and flavourful but clearly I haven't learnt a thing. Everyone knows flavour plus bland still equals bland. So lovely sauce plus bland pasta, and that's what dinner was....bland. Oh, and I overcooked the pasta. Well done me!

Lucky I served it with prosciutto, bread and plenty of wine.

Minature Fried Chicken and Sweet Potato Wedges (by G)

I had another little spatchcock in the freezer so yesterday I got it out and put it into brine. Brined chicken is great, and my theory was that brine with chilli and garlic would be doubly great - so I added 3 smashed garlic clove and a couple of chopped birdseye chillies.

After 24 hours I got the chicken out, dried it off, chopped it into pieces and crumbed it - before deep frying. I didnt' add any flavour to the crumbs because I thought the brining mixture would add all the flavour. It didn't. The chicken tasted mainly of chicken.

For the sweet potato wedges I just hacked up a couple of small sweet potatoes, drizzled them with oil, sprinkled on some garlic powder, salt and pepper and oven roasted them.

I can tell you, this meal could have done with a fresh element - a piece of lettuce maybe.

Rice Crackers and Whisky (by Biggs)

Sometimes this dinner blog reveals more about my private life than I'm entirely comfortable with. This is one of those times.

Ham and Salad Rolls (by G)

I was looking to have something a bit fresher for dinner to avert death (and in an attempt to fit into my pants again after the Christmas/New Year binge) so I decided to have ham and salad rolls.

Not too much to them. Grain mustard on the bottom of the bun, mayonnaise on top and ham, plastic cheese slice, cucumber, grated carrot, tomato and lettuce in the middle.

I did season the tomatoes with pepper and smoked salt but I would hardly call what I did tonight 'cooking'.

The rolls were not as satisfying as I had hoped - the rolls were pretty dense - but I guess they did the job without causing me any additional harm.

Fried Rice (by Biggs)

I was going to lie and say I made this fried rice but lying on the blog is a gateway lie which leads to fraud, theft and much, much harder lies. 

So, I didn't make this rice. I bought it with the rice paper wraps last night. My eyes were bigger than my belly so I ate it tonight instead. It was pretty flavourless and I was feeling too lazy to add flavour so....that's that. 

I'm aware I have not really cooked I quite some time so may need to look into that tomorrow....maybe. I swear I really enjoy cooking but boy I've been feeling lazy since Christmas. 

Pork and Pickle Tortillas (by G)

I'm still working my way through my Christmas leg of pork - not too much to go now. Tonight I heated through and chopped up some of the pre-cooked pork and mixed it through some pickled garlic, chilli and coriander.

The tortillas turned out a little different to how I had anticipated. It was an organic evolution. When I started I was just going to pickle a chopped head of garlic, 2 green chillies and a bunch of coriander in a mix of white vinegar and sugar. To mellow that I added some apple cider vinegar. I quite like tamarind so I added some of that - then I thought I may as well go one step further and add chilli sauce.  The pickle turned out so substantial that I decided just mix the pork through and be done with it.  I had some yoghurt in the fridge so I added some sriracha to that as a bit of a drizzle.

I must say, this was an unusual but not terrible combo.

Rice Paper Wraps (by Biggs)

Hmmm. It appears I forgot it was Tortilla Tuesday....again, but I'm still sick so keeping track of days is a bit beyond me at the moment.

Luckily I had Vietnamese style tortillas for dinner. Scoff you may but pork in a wrapper....I know what that's called. 

These were from a popular haunt up on Hardgrave Road. I'm sure this won't be the only meal I have from there while I'm house-sitting. Stay tuned!

Gnocchi (by Biggs)

I'm house-sitting for the next week or so and didn't have anything close to a dinner plan in place so had a bit of a hunt through the pantry. 

I'm sick today so just wanted something nice and easy. I cooked up some pre-made gnocchi and made a quick sauce of tinned and fresh tomatoes with lots of chili to make me feel a bit better. 

I also found a can of Coopers Dr Tim's poorly hidden in the fridge that I decided to partake in....the man is a doctor afterall. 

Laquered Spatchcock with Vietnamese Rice (by G)

As I was pouring myself a bloody mary the other day I noticed that the tomato juice container had a recipe for Vietnamese Tomato Rice on the back.  I'm pretty dubious on how authentic this recipe is - it seems like a bit of a scam to sell more tomato juice.

I had forgotten to pre-cook the rice so I quickly boiled some then spread it on a tray and popped that into a low oven for about half an hour to dry it out. The recipe for the rice was pretty simple, fry some onion and garlic then add some sugar, tomato paste, tomato juice (of course), soy sauce, salt, pepper and a chopped up omelette. Oh, and the rice, you have to add the rice.  I objected to getting a whole bunch of spring onions for one recipe so I substituted it with shallots and coriander.

I was so taken with the little spatchcock I tried the other day that I decided to get a couple more. I didn't have a recipe for this one I just heated through some soy sauce, sugar, fish sauce and chilli sauce then basted the spatchcock as it oven roasted. Look how pretty it looks - I even took the time to truss it to keep the perfect miniature chicken shape.

Don't mind the black bits, that's flavour.  Actually, the flavour was phenomenal (the chicken that is). The rice was alright.

German Style Dinner (by G)

I've got a crap load of cabbage in the fridge so I had the idea to make sauerkraut, though that would take time so I just bought a jar of sauerkraut. Not the most logical decision given that I was hoping to use up cabbage rather than acquire more... but once I got the taste for sauerkraut I couldn't get it out of my head.

To go with the fermented cabbage I cooked some bratwurst in simmering water for about 10 minutes then gave them a quick blast on the griddle pan.  The ham steaks were just griddled. Ideally everything would have been griddled for a little longer, however, I mistimed my cooking and stomachs were empty.

My favourite thing in the dinner plate was the potato salad. Boiled potatoes dressed in a mix of gherkins, parsley, shallot, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard and apple cider vinegar.  I also mixed through half a dozen chopped boiled eggs. Super.

Lamb Cutlets with Aloo Dum (by G)

Aloo Dum is apparently the Indian equivalent of chips - served with everything. Lamb cutlets are the baby sheep equivalent of pork cutlets - little bits of lambs.  The combination is excellent.

To make the Aloo Dum I simmered some potato pieces until tender then fried them. Once they were golden I dusted them with turmeric.  To make the sauce I fried bay leaves, asafoetida, some onion, garlic and ginger. Once the onion and garlic were tender I added some chilli, cumin, coriander powder, amchur (that's dried mango powder - cool), more turmeric powder and some salt.

Deep breath... Once that was all fried correctly I then added some passata, green chilli and some water. After a few minutes of simmering to thicken the sauce I added some garam masala.  Okay, I forgot the peas, I was bound to forget something.  Nevertheless the Aloo Dum was phenomenal.

The lamb chops were a little less ingredient intensive just cloves, dried chillies, fennel seeds, cumin seeds and pepper corns toasted and ground, mixed through some yoghurt with a grating of ginger.  After marinating the lamb chops in the flavoured yoghurt for a couple of hours they were simply grilled.  They were good, but not as good as the potatoes. Also, the packet garlic naan was great. All packet naan is great - and simple to make.

Party Party Food (by Biggs)

Tonight I was at my friend Aaron's 40th - a glorious affair with lots of food, more booze than you could imagine and some seriously classic (and a few non-traditional) dance moves. 

Amanda and I were stationed in the kitchen to man the ovens and cycled these babies through to perfection. I was initially a bit disgruntled volunteering for a party chore but it turns out this one comes with the benefit of sidelining a private portion of goodies for yourself. Yum!

The amusing thing is that Aaron found the catering company by losing his wallet. He drove off with it on the roof of his car but someone handed it into a local shop. When he went to retrieve it they let him know who handed it in so he could thank them. When he went to thank them he discovered they run a catering company.....party catering sorted!