Cheese Burger and Lamb Shoulder (by Biggs)

After a long long, hard hard day of work G suggested we meet for a couple of pints - I was dead keen. The motivation came from both independantly noticing a shelled out warehouse down the road from us that seemed to be full of people drinking. We couldn't find any reference to this place on the whole of the internet thus intriguing us further.

Once I discovered it's name I did in fact find one reference describing it as a Traditional British Pub.....with a modern twist. Turns out the modern twist was so twisted it in fact bore no relationship to any Traditional British Pub I've read about or seen in movies. I would describe it more as wank and swank.

Next door to this wank and swank though was a magical deli wonderland of our dreams. After wandering around this place for a while....and dropping some coin....we decided to go back to the bar to celebrate our discovery with more beer and some food.

We quickly decided on two cheese burgers and a shoulder of lamb....no side vegetables thank you very much. Good stuff. G thought the lamb would have gone well with a side of gravy but certainly the squeeze of lemon was satisfying enough. The cheeseburger.....close to the best I've ever had. Even the brioche bun wasn't too sweet and offensive.

After our inital disappointment I feel like we'll be back here every time we shop at the deli wonderland.....ongoing celebration of discovery you see.

Steak with a Garlic Prawn Topper (by Biggs)

I've been quite taken with the concept of 'steak toppers' lately so thought I'd give it a crack myself. I went with the easiest option - a steak with garlic prawns piled on top. Yep!

I seem to be in the habit of defaulting to a three meat dinner after every Vegetarian Wednesday and tonight was no different with bacon mixed through the side of vegetables.

Other than the bacon there were brussel sprouts, peas and onion....a squeeze of lemon.

I accidently overcooked everything a little but....dinner served. 

Mushdogs (by G)

Vegetarian Wednesday again which means (at least when I'm in charge) mushroom Wednesday. 

Tonight a mix of mushrooms varieties fried with garlic and spring onion, flavoured with some stock, thickened with some cornflower, and stuffed into rolls then topped with some cubes of feta.

The mushdogs were pretty good, a bit lacking in flavour - the thing that made dinner exciting were the side of hash browns... lovely, crisp and light golden as prescribed by the packet.

Bratwurst Sausage Tortillas (by Biggs)

My favourite thing about the blog is checking out the stats of our traffic sources. It tells us which countries people are reading from, what browser and device they're using and keyword searches that have led readers to our blog. 

Some of my favourite key word searches have been 'Cambodian junk food', 'adobo and mung bean purée' and 'damn thirst for knowledge'....of course that search sent someone to our blog. This week there was the new key word search of 'bratwurst sausage tortillas'. Even though that led someone to our blog we've never actually had such a thing before so...an dinner idea was born. The strangest thing is that I discovered there are infact plenty of bratwurst sausage tortilla recipes on the internet. 

This one involved simmering the bratwurst in beer then wrapping them in cheese layered tortillas and grilling them up a bit. The sauce was a white sauce with diced onion and mustard stirred through. I'm super glad I decided to serve them with a salad of cucumber, snow peas and tomatoes. It really helped balance things out a bit. 

Glazed Salmon and Salad (by G)

Biggs has struck on the idea that we should limit our dinner portions to, like, one portion each. The only way I know how to limit portions is with fish.
I bought some salmon pieces, grilled them skin side down then removed the skin and fried that separately to get it crispy. The meat pieces were then brushed with a mix of soy, sugar, mirin, ketjap manis and savoury chilli sauce and grilled.

Portion control also involves a modest amount of salad, in this case cabbage, chilli, coriander, spring onion and toasted sesame seeds dressed with yoghurt, some of the salmon glaze and lime.

Despite my aversion to cooking fish I thought the meal was pretty good, didn’t stink up the kitchen too much. That counts as a win… but boy am I hungry.

Punjabi Palace (by Biggs)

A very lazy day today so a very lazy dinner plan...take away Indian. Chicken Korma and Lamb Vindaloo - tender and tasty. Happy household.

The Lord Stanley (by Biggs)

A hearty feast before The Big Game was on the menu tonight so we headed to The Lord Stanley. Good food, good beer, not too crowded, complimentary mini-bus to The Gabba. All round excellent.

 

G agonised over what to order. I on the other hand went for the obvious choice - the Chicken Parmie. Three cheese Chicken Parmie no less. I couldn't tell you what the cheese varieties were but what I can tell you is that they, and everything on this plate, was delicious.

 

G had a rump steak with mushroom sauce, chips and a ceaser salad. He seemed pretty happy. I'm disappointed that he didn't order one of the steak toppers. Options were onion rings, prawns, calamari, ribs or lamb skewers. Steak topped with ribs - how amazing would that have been. Though, the corn topper was an unexpected bonus for him.

 

Turns out Kirst is a connoisseur of the cheap Gabba wines and was delighted to see this new variety on offer....so, it made the blog. She was very impressed with the cup type - holds more wine, stylish, spill-resistant lip.

Grilled Prawns, Crumbed Broccoli and Onion Rings (by Biggs)

Tonight I went on a lady date with Nancy and we went on a little bar hop from South Brisbane back to West End. When it was about dinner time we were at Lychee Lounge and ordered some treats - onion rings, crumbed broccoli and prawns. All very tasty - the prawns were nicely charred, the onion rings nicely coasted but my favourite was the broccoli. One of my favourite vegetables crumbed and deep-fried. Yes please. We also had gin cocktails. A delightful evening!

Friday Fry Up (by G)

I've been thinking of trying black pudding again lately. The last time was a bit of a disaster because I tried it when I was nursing a massive hang-over - it did not go down well. Biggs was there and she was, naturally, very hung-over as well. She did not appreciate the experience any more than I did... for that reason I thought it best to wait for a day when Biggs was not home before trying it again.  The natural pairing for black pudding is a lot of fried things, so I did that.

Along with the black pudding I fried some sausages, hickory smoked bacon, eggs, pork sausages and a mushroom. Baked beans are a popular addition to a fry up so I added some of those. Also half a bag of oven chips that I had in the freezer.

The black pudding was excellent, though I'm glad I didn't cook up too much of it - it was pretty rich. The rest of the fried things were - as I knew they would be - life giving.

Salmon Pasta Carbonara (by G)

One of the excellent things that you can purchase at the city market on a Wednesday are fillets of hot smoked salmon. In an aberrant fit of pre-planning I bought a chunk of salmon on Wednesday to use in dinner on Thursday. Having gone to all that effort I decided to spare my energy and use it in a simple recipe.

Salmon carbonara is just the same as regular carbonara but with smoked salmon instead of bacon. I inadvertently added a bit too much cream and no amount of eggs would balance it out so the sauce was plenty sloppy. No matter - the result was quite pleasing. The salmon has been coated in chilli pre-smoking, that added a nice background of heat.

I can't buy any more bread related sides until I get rid of all the other bread related sides that I have stashed in the freezer - for that reason I creatively cooked up some roti and brushed them with garlic butter. Not as odd as you might imagine.

Nut Loaf (by Biggs)

The last nut loaf post really seemed to tickle our readership's fancy so I thought I'd try another one on for size. But, this one, I made myself. I would usually reference the recipe but I omitted so much crap it barely resembled the original in the end. There was no way I was going to add dried fruit, I don't know what the fuck an onion squash is and I couldn't bring myself to buy quinoa (will you please think of the poor Peruvians and Bolivians?!).

The nut loaf was mainly pumpkin, onion, garlic, celery, mushroom, chili, paprika and oregano. Then I added some lemon zest, butter, eggs, breadcrumbs and, most importantly, about two million dollars worth of mixed nuts. I don't know if this is how a nut loaf is usually made but it's how I made it.

Our freezer is full of half-bags of peas, corn, and peas and corn so I used some of them up. And also served it up with some roasted capsicum tomato sauce stuff.

When I tried to get the nut loaf out of the tin the bottom part got stuck and the whole thing fell in half. I would have pieced it back together but then I accidentally dropped the bottom half into a sink full of washing up water. EPIC FAIL! Fortunately, there was enough left unscathed to enjoy. And, enjoy it we did.

Pork Belly Tortillas (by G)

I don't think Biggs had previously been introduced to the pleasure of pork belly tortillas. That seemed down-right wrong.

The tortillas are simple. Oven roasted pork belly with a corn, onion, capsicum combo bound in some achiote sauce from a bottle.

I had many grand plans prior to making these tortillas but got lazy and threw all the ingredients in together - that turned out to be a fortuitous and delicious decision.

Sausages, Pasta and Peas (by Biggs)

What the fuck sort of half-arsed dinner is this? I don't know what's going on. I didn't come up with a plan before entering the supermarket. I'm sick...again. So, it seems I just came out with things. Those things were sausages, peas, broccoli, pre-made spinach and cheese ravioli and one of those awful pre-made sauces. Which turned out not to be so awful.

Then....I put those things on a plate.

Bigos (by G)

Over time I've realised there are only about 5 places Biggs and I find inspiration for dinner - one of which is Food Lover's Guide. This recipe comes from the Polish episode and it sounded like a dish specifically designed for Biggs.

Apparently, in Poland, they make a stew from the end pieces of cure meats - leftovers after a days hunting. There are no left over cured meats in our house... and I mean EVER... so I went out and bought some. Kransky and Cabanosi to go with the mini chorizo I already had.

The stew is not too demanding, there are just a few steps to follow. Fry some bacon, onion, the meat and some sauerkraut that has been simmered in plain water for about 20 minutes. You're supposed to add All Spice but I couldn't find any in our spice drawer so I added Chinese 5 spice and garam marsala figuring that would cover most if not All Spice. You then add a roux made from tomato paste, flour and stock... and then add some cabbage that has been wilted with garlic and porcini mushrooms. After that you just let it cook.

I served my Bigos with some light rye bread rolls and mashed potato mixed with some boccancini I had left over.

I was pretty pleased with the flavours - it would have been better it the weather was as cold as it had been for the two days prior, but I don't control the weather... yet.

Chorizo and Potato Frittata with Parsley Salad (by Biggs)

This didn't turn out exactly how I expected. It was a bit flat and disappointing but I guess it was just potato, eggs and some chorizo.

The parsley salad was also a touch disappointing but I guess it was just parsley, shallots, red onion and lemon.

The bread and butter however, fucking delicious. I bought good butter for once. Good stuff!

Leftovers (by Biggs)

I spent the day in bed with the flu and ended up eating leftover pizza (in bed) for dinner. When was it leftover from? Nobody knows!

Macsagne (by G)

I had a brilliant but probably not original idea to make a lasagne layered with macaroni and cheese. I bought some tinly little macaroni the other day and I though this would later up pretty well.

There's nothing special about either the mac 'n' cheese or the lasagne mince and my skill in layering was a bit poor (the layers got a bit mixed up) - the end result was pretty much how I imagined it would be. If you try macsagne you will surely win friends and influence people - I, however, ate the whole lot myself and won an extra layer of fat on my belly and influenced my cardio-vascular health, and ultimately, my life expectancy... not in a good way.

Pork Laab with Noodles (by Biggs)

I woke up in the mood for laab today so, as a slave to my every desire, I made laab. I didn't want lettuce or rice so found a pork laab recipe that involved noodles.

This recipe had a bunch of good stuff in it....pork, chili, spring onions, coriander, Thai basil, onion, garlic, soy, fish and oyster sauce. Other things I can't quite remember.

I bought a bag of homegrown chilies from a shop in Chinatown and made G assess how many he would add if he was cooking for himself. He suggested 3 so I added 2. Quite hot but edible and satisfying.

Vege Burgers (by G)

Vegetarian Wednesday is always an anxious time for me, I am reasonably unconvinced that vegetables alone can make a meal... this week I struck on the idea of making a vege burger. Something familiar made with something undesirable.

Jaime Oliver, of course, has a recipe for vege burgers and it's not damn bad. Basically the patty is a mixture of peas, corn and broad beans, flour, coriander, sunflower and sesame seeds all wazzed up and formed into a burger shape then fried. His recipe included onion rings and vegan mayonnaise but just making the burgers was about as much effort as I was willing to go to - served on a bun with tomato, lettuce and smoke flavoured plastic cheese. I also made a side of cheesy fries with garlic and coriander.

The patties were a bit wet, otherwise this was a winning vegetarian meal.

Insect Tortillas (by Biggs)

We all know that eating insects is the way of the future....if we want a future....so I thought I'd check it out. I ordered some crickets with the plan to serve them on tortillas with guacamole and a fresh salsa.

 

When the crickets came I was astounded about three things:

 

1) How much I'd spent on these when I drunkenly ordered them online,

2) How flavourless they were, and

3) How few there were.

 

I'd expected a big bag of them (especially for the price I'd paid for them and particularly given they're insects....how hard can insects be to come across) but was actually just sent a small container. I flavoured them up with some garlic and chili but also padded the tortillas out with some tenderised strip steak thus entirely defeating the whole point in eating insects.

 

But, they were pretty good, added a nice crunch...if you could ignore getting stringy little legs caught between your teeth.

Pizza Roll (by G)

Biggs (kind of) demanded hotdogs for dinner. I couldn't do hotdogs again so soon so I decided to make pizza in a roll instead - surely a worthy alternative. I have vague but fond memories of the sweaty pizza rolls I used to buy on drunken raids of a popular convenience store.

They were pretty simple, sliced olives, polish salami, tomato paste and cheese stuffed into some cheap breadrolls and heated in the oven. I covered them at first to avoid drying out the rolls then gave them a few minutes uncovered so they would not turn out sweaty. Unfortunately I left them in too long and the rolls did get a little toothsome. No matter - these were, in my opinion, excellent.

Spicy Mince Stuffed Mushroom (by G)

I had meant to eat the excruciatingly hot mince that I made the other day before Biggs got home, but forgot. This being my last chance to use these leftovers I changed my original plan to have regular stuffed mushrooms and stuffed the mushrooms with the mince instead.

It looks weird, I know. The stuff on the top is bocconcini. The gems were great, the mushrooms were oily but reasonably tasty.

Airport Teats (by Biggs)

I'm trapped at the Rockhampton airport. Please, call for help! The wine tastes like poison but I think it's because the lady at the newsagency / alcohol dispensary only has spray n wipe to clean the glasses with....instead of like, a sink and dishwasher. Chicken chips good, Pringles great!

Steak (by Biggs)

Well, once again Rocky has treated me incredibly well. It really is my favourite regional town to visit. Tonight they had a big River Festival going on which was pretty cool. We stopped into the pub to enjoy the community atmosphere....not to mention the incredible beauty of the historic hotel. After a drink we headed to a steakhouse everyone had recommended. I was determined to enjoy a steak whilst in Rocky. And I did.

The steak was admittedly a touch rare for me but an amazing piece of meat that I truly enjoyed. I was pleased to discover the 'rocket salad' was packed full of goat cheese, carrot and spring onions. The potatoes though were oddly sweet.

My colleague was dessert enthusiastic and ordered us a share platter which I, unsurprisingly, did not do justice.

I did however enjoy the decaf espresso martini gifted to her by the waiter. He allegedly felt bad for mocking her for enquiring about decaf coffee....I think he was actually just quite charmed by her.

Fireworks in the rain topped the evening off. 

Chicken and Potato Gems (by G)

Yep, supermarket roast chicken and packet potato gems with instant gravy. Tastes as good as it looks.

 

Pea and Ham Soup (by G)

It’s cold out and pea and ham soup appealed. I had ham which is a plus, I don’t know how to make pea and ham soup – nor could I be bothered finding out, that is a negative. I also forgot to get cream, another negative.

To make the soup I just fried up some ham then added it to some peas blitzed up with vegetable stock, then I had the genius idea to add some packet coconut milk in place of the cream. That created a nice thick texture that was most pleasing.

Probably the best thing about dinner was the grilled cheese sandwich I had on the side.
 

Salmon with Pea Risotto (by Biggs)

Well, the food in Rocky has not disappointed! A colleague and I went for a bit of a wander along the river after work to forage for food and drink and popped into a place not far down the road. It turned out to be quite fine dining but fairly reasonable.

My salmon was delicious, crispy skin, served with a generous knob of herbed butter. The risotto was great. And, what's that little ball on top you may ask? Why it's a deep- fried quail egg of course...for the win!

Ham Steak and a bunch of random stuff (by G)

I keep buying vast quantities of Indian packet food, eating a few then stuffing the rest in the freezer.  It occurred to me today that I should make an effort to eat some of these thing. I also wanted a gammon steak.

The gammon steak was unachievable. I substituted that for a thick slice of ham griddled to perfection. With the ham I had some roti paratha and mini vegetarian samosas.

I did go to a little effort in making roti canai curry sauce for dipping. It is a recipe I made exactly right the first time and have been fucking up ever since. Tonight - too much chilli. I am getting closer though.

Pork Belly and Scallops (by Biggs)

So, the hotel I'm staying at in Rocky is nice but average however the attached restaurant is absolutely sensational. I was absolutely knackered tonight so ordered room service which fortunately came out of that very same restaurant. I was tempted by the lambs brains (I fucking love lambs brains) but got worried about the potential sweats that could result from the food sitting under a room service closhe. So, I went with one of my favourites - pork belly. And a tremendously generous serve at that. I was promised crackling and a perfect crackling was delivered. Satisfying.

Pizza (by Biggs)

Okay, this pizza eating thing is getting completely out of control. And must be making the blog awfully dull. I really do intend to reduce my pizza intake but tonight was unavoidable. I'm in Rocky for work and had an evening training session that ran quite late. By the time I got to my hotel all the restaurants were closed and room service was over so....pizza. It does now occur to me I could have at least ordered vegetarian pizza given it's Wednesday. Oh well!

Hot Dogs (by G)

On certain Wednesdays through the year they sell hotdogs at work (well, it happened once before so I've come to expect it), today was supposed to be hotdog day but it was cancelled at the last minute. Don't think I didn't use all my power and influence to avoid this catastrophe.

It is supposed to be vegetarian Wednesday but I feel it was my destiny to eat hotdogs today, and one should not shy away from destiny.

I fried some onion, garlic and speck of bacon to have with my hotdogs and some chilli sauce on top.

The authentic American Hotdog wieners were a bit of a disappointment - in all other respects destiny was fulfilled.

Spring Onion Soup (by Biggs)

One thing I was definitely tasked with eating by my friends whose house I'm looking after was a bunch of spring onions. I asked the internet about the matter and it suggested making spring onion soup. Talk about delicious!

I fried off some garlic and the spring onions and simmered them, along with a potato, in some vege stock, soy sauce was added at the end. At this stage it looked all grey and swampy but once I whizzed it up the colour really came through.

I almost ruined it by adding some dred jalapeño I found in the cupboard and got a bit too excited about. It was pretty spicey!!

I now realise that I forgot to have tortillas for Tuesday but it would have been fairly challenging to wrap this soup into a tortilla.

Pork Belly Tortillas (by G)

As I had some left-over pork belly from dinner last night I, naturally, decided to make pork belly tortillas. I also happened to buy some annatto sauce on the weekend - sauce made from the red seeds of some Latin American bush that is commonly paired with pork.

Prep was pretty easy. Bathe the pork belly in the sauce and slow roast in the oven over a bed of sliced red onion. Then a blast under the grill to try (unsuccessfully) to get the pork skin crackly.

I was going to make a few fixin's for the tortillas but laziness dictated that I just chopped 4 types of chillies (red, green, jalapeno and bullhorn) and stirred them though mashed avocado with lime juice, salt and pepper.

I must say - this was a very good tortilla combo when topped with some chilli sauce.

Fried Pork Belly 'Ribs' (by G)

I have excellent memories of the deep fried pork ribs I had in Bangkok a couple of years ago and tried to replicate them tonight. Not even close.

I substituted whatever pork rib meat they used with some pork belly that I cubed and then blanched for 10 minutes in boiling water. Then I coated the meat with an egg/cornflour mix and crumbed them in a polenta/five spice powder/onion powder mix. They were not crumbed enough first time round so I re-crumbed them... big mistake. After frying the ribs I found that the double layer of polenta had created an impenetrable concretion on the outside of the pork which made them very difficult to eat.

The noodles on the side were okay - some vegetable flavoured ones I found in the pantry.

Tomatoes and Onion on Toast (by Biggs)

I'm housitting at the moment and decided I should use up any foods that would potentially rot before the owners come home. There were some delightful looking cherry tomatoes on the window sill, that I suspect were home grown, so I went with tomatoes on toast. I thought some fried onions might go nicely with it but got the proportions all wrong. It pretty much ended up being onions on toast with some tomatoes. Not a bad thing at all.

Sizzler (by G)

When Biggs and I discovered that Sizzler in Australia will soon be a thing of the past we were spurred into urgent action (by our standards at least). We decided that we had to eat at Sizzler (a staple high-end restaurant in our youth) one last time... and a few days later that is just what we did.

Anita, Biggs' oldest and closest Sizzler buddy, was also on hand for this momentous even.

My immediate impression on getting to Sizzler is that they would be silly to close the franchise as there was a long queue of people waiting to get in. So long in-fact that one of the servers brought around samples of the 'famous cheese bread' to ward off rioting. To me the other people in line appeared to be Sizzler regulars rather than those coming for an ironic childhood throwback experience.

Once we eventually got to order all three of us went for an a la carte option. Anita went for a selection of sliders, I chose the surf-and-turf and Biggs decided on the crumbed chicken with slice of ham and cheese on top. I can only speak for myself when I say that me steak and lobster was encouragingly average. My impression is that the lobster had been microwaved a bit too long causing it to become tough and stringy. In the end it is the quality and variety of the salad bar that keeps drawing people back so it would be remiss to judge Sizzler on their menu items.

Biggs observed that everyone has their go-to salad bar items. Hers, it seems, is a Frankenstein salad made from seafood extender and various other things. Anita likes to make nachos with potato skins in place of corn chips. I like to eat my body weight in bacon bits (which now appear to real bacon rather than the crunch cat-food like nuggets they used to be).

Sizzler also has soup. There was a government campaign when I was younger with the slogan, "Winners don't eat soup", I guess that has stuck with me because I'm not much of a soup fan. Anita observed that Sizzler sometimes has an interesting soup variety that she will try (not that she's a loser). On this occasion there was no interesting soups.

I only have dessert once every 4 or 5 years - you have to have dessert when you are at Sizzler, it's the law. The key is to wait until you have filled yourself so full that you have piled food from the bottom of your stomach to the back of your throat - then it's time to cram something sweet into the limited remaining space. On this occasion I went with the traditional chocolate moose, ice cream and sprinkles. That's enough dessert for me for the next half decade.

I could probably write 50,000 words on the joys and disappointments of Sizzler, but I think I will leave it at that.... all I can say is if you have not experienced it for yourself, get in now before it's too late.

Mini Chorizo Bake (by G)

I went to Pennisi Cuisine Distributors on the weekend and picked up some items of interest - mini chorizo, mini macaroni and some double smoked speck (it's just unsliced bacon really). I thought it would be a sound idea to combine these things in the least effortful way possible.  That involved frying the chorizo and some cubes of speck along with some chopped onion. Once those things were cooked to my satisfaction I added some chopped carrots, celery and potato - I also dropped in some left-over hot dog filling from the other night... and water.

After simmering all that for a while I added the mini macaroni and let it cook away until it had thickened up and the pasta was cooked.

This dinner was A1 super terrific. Mini things are the best, especially in macro portions.