Pizza Scoop and Soup (by G)

Party Pies (by Biggs)

A long weekend means party pies because - it's a party! I at least decided to serve them with some vegetables. I'd thought some classic peas and mashed potato goes well with pies but then G and I met for beers and all plans went out the window. I still managed to buy some peas on the way home but there was no time left to cook up potatoes.

Fortunately our local supermarket sells pre-roasted potatoes and home made bits and pieces for the lazy and unorganized amoungst us. On offer tonight was potato bake. I'm bloody useless at making it but this version was delicious - perhaps because I was full of beer. G suggested I  used up some bacon he had in the fridge and there was no hesitation on my part. Peas and bacon - a winning combination.

Doritos (by Biggs)

I had plans to head out tonight but was super unmotivated/poorly/feeling sorry for myself. Doritos probably weren't the best choice for dinner - some vegetable consumption would have been well advised.

Anything that was in our house required some level of preparation so instead I went to the little shop four doors down and bought a packet of Doritos that only involved the preparation of opening the packet.

Dinner (by G)

Burger (by Biggs)

I refused to cook tonight but still had to provide dinner so ordered some take away. There's a burger place up the road for us that has always caught our eye....mainly because of the great multitude of delivery scooters carving up the footpath with their kickstands. Based on the number of scooters I figured they could get the burgers to us pretty quick avoiding any sogginess which has been our previous concern with burger delivery.

I ordered us burgers with bacon, egg and cheese - they all come with lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles. Sometimes I think a burger is a burger is a burger but when you're presented with a good one you suddenly know different. And boy, this was a good one!

The mountain super crispy salty fries were just an added bonus. I know it was meant to be Tortilla Tuesday but I'm going to hold a house meeting soon to see if we could perhaps consider a switch to Burger Tuesdays....we'll be getting these again.  

Spicy Pasta (by G)

Sausage Tortillas (by Biggs)

This idea started with a plan to make prawn and chorizo tortillas topped with crispy onions. Then laziness set in. First - I got a bit suss about the prawns on offer at the markets, then I decided to flesh things out with chorizo sausages instead of chorizo. I was pretty happy with my guacamole (except I forgot the basic seasonings) and I totally bailed on the crispy onions last minute (laziness prevails again).

As a result dinner turned out to be the weird combination of sausage and avocado tortillas.....that's not a thing. Disappointingly the sausages didn't taste like anything and have now leached weird orange fat onto virtually every surface of the kitchen.

I feel like I've said this before but, I'll try harder.

Noodles (by Biggs)

I did some hermiting this evening and so pot noodles were the order of the day. These were kim chi flavoured and quite spicy.

Saturday Dinner (by G)

Meze Platter (by Biggs)

I met Danielle and Harv for dinner before a touch of Fringe Festival, it was in my hood so I was responsible for choosing the location. I'd originally picked out local dive bar but it was super busy so I offered up a choice of Malaysian, Lebanese or Italian (pizza!).

Danielle choose Lebanese and we immediately chose the Meze Platter. We basically asked them to feed us everything. They even offered us a choice between a lemon chicken or something along the lines of a meatcake. We asked the waitress to con the chef into giving us both....which she did. There were also massive amounts of breads, cheeses, meats, dips, salads.

All so very very good.

Friday Dinner (by G)

Japanese Goodness (by Biggs)

I wasn't in the mood to go home tonight so I went with my reliable go tos - FAD Gallery Bar for beers and Yamato for dinner. I ordered way too much food for one person - I forgot how generous the karage chicken is here and I always have to get takoyaki. I did go with something I thought would be good for me - a tofu salad, pretty well a slab of soft tofu topped with some lettuce with a dressing. It was however quite tasty and I hoovered it down pretty rapidly.

Dinner (by G)

Sushi Noodle Town (by Biggs)

There is a shitty looking sushi noodle place in the main street of our suburb that my friend Bonnie SWEARS by. She's been insisting I go here for a good six months now, I thought I'd hold off until she was next visiting but it turns out tonight was the night.

I'd been to some fringe festival super weird which left me wandering the streets in a bit of an odd, but not entirely unpleasant, mood. My feet led the way and led me straight to Sushi Noodle Town. I ordered the duck noodles and they were fabulous. A touch heavy on the vegetables for my liking but I will go back again and find something a touch more meat-centric.

Dinner (by G)

Tortilla Chips with Beans and Guac (by G)

Twice Cooked Chicken, Chips and Salad (by Biggs)

I decided to use up some leftovers this evening mainly because I couldn't be arsed going to the supermarket. I knew I had salad from Saturday and chips in the freezer. I also thought I had a slab of bacon alas - of course I didn't. Who can keep bacon in their house for more than 1/2 hour.

I did have three drumsticks and considered crumbing them. I wanted to pre-cook them first because I never trust chicken to cook so made up a broth of chicken stock, paprika, chili flakes and bay leaves to gentle cook them in.

I totally over did it and then wasn't in the mood to crumb them so I just fried them off a bit to try and get a crispy skin - fail. I'm failing a lot in the kitchen these days.

I chopped up the salad in a slightly different way to Saturday for variety and dumped the chips on the side.

Must. Try. Harder.

Macaroni with Kim Chi Bolognaise (by G)

Porterhouse and Salad (by Biggs)

I wondered if a BBQ might be nice this Saturday evening so wandered down to the markets to pick up some porterhouses in preparation. I of course got too lazy to BBQ so just pan fried them, the steaks were quite thick so I popped them in the oven. They were pretty fucking great.

Served with a side of salad because I don't know the last time I ate a green thing!

I did have some crisps to serve with dinner but ended up munching on them throughout the afternoon. They wouldn't have fit on the plate anyway so a blessing in the end I think.

Half a Bag of Doritos (by Biggs)

A beer and shared bag of Doritos with Red after work led to several beers after work and no dinner. Lucky I had the insight to know that might happen and photograph 'the meal' for the blog.

Dinner (by G)

Thursday Dinner (by G)

Pizza (by Biggs)

Thursday night on the right fortnight means beers at 1000 £ Bend and Spice Girl themed pizza. I like the one with heaps of blue cheese on it so ordered that but also tried a slice of prosciutto and sun-dried tomato deliciousness.   

Duck Pancakes, etc (by Biggs)

Oh good, more drinking. Red and I went to our favourite inner-city haunt after work for ONLY TWO BEERS. Four beers and two glasses of wine later we decided to get some take away from Ants Bistro. We've danced this dance enough times before to know exactly what we like to order - duck pancakes, pork soup dumplings, san choi bow and prawn toast.

Red found it impossible to not pierce the dumpling before eating so was missing out on the best bit....despite my exemplary lesson. Probably not much more to say given this exact meal has been featured on the blog so many times before but we did get one piece of new information this evening.

The bar tender let us know that our favourite little Japanese place at the end of the laneway does takeaway so we've now doubled our eating options for nights like this. Given I've been to this bar twice in two nights some variety is welcome.

Wednesday Dinner (by G)

Burger (by Biggs)

I took myself out drinking tonight and thought it best to line my stomach. I went for the convenience of a burger - it was a good one, soft bun, good patty, bacon, cheese, greasy enough to know you're eating a burger but not so greasy you regret it.

And, excellent chips!

Dinner (by G)

Ribs and Cold Peanut Noodles (by G)

Sri Lankan Curry (by Biggs)

Okay - it's official, I shouldn't ever be let near a curry or a stew or a casserole ever again. I don't know why I struggle so much with the concept but I sure am not great at cooking them.

I was super excited about dinner tonight because Fi had given me some Sri Lankan curry powder last week - a belated Birthday present because it wouldn't fit in the post pack she's purchased to send down my other gifts (yes, multiple gifts....my friends are stupid generous).

I wasn't really sure what a Sri Lankan curry comprised of so in the end just made it up. I cooked down a crapload of the curry powder in some oil then added a bunch of vege stock. In that I cooked some beef and potato for a long long time and added some beans and fried eggplant at the end.

Halfway through I noticed the flavour was super mild. I was surprised that a 'crapload' wasn't the correct quantatiy of curry powder to be using but upped it some regardless. Didn't make a difference. The curry was good in texture and theory. Just didn't taste like anything.

I was happy with my cook on the rice.

Pork Knuckle (by G)

Packet Parsi Dhansak (by Biggs)

Thought I'd ease back into this cooking thing by doing a touch of half-cooking tonight. You can get some pretty good boil in a bag Indian so I was looking for something like that. I found a fancy three step packet Indian that looked pretty good.

It was a parsi dhansak which is like a lentil and vegetable dahl type thing that had a spice mix to cook off with some chicken, a base flavour sauce when in next and then the main dahl sauce. A little too late in the cooking process I realised I probably should have made some rice but instead just served it with garlic chapati.

Pretty good on this rainy Melbourne evening especially after the addition of some extra chili flakes.

Chipolatas and Pasta Salad (by G)

Pizza (by Biggs)

Urghh, I don't know what happened. I had a bit of an average day and it's been quite some time since I was responsible for feeding someone so 'Welcome to Pizza Wednesday!'.

It was nice to order pizzas from our trusty local but at least decided to order something a bit different. I upgraded $3 for 'Gourmet' pizzas - a tandoori chicken and a chorizo.

They. Were. Excellent. Good decision on the back of a not great day!

Mexican Pasta (by G)

Doritos (by Biggs)

Working a bit late tonight means dinner from a vending machine.

Dinner (by G)

Burger (by Biggs)

Flying home late tonight means dinner from an airport fast food establishment.

Dinner (by G)

BBQ Leftovers (by Biggs)

A bunch of us had a BBQ in the park today which of course meant I completely over-catered with various meats and plenty of veges chargrilled to perfection.

Even though we probably didn't need dinner, Fi, Dan and I heated up some leftovers and scarfed them down with bread and butter. Totally delicious.

Saturday dinner (by G)

Bacon and Egg Burger (by Biggs)

Tonight I ventured to the suburbs.....a rarity for me but do you know what the suburbs do well? Burgers. Just your classic Aussie corner store burger complete with chips coated in chicken salt. Very very most excellent!

Friday Dinner (by G)

Orecchiette (by Biggs)

A very special night tonight with a lovely bunch of my favourite people. The suggestion was made to try out a fancy new Italian place that has opened in Woolloongabba which turned out to be terrific!

I ordered the orecchiette which came with some cooked down bitter greens and bacon with the whole lot doused in butter. It was the best.

Pretty much everyone in attendance was off on an overseas adventure the next day so it's possible we celebrated with a bottle of wine or two also.

Dinner (by G)