Pickled Prawn Salad (by G)

I saw an awesome looking pickled shrimp salad recipe the other day and thought it would be a good thing to do - I couldn't find shrimp, so I used prawns.  The recipe called for the prawns to be pickled in a mix of spices, herbs, onion, garlic, oil and lemon juice. Unfortunately I did not have enough lemon juice and oil to cover the prawns so I added balsamic vinegar.. this was an error as (predictably) it overpowered all the subtle flavours.  I also pickled them for 24 hours longer than the recipe called for so they got a bit wizened.

Anyway, so, the prawns weren't great but I decided to add them to a salad regardless.  The salad was simply lettuce, tomato, cucumber, celery, avocado, mango, coriander and lime with a drizzling of the prawn pickling liquid.

Oh,  I also added some rolled up slices of packet corned silverside (because I didn't know if the salad was going to be filling enough) then I took a blurry photo:

Nasi Goreng (by Biggs)

We were recently watching some Bourdain, as we so often do. He was hot and sick and disillusioned and generally quite miserable in Sri Lanka, he was taken to a Malaysian restaurant and ordered a comforting bowl of Nasi Goreng. It seemed to make him feel marginally better about life so at that moment I thought...."Perhaps a bowl of Nasi Goreng could make G and I feel marginally better about life."

So, tonight we had Nasi Goreng, an Indonesian fried rice dish. There are about a million Nasi Goreng recipes on the Internet so I decided to go with.....the first one. I was tempted to use the Nasi Goreng recipe of Julie Goodwin (G's all time favourite chef) but then I probably would have been at risk of eviction (she's actually G's all time hated.....breeder). Then I had a panic about making a fried rice dish 'cause G is quite a connoisseur.

To make this I fried off garlic, celery, carrot, cabbage, shallots, chicken, prawns and bacon then stirred through some rice, fried shallots and oyster sauce. I was meant to use soy sauce and ketchup manis but there were some pantry stock issues. I was also meant to use bean sprouts but you can only ever buy half a kilo of them and then G tries to make the leftovers into awfully healthy pancake things....a situation best avoided.

I fried an egg to throw on top and after eating this concoction I feel......marginally better about life.

Ginger Chicken (by Biggs)

Tonight I attended a secret planning session for an upcoming something something. I can't say much more than that yet but what I can say is that I went to Fi's and she made Ginger Chicken for dinner.

 

I think this is a bit of a favourite of hers and it's most definitely a favourite of mine. Although I may have given her the recipe book this meal comes from I'm not entirely sure what goes on here.

 

From what I can gather its a stir-fry of mushrooms, carrot, shallots and chicken along with a huge amount of ginger.

 

Its super delicious and between the vegetables and the ginger I think it must have done good things for my innards. It certainly couldn't have made the situation any worse. Thanks Fi!



 

Sausage Pasta Bake (by G)

Part 12 in my series on why sausages should be eaten at every opportunity...

Biggs was not home for dinner tonight so I thought I'd have sausages again - this time with pasta.

First I fried off a lot of pork chipolatas, then I ate most of them.  Then I fried some garlic, added passata, a whole bag of spinach, some cooked irregular Asian rice noodles, basil and the remaining sausages in chopped up form.  All of this went into a loaf tin and I topped it with parmesan and oven baked it for half an hour (along with some garlic bread).

I wasn't really that hungry when dinner was ready (on account of the sausages I'd already eaten). It was not too bad I guess - it was a struggle to get it down so it is hard for me to judge.

Pork Tortillas With Home-made Tomato Sauce (by G)

Tried something a bit different tortilla-wise.  I got some mini-pork steaks, dusted them with cumin, paprika and coriander then beat the oink out of them until they were flat, fried them, rested them, chopped them up, returned them to the pan with some lime juice - that was that for the meat.

Also made was a salsa of cucumber, red onion, coriander, orange capsicum, salt and lime juice and a tomato sauce made by blitzing fresh tomatoes, adding some salt, simmering until thicker then green chilli and coriander were added.

We still don't have a tortilla press so I microwaved a packet of large wraps and cut them in half to wrap the other things in.

They were savoury - the pork was not as flavourful as I'd expected but that didn't matter too much.

Sausage and Onion Quiche (by G)

I like sausages, so I'm always looking for ways to incorporate sausages into dinner.  When I read that sausage and onion quiche was a real thing I decided to make that.

To make a Sausage and Onion Quiche all you have to do is blind bake some short-crust pastry - meanwhile, fry some red onions (I also used white because we had one left) then add balsamic vinegar and brown sugar (I wish I hadn't done that - there was no call for sugar).  Once the crust was blind baked I went to the corner store to get some eggs because I didn't realise we had run out... then I spread the onion onto the base of the quiche crust, then added lumps of sausage mince, then added a mix of eggs, cream, dried thyme and parmesan cheese.

I sometimes use a recipe more as a guideline rather than a strict step-by-step guide. This is a mistake.  For this recipe I added quite a bit too much cream - it meant that the quiche filling only just barely set, and made it quite rich.  I feel queasy and tingly as I write.

Luckily we had a side salad of lettuce, cucumber, capsicum, spring onions and capers to freshen things up a bit.

Pork Fillet With Noodle Salad (by G)

I wanted a change from chicken, specifically I wanted a change to pork.  I don't often cook with pork fillet so I decided to try that.  I marinated the fillet in soy, rice wine vinegar, ginger, garlic, chilli, brown sugar, fish sauce, lemon zest and juice.  Then I pan fried it. While the meat was resting I added the rest of the marinade and reduced it down.

I had meant to drizzle just the reduced sauce onto the meat but accidentally dumped the dark caramelised onion, garlic and ginger onto the meat - that was a good thing.

For a healthy accompaniment I boiled some delicious noodles, cooled them in some cold water, then mixed through some salad leaves, cucumber, spring onion and lemon juice.  I found some nice big capers to add to the salad... but forgot to add them.

Biggs took a look at dinner, went upstairs, vomited and then I didn't see her again...  I thought it was quite delicious.