Packet Indian (by G)

I was in no way feeling like making dinner but dinner had to be consumed by me, so I was in a bit of a quandary... then I remembered Indian meals in a packet - they are generally awesome.  Unlike other premade meals curries and such lend themselves to be batched up and re-heated.

After careful consideration at the spice place in the shopping centre I went with Dal Fry and Aloo Methi. I've had dal fry before - great flavour (like the man says, 'A tasty meal, anytime, anywhere). The Aloo Methi is described as, 'A highly popular blend of potatoes and aroma-packed fenugreek leaves (Green methi leaves) relished with Rice and Roti equality (sic) well'. They lied pretty badly with the photo on the packet - the photo on the packet looks fresh and vibrant and predominantly yellow and potatoey. What I got was plasticiney and the opposite of vibrant and predominantly sludge grey and mushy.  It was okay but I sure did ooze a lot of unpleasant looking oil.

It wouldn't be packet Indian without packet naan - I was lucky enough to find some packet garlic naan.  I actually prefer cheese and garlic naan so I topped them with some leftover 3 blend cheese before heating.  The naan were the best thing -  I ate two then spent about 45 minutes thinking how great they would be as a snack some other day but how great they would be as an unneeded dessert. Of course immediate greed won out and I ended up heating the other two up and stuffing them into my already distended belly.

All in this meal cost me less than $10 and would have fed at least 2 people - probably 4 with the addition a little rice.

Vegetarian Flat Noodles (by Biggs)

Last night I had a shit vegetarian stir fry. Tonight I had an awesome vegetarian stir fry. 

My work colleague (that I'm traveling around regional Queensland with) and I decided it was time for dinner out together instead of in our respective hotel rooms glued to our respective work laptops. We also decided we had earned a beer. 

Thai food and Singhas were the plan and we found a place near the Cairns esplanade promisingly called "Cafe Thailand". 

The staff were incredibly enthusiastic which was refreshing. Dinner was great, veges and tofu in a dark sweet soy sauce. The entree arrived quite late so I got to have a dessert of curry puffs. I think I might have to encorporate more curry puff desserts into my lifestyle. 

Vegetable Quesadilla (by G)

It's Tuesday so naturally I had to have something tortilla related (especially since I forgot last Tuesday).  I thought a mix of fried red onion, mushrooms, red capsicum, coriander and spices on a quesadilla with a three cheese blend would be a winning combination.  I was wrong - I went a bit too bland on the seasoning so the whole thing turned out to be nothing better than person filler.

I did make a side of guacamole which was pretty good - I wish I had remembered to buy some chillies to spice it up a bit though.

Bean Curd and Vegetable Stirfry (by Biggs)

It's already been a big week of eating so I really wasn't hungry tonight. I was however desperate for some vegetables so ordered this stirfry for dinner.

It was expensive and shit. It was definitely vegetables though.

I'm glad no one was around to witness me eat this. The hotel room didn't have any cutlery so I had to go at it with a teaspoon.

Pasta Carbonara (by G)

Being Monday I wanted to make something a bit easy for dinner - with only a handful of ingredients pasta carbonara is one of the easiest meals ever.

I've made it before a few times, always with cream but I believe an authentic carbonara doesn't have cream so I decided to try that out.

I fried a little bit of bacon (I thought I should use it because, unlikely as it may seem, it has been in our freezer for weeks) and a couple of garlic cloves in oil then added some butter and discarded the garlic. I have never discarded garlic before - it was hard to resist the temptation to mince it and leave it in the dish to provide a garlic hit but I guess the point is that you want a hint of garlic - it's not spaghetti al garlic.

Next I added the pasta to the bacon and oil and then poured in a mix of eggs and parmesan (I had cream in the fridge and was tempted to add that but resisted).  I carefully mixed the pasta through the egg and cheese mix then added a bit of pasta water to loosen the sauce. It is hard to resist the temptation to put the pasta back on the heat and scramble the eggs to make sure they are cooked (I've done that just about every other time I've made carbonara). All I can say is that if you resist the temptation the result will be 10 times better.

To finish I topped the plated pasta with a little more parmesan as well as some salt and cracked black pepper. Amazing.  All I can say is that I've discovered the key to a really good carbonara - keep it simple and resist the temptation to fuck it up by adding a bunch of things that are not needed.

Chicken Dinner (by Biggs)

The best part of traveling around to different workplaces at this time of year is that you get invited along to various end of year celebrations. Tonight I was included in a local Mackay work Christmas dinner for some of the organisational volunteers.

Dinner was an alternate drop seated affair with the 'drops' being chicken and steak. I was pretty happy with the chicken being dropped in front of me given it looked so herby and delicious....and it was. But from all accounts the steak was pretty mouth-watering as well.

The chicken must have come from fine breeding stock. It was a giant. I've completely blown out my average of 110 grams of meat a night so might have to opt for vegetarian for the next few nights.

We didn't plan for dinner very well in that a few of us had been to Sizzler for lunch. For the uninitiated, Sizzler is an all-you-can-eat salad bar restaurant that is popular in Queensland. As a result, this lovely looking dessert was all too much for me.

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.