Bacon and Eggs (by Biggs)

I actually forgot I was making dinner tonight until I went to the bottle-shop on the way home from work. I had to quickly decide what would go well with the beer I'd just bought. Obvious choice really, bacon and eggs.

I was coming off the high of having made excellent poached eggs last weekend and thought that was now a locked in skill-set. Alas, turns out it's not and I fucked it up totally. I essentially hard-boiled the eggs, but in water without the shell.

But, what the saying? Even bad bacon and eggs is excellent bacon and eggs.

I also served some spinach and a slice of olive bread that had been fried off in bacon fat.

Chorizo Burgers and Potato Gems (by G)

I'm not an idiot... when I made fresh chorizo for tortillas the other day I made sure I made more than enough fresh chorizo so it could be used in something else. That something else was chorizo burgers.

Biggs and I saw 'Man Discovers Food' the other day and one restaurant had a secret off-the-menu burger that had all their menu items on it - I decided to do something similar.

The burger has leftover coriander and pickles from the other night and some fried red onion and red capsicum because I had them.

To make the burgers extra special I also added a thick layer of cheddar cheese spread - awesome.

The potato gems are a healthy alternative to oven fries - probably....

Pea, Ricotta and Ham Pasta (by Biggs)

All I knew about dinner tonight was that it was going to be easy and from my 'Healthy Cookbook'. I decided on pasta (because what's easier than pasta?) and did the old 'pick a number between x and y' game with G. This is the page I ended up on.

My week has been a little discombobulated so G very generously agreed to get the 4 ingredients I needed on his way home from work - basil, lemon, ricotta and ham. I had a bunch of partly used packets of pasta at home to use up and a bag of peas and that's all that was required.

The pasta was cooked and the rest was whizzed up and stirred through. Dinner was quite delicious. G was impressed that it had no 'real cheese' in it. Little does he know that I used the opportunity to also use up some packet cheese dregs from the freezer.

Chorizo Tortillas (by G)

Some time ago I was twiddling about on the internet looking for tortilla ideas and saw 'Chorizo Tortilla'. I didn't look into it at the time but had stored it in the back of my mind so that when, once again, I was looking for tortilla ideas last week it was at the top of my list.

 

Unfortunately they were referring to Spanish tortillas (the things made with eggs and set in a pan) so I improvised. I've made fresh chorizo before and remember it being pretty good and thought it would translate to a tortilla pretty well so I did that.

 

The chorizo is simply pork mince with a blended mix of chilli flakes, garlic, paprika, salt and pepper. A lot of garlic and a lot of paprika - I cut down the amount of chilli so as not to kill Biggs. Surprisingly the chorizo did not need to marinate for any length of time - it's pretty much good to go as soon as it is made.

 

I made a bit of a pickling liquid using cider vinegar and sugar and quick pickled some cucumber, red capsicum and red onion because I thought that would go well with the chorizo.  I also made a bit of a sauce by blending garlic and coriander into sour cream.

 

These tortillas were pretty awesome, the chorizo turned out almost perfectly - a little salty for my taste but not inedible so. If I could only summon up the energy to make my own flour tortillas again...

 

Pig-herd's Pie (by G)

Biggs had dinner plans tonight so I decided to experiment. My idea was to make an inverted Shepherd's pie with pork instead of lamb. First thing I made a ham stock by boiling ham in water, this was a base for the gravy.  For the filling I fried some onion and pork mince and added some chopped ham. Once that was cooked I stirred through some flour then added the ham stock. Once the sauce had thickened I filled some pre-made mashed potato bowls.

The potato bowls were made by mashing some potato, slopping it on an oven tray, trying tying to form it into a bowl shape with a spoon then blind baking it in the oven.  The blind baking did not do much for the consistency of the mashed potato.

Though laziness I bought a packet of frozen mixed vegetables, boiled them in some salted water and served them around the outside (round the outside) of the pie.

As an experiment this turned out okay, it was quite salty but you have to expect that when you dabble in cured pork.

Incidentally Biggs' dinner plans were scrapped so she was able to try my experimental pie, that was lucky. Whether it was good lucky or bad lucky I'm not too sure.

Pork with Cheese and Potato Nests and Veg (by G)

Basically this dinner is just a hunk of roasted pork with some boiled carrot and asparagus as sides to the cheese and potato nests. Biggs and I saw Rachel Khoo cook the potato nests on the TV the other day and they looked to be right down our alley. Potato matchsticks, bacon, onion, a dash of wine and some cheese baked in a muffin tin.

I don't know exactly what went wrong with my nests, possibly the variety of potato - maybe I didn't bake them high enough - they turned out more like cheese and potato piles. No matter, they were pretty tasty. They would have been even better if I had just bought normal bacon instead of 'English Style' bacon which was a bit flavourless. I also didn't bother to try and find the Rubuchon cheese recommended in the recipe, life is too short to track something like that down on a Sunday - I used a washed rind Camembert instead.

To add a little moisture to the meal I made a bit of a gravy by steeping some porcini and bacon in water then thickening if with a bit of flour and water - tasty.

One drawback with dinner was that the pork crackle did not crackle no matter what I did to it...

Old Bay Spicey Chicken (by Biggs)

Well, I fucked up. This chicken was practically inedible. It wasn't the Old Bay's fault. It was entirely mine. After the flavourless sweet potato fries I doubled up on the spice, then doubled up again for good luck. In the end, even with some lemon and parsley, it was awfully, awfully salty. Awfully salty. 

For once the salad was a welcome relief. Not too imaginative. In fact, the same as the one we had earlier in the week. And, garlic bread is always a winner.