Spatchcock with Cous Cous (by G)

I found tiny little spatchcocks in the supermarket. Not the half chicken sized ones that you often see but little ones barely bigger than a quail.  I could not resist feasting on a tiny chicken too small to have lived out it's hopes and dreams.

I split the chicken and squashed it flat then marinated it in garlic and rosemary infused oil then griddled it and roasted it to take away some of the rawness.

To go with the spatchcock I cooked some pearl cous cous in chicken style stock then mixed through some sweet peas (personally shelled), parsley and butter.

Also, I quickly blanched some asparagus. I thought I had over cooked it but it turned out crunchy cooked.

I would give this dinner a B++.

Potluck Dinner (by Biggs)

Sometime this week we came up with the genius idea of doing a potluck dinner. Given tonight was the last opportunity to cook while I'm on the West Coast we had to go for it.

Whilst it didn't start as a competition, it got fairly competitive fairly quickly. The only rule...dinner must be tapas style.

I didn't for a second waver from my plan of doing pork belly and found a bourbon glaze recipe that looked pretty nifty. I cooked the pork belly in bourbon and star anise for three hours, rested it for an hour, then fried it up in a glaze of bourbon, tomato sauce, honey and soy. Served with sour cream and chives it was pretty tasty but seriously rich. The thing with tapas, or our tapas at least, is there isn't a lot of vegetables.

Amanda wanted to feature goats cheese so made the very sensible decision of stuffing some inside dates and wrapping it in bacon. She BBQd them up into nicely charred little morsels of joy. Also, very rich.

Frustratingly Mike, who wins everything, won this round by swooping in with a refreshingly delicious creamy garlic prawn. I know 'creamy garlic' doesn't sound too light but served with rice (next to our meat monstrosities) it was pretty great.

Dinner all round was pretty great.

Saganaki and Griddled Vegetables (by G)

The fun thing about owning a griddle pan is finding out - 'can it be griddled'. Zucchini, mushroom and pumpkin can be griddled. As it turns out, saganaki cheese can not be griddled.  I kind of knew that going in but I gave it a shot anyway.

To be honest, I don't know how to cook saganaki. After trying to griddle it unsuccessfully I did what they advised on the packet and floured then pan fried it. The result is shown below.

The vegetables were great and the cheese was better than great - despite ending up as a pool of heart attack.

Beef and Bacon Burger (by Biggs)

Everyone is on struggle street today so when Mike offered to make burgers our instant response was FUCK YEAH.

And they were amazing. The best burger I've eaten in living memory. I know I said Mike is the King of Pork but he may just be the King of Burgers....or Burger King.

Imagine if he made a pork burger? I guess there's always tomorrow.

Griddled Steak and Cruchy Potatoes (by G)

As a reward for a job reasonably well done in 2014 I bought myself an expensive cast iron griddle pan. A proper one. This thing is so heavy that if you dropped it on your toe you would probably loose the whole leg.

My idea was to test it out on a big hunk of beef like a rib roast or something exciting like that. Disappointingly the largest piece of beef I could find was a vacuum packed Angus steak - I'm a bit suss on those though - they seem to always turn out to have a very weird texture.  The rest of the meat appeared gristly, at $40 a kilo.  In the end I just bought a rump steak, there is no way I could bring myself to shop around for meat on new years eve.

I was inspired to have potatoes by Biggs' blog on the 29th featuring Mike's roast potatoes. My potatoes were simply peeled and simmered in salty water until just about falling apart (not by design, I got distracted admiring my new griddle pan and forgot about them).  After letting the potatoes dry a little I coated them in dripping, sprinkled over some rosemary sprigs and oven roasted them.

To cook the meat I heated the griddle pan to screaming hot and dropped the pre-oiled and seasoned steak onto it.  The pan may have been a little too hot... despite having all the doors open and the extraction fan on high smoke soon overwhelmed the house and set off the fire alarm. Not the volume of smoke that can be dispersed with a cushion, there was so much smoke that I had to re-arrange the furniture to get the battery out of the smoke alarm. You're supposed to test the smoke alarms on new years eve so I saved myself that little chore.

I had honestly meant to have some other things with dinner - roasted tomatoes, a little baked sweet potato and such but I completely forgot about those things until I had started eating.

Maya Indian Restaurant (by Biggs)

We decided to go out for Indian to celebrate the New Year which was an excellent decision.

More words will go here once I've sobered up.

Instant Tacos and Tortillas (by G)

Despite my excellent efforts over the Christmas period in eating most of the enormous leg of pork I cooked up there is still a significant quantity bagged up in the freezer. There was not much option but to have pork this Tortilla Tuesday. For something different I decided to get an instant taco kit.

I simmered a big hunk of the tender leftover pork with the seasoning sachet provided along with some water until it had almost dissolved. There was also some kind of red salsa provided so I stirred that through the pork mix as well. To my delight the instant taco kit I bought came with both hard tacos and soft tortilla wraps. I decided to have both, simply served with the pork mixture, some lettuce and tomato (no cheese - I've been eating too much cheese lately, if you believe in such a thing).

I was concerned at how much seasoning powder came with the taco kit, I thought the meat would turn out to be too powerfully salty and spicy. I think half the seasoning must have been sugar because the meat turned out to be a little bland but sweet.

It was not too bad, I'd rather provide my own flavourings though.