Tandoori Chicken (by Biggs)

I was keen for something simple and delicious tonight and what's more simple and delcious than chicken and tandoori paste from a jar?
I marinated the chicken in yoghurt and tandoori paste for most of the day and dumped it in the oven. Served with rice and a cucumber and tomato salad dinner should have been pretty good.

The cookery on the rice was great alas, the cookery on the chicken was not. It turns out if you leave small cuts of chicken in the oven for an hour it gets very, very dry.

G didn't complain but he also didn't compliment me on my magic plating skills so I don't know what to trust anymore.

Beet on the Brat (by G)

Food Charades! Mine is pretty literal Beetroot on Bratwurst (beet on brat - pretty cleaver). Beat on the Brat is a Ramones song for those who don't know.

The main difficulty I had tonight is finding bratwursts, they are normally in the supermarket but neither the deli counter nor the cured meats section had any. I asked the Wurst-meister guy at the west end market if he would sell me some raw ones but he wouldn't. The Swiss deli was my last option - they had sold out. I went with continental frankfurters instead.

The hotdog was pretty simple: sauerkraut, fried bacon, Swiss cheese, the sausage and some tinned beetroot glued on top with a mayonnaise/Dijon mustard mix.

In the interests of fairness I thought I should mention to Biggs that the sausages were not Bratwursts as intended but continental frankfurters - I thought it might also switch her on to the fact we were actually playing food charades without saying it directly. She did not twig.

I told her of my dramas in trying to get bratwursts because it was particularly important that I get bratwursts for these particular hotdogs. That didn't spark anything.

I told her that I would like to have put the beetroot under the sausage but I couldn't. Still nothing.

Biggs commented that they were pretty good hotdogs, to which I replied that I couldn't fully appreciate them because they were not made with bratwursts. "I guess I'm just not as hung-up on the bratwursts as you are", was her response to that final hint.

Finally I worked out how to get Biggs into the game - I asked if she would like to know what I call my hotdog creation... "No! Wait!", she said and proceeded to start guessing.  She got it in the end - probably not by the strict rules of charades, but this is food charades and anything goes.

Life of Pi (by Biggs)

G came up with a whacky idea the other day. He decided we should play Dinner Charades....miming the title of a book, movie or song through food. An added twist was that the other person wouldn't know what night they would be a participant in the game. Any one dinner presented during the next two week period could potentially be a Dinner Charade.

I chose tonight. I actually thought I'd be pretty safe and that G would have forgotten he ever came up with this idea. But, the second I presented dinner he exclaimed "American Pie?!!". He was wrong but it was a pretty good guess. I gave him a couple of clues but he timed out when he finished his last bite. I win!!

Dinner was a chicken and egg pie. So, obviously, chicken and egg pie was Dinner Charades for Life of Pi. Chicken and egg = Life, Pie = Pi. Life of Pi.

Now, 95% of the credit for this genius idea has to go to Bonnie. I was just going to make a pie with lots of things in it but she suggested the chicken and egg thing. It sounded a bit gross initially but I found a good recipe on the Internet. Chicken, boiled eggs, peas, corn, cheese and cream of chicken soup.

Pressed Corned Beef Sandwich (by G)

It has been so hot lately that I was determined to serve a cold dinner (even though the weather took a cool turn pretty much as soon as I decided that).

The idea was that I would take slices of corned beef that I had cooked the day before, layer it up on some Turkish bread with some roasted vegetables (zucchini, egg plant and pumpkin), some Swiss cheese, some chopped capers and a touch of Mexican salsa from a jar then press it flat. Everything went to plan, except that the surface area of the thinly sliced vegetables was such that I had to do it in batches - which took an awfully long time...

For sides I roasted some mushrooms then quick pickled them in a cider vinegar/olive oil vinaigrette (pepped up with some home grown mixed herbs and roasted garlic).  I also griddled up some wedges of cos lettuce and dressed it with the remaining pickling liquid.

The mushrooms were good. The sandwich was soggy - which I was hoping it wouldn't be but knew deep down that it would be. The lettuce was weird, it wasn't as tight as I had expected so it didn't griddle well and it was quite bitter.

There was a spare sandwich that I chucked on the griddle and toasted up after dinner. It was much better - not soggy, melty cheese - I really should just have done that in the first place.

Shredded Pork Tortillas (by Biggs)

Turns out G and I couldn't quite eat a whole two kilo pork shoulder the other night so, tonight, I heated up the rest with some onion, capsicum, old bay spice and cheese. 

Jammed into some pre-made tortillas it was pretty sensational. 

Red Rooster (by Biggs)

I accidentally offered to do some training in Bundaberg on today's public holiday. I was however lured there on the promise of 'something nice for dinner'.

We had a quick half hour available between sessions and the offers made were McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, Red Rooster or Sizzlers Take Away. All-you-can-eat takeaway?! That sure had me intrigued. Do you just put it in a garbage bag?

In the end we decided on Red Rooster. Turns out it was this Red Rooster, not this Red Rooster.

Disappointing.

Lamb Shank and Pasta (by G)

I was on a bit of a meat buying frenzy lately and picked up a couple of lamb shanks, I also picked up a packet of some cool pasta shapes kind of like open macaroni on one side and with ridges on the other - scientifically designed to trap the flavour.

 

Firstly I marinated the shanks in red wine with a couple of bay leaves in it. After a few hours of that I fried some leftover red onion, garlic, some tomato paste and a chopped tomato then added the shanks, wine and bay leaves. I also added some vegetable stock and home grown thyme for flavour.

 

After simmering all of that for a couple of hours I took the shanks out, strained out the solids, and boiled the crap out of the liquid to reduce it down to a thick sauce. The weather was a bit warm so I decided to wait on dinner for a few minutes while I refrigerated the shanks, cooked pasta and sauce - then I combined them all in an attractive manner on a plate then topped it with some chopped fresh herbs from the garden.

 

The sauce was pretty rich after all that reducing but it was pretty tasty. The pasta shapes were awesome.