Pork Hock Ragout (by G)

Some time ago I simmered a pork hock and noticed that the meat separated into long strands, like spaghetti.  For this dinner I decided to do a play on this and make pork hock spaghetti.

Needless to say the plan did not exactly work out. After simmering a hock in a pot of water and vegetables (celery, carrot, onion, garlic, thyme) I let it cool for a little while then tried to strip it into strands, this did not work, the result was more like chunks.

Anywho, there was not enough pork hock (in my opinion) to serve two people so I ended up cooking some penne as well.

The sauce was a simply tomato, garlic, onion, vegetable stock, thyme, dried oregano (thanks Fi), salt and pepper stewed to a saucy consistency. I inadvertently got a tin of Italian cherry tomatoes, they were so charming that I decided to serve some of them whole.

My verdict - pork hock good.

Roast Pork Roll (by Biggs)

I had an idea for a nice fresh cold seafood dinner tonight then, the apocalypse came in the form of a torrential, freezing downpour. Buckets and buckets and buckets of rain fell out of the sky so I decided a warm, comforting meal might be more appropriate.

I was wandering around the valley and saw a sign that said "roast pork roll with gravy - $7.90" and thought that might hit the spot. I bought a couple of pork fillets to roast up and some Vietnamese rolls.

Fortunately, I served a valuable gravy making apprenticeship when I worked at a 24-hour roadhouse in my youth. The trick was to mix a 10 litre bucket of gravox with a 20 litre bucket of water. They are not the proportions advised by the instructions on the box given that ratio turns into a solid salty mess of virtually inedible something but, it is what I know and love. G didn't seem to impressed with the gravy and quickly switched to chili sauce.

Noteworthy, my cost per roll was about $4.20 but was probably the worst roast pork roll with gravy I've ever had.....only because the dodgy ones from the servos are fucking incredible.

Chicken Stew (by G)

Biggs commented the other day that we had not had a good stew in a while (she may have said 'ever' but I think this is an exaggeration).  I set out to make a good stew and was close to successful.

The night before I put some white beans in a bowl of water to soak - after 24 hours I boiled them in plain water while boiling some bacon bones in their own pot to make some stock. The reason I didn't boil them together is that I've heard that beans won't become tender if boiled in salted water, and I figure baconised pork has a healthy dose of salt in it.

Once I had the stock and the beans at the correct point of cookedness the rest was easy. Fry some onions, chorizo and chunks of chicken thigh (separately) then progressively add them along with cubed celery, carrot, swede, potato, some thyme and cracked black pepper and simmer for an hour.

Actually, I've found it quite vexing in the past that when you stew chorizo all the flavour goes into everything else and the chorizo ends up as bland lumps - so I added the chorizo right at the last moment, along with the little nuggets of bacon meat that I had stripped off the bacon bones.

I don't know that this was the best stew ever, but it was welcome filler on a cold, wet day.

Spring Rolls and Mushroom Noodle Broth (by Biggs)

It seems that 'Vegetarian Wednesday' has quickly turned into 'Mushroom Wednesday'. I've had this Chinese Mushroom Noodle Broth recipe in my back pocket for months but was always worried it wouldn't be filling, or satisfying, enough for dinner.

I overcame that possibility tonight by serving it with some packet spring rolls as an entrée. They were flavourless but fine.

The broth was vegetable stock, oyster and soy sauce as well as the liquid leftover from soaking some dried porcini mushrooms. Added to the broth were the dried mushrooms, bok choy, pak choy and spring onions. The recipe didn't say to add any fresh mushrooms but I fried some up and added them for good luck. The extra mushrooms were enoki, ummm....maybe king browns and, err....another type. You're not meant to eat mushrooms you don't know what are but they didn't seem to do us any harm.

I must say, the broth was delicious. And, I unnecessarily made it in our brand new wok which was very satisfying (not actually brand new - in fact, a hand-me-down from Fi and Dan since it won't work on their fancy induction cooktops!).

Beef Skewer Tortillas (by G)

I thought it might be fun to try something different and make some skewers that would slide right off the stick onto tortillas.

These are beef skewers - cubes of beef marinated in paprika, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder then dusted with salt and then grilled. I served them with simple accompaniments - onion I had soaked in water to take out a bit of the bite, cucumber, avocado, sour cream mixed with coriander, lime and salt... and of course there were a few wholemeal tortillas (I couldn't find any plain ones but the wholemeal type were pretty good).

The flavouring on the beef didn't create much of a taste sensation in the mouth, though you could taste it in a kind of heart-burny way in your chest afterwards.

Dinner didn't turn out quite as I had hoped, but skewers are awesome, therefore dinner was awesome.

Sausages and Beans (by Biggs)

I've been eyeing off these little pumpkins for ages thinking what I could stuff inside them. I've thought of lots of things - fried rice, couscous, baked eggs. In the end I got lazy and decided on baked beans.

I was all sorts of grumpy today and couldn't extract myself from the grumps so went with a bit of mood eating for dinner. Sausages, cheesy bread and baked beans in a miniature pumpkin.

Dinner did make me marginally less grumpy.

Cawl (by G)

Shameful as it is to admit, I was watching a Jamie Oliver show the other day and was tempted to cook one of the recipes. Cawl is a Welsh delecacy - basically lamb and vegetables stewed in water. It didn't appear to promising, and ultimatley wasn't - it tasted like lamb and vegetables stewed in water.

It was kind of nice to chop up a bunch of vegetables. Swede, carrot, potato, parsnips, leeks - I accidentally also snuck a turnip in there - I don't think it did any harm. I followed the recipe to the letter (apart from the turnip as previously mentioned - oh, and I had to use lamb forequarter chops instead of neck) and suspect that any enjoyment the Welsh get out of this dish is pure nostalgia. That said, it was good to have some proper vegetables for once.