Chicken Ball Noodles (by G)

Still on the leftover train I decided to use up some chicken mince... the logical solution was to make some chicken meatballs and have it in a broth with noodles (from the pantry).

There was some unfortunateness on a number of levels. First I mixed the chicken mince with some garlic and ginger then added some potato starch - way too much potato starch - to bind. I couldn't remove the potato starch so I pressed ahead. The resulting chicken balls were very dry and doughy.

I had made a stock with some bacon bones simmered for hours in water, that was to be a broth to cook the noodles in and serve with the chicken balls. The amount of bacon broth that came out at the other end was only enough to cook the noodles so the resulting meal was soupless.  For flavour, and to use up some other ingredients, I cooked the crap out of some shredded cabbage (to try and get it correctly burned) along with some diced ham, the bits of bacon meat from the bones, some soy and my new best friend, "Franks - Redhot" hot sauce. Adding the hot sauce may have been a step in the wrong direction because the resulting meal was a bit tart. Still, the final dish had noodles and ham so there is that at least.

Frank's Hot Sauce Wings (by Biggs)

Annetta made us chicken wings for lunch the other day and they were THE BEST! I decided I was going to make them for dinner so asked her for the recipe.

Turns out the secret, and only, ingredient is Frank's Hot Sauce which is.....THE BEST!

There was also celery, carrot and blue cheese dressing to cut through the awesome. The awesome that is Frank's Hot Sauce.

Do yourself a favour.....

Ham, Cheese and Spinach Omlette (by G)

The main theme for my meals is to use up the remainder of the Christmas food, which basically means ham for every meal. As Biggs was not home I decided to do a simple omelette with some diced ham with frozen spinach and cheese from the freezer.  What more is there to say but, um, "Awesome!". Also, the omelette didn't look too great when I first plated it so I re-plated it. "Why bother?" you may ask after a brief glance at the resulting image below. That's only because you didn't see it the first time round.

Kafe Meze (by Biggs)

New Years Eve this evening so a bunch of us got together and went out to dinner. Joss and Annetta were keen on having some Greek food while they are in Australia so we took the opportunity tonight. It may look like we had a bunch of different things but in fact, we mainly had halloumi. Lots and lots of halloumi. I think we ended up ordering a couple of rounds each over the course of dinner.....which is something like 50 slices of halloumi all up. Seems appropriate!

You know you've got good friends when they all want to celebrate the New Year by eating cheese.

Chicken with Camembert Sauce (by Biggs)

The main focus tonight was to use up some of the Christmas leftovers. Seems most of the leftovers are either meat or cheese so dinner involved three meats and three cheeses. That seems like an appropriately balanced meal right?

It was oven baked chicken topped with ham and a WEIRD Camembert sauce I concocted. The salad was mostly halloumi and chorizo but I did my best to freshen it up with lettuce, tomato and snow peas. In my mind it was going to be a lot fresher than it turned out!

Lamb Pizza Tortillas (by G)

Among the leftover meats from Christmas was some lamb. I know what to do with lamb mince - you season it up (in this case with cumin, coriander and berbere spice), spread it on pita bread and grill it. I did go to quite a bit more effort by sprinkling some finely chopped shallots on top before grilling and serving with sliced tomato and some lettuce but overall it was a pretty un-taxing meal to cook.

In the confusion of a 4 day weekend I didn't actually realise this was tortilla Tuesday but the result is kind of reminiscent of a tortilla so I think I got away with it.

Mac Loaded Fries (by Biggs)

Tonight I went to the baseball. What do you eat when you go to the baseball? An American Classic of fries topped with bacon mac n cheese. Great concept not excellent execution - there was sooooo much mustard I almost choked with every forkful.