Baked Bean Pies (by Biggs)

I've been watching some super shitty cooking shows of late and one of them presented me with the excellent concept of baked bean pies. G and I are a bit cash poor at the moment and I thought this dinner would suit my current budget. I baconised the pies and added a bit of parsley. This was an exercise in using up some things in the fridge hence them being puff pastry pies served with a tomato and avocado salad.

All round pretty good. Unfortunately I blew the budget on buying a muffin tray to make these babies but, now we own a muffin tray.

Drunken Pasta (by G)

BLAT Tortillas (by Biggs)

I had the day off work today so knew I wanted dinner to be pretty chilled to suit my relaxing day. I bought these white corn tortillas from the Essential Store at the markets where the truffle festival was last week. Probably not as good as the others we've recently tried but still pretty great.

I decided on bacon tortillas because....well, bacon...and the obvious combination was a BLT. Avocado is an common choice for tortillas so I extended it to a BLAT.

Given bacon was about the only ingredient being used tonight I decided to use The Good Stuff. I went to a swanky butchery and the guy was super nice.....he had half a pig in the window and took it down to slice me some chunky belly bits.

It was very obvious to all the consumers that the bacon was The Good Stuff. We should invest in more of it I think.

Truffle Risotto and Truffled Cheese (by G)

I got a truffle at the markets and was pretty excited to use it, but Biggs had to go away for a week and I thought it would be a dick move to use it in her absence. From internet research I discovered the truffle should last for up to a week if I stored it in some rice in the fridge, the bonus being that the aroma would also permeate the rice. In reality the truffle dehydrated and shrunk to about a third of its original size. I had to shave and chop it into little bits just to scarcely cover a couple of modest serves of risotto (the same risotto I had practiced earlier). There was a little nubbin left which I grated and sandwiched into some brie cheese.

The flavour of the risotto was probably a bit overpowering in any case. One day I will get me another truffle and serve it right.

Pizza (by Biggs)

Returning from Bendigo I realised I'd be home in time for dinner (on my cooking night) but not in time to actually cook dinner. Instead I just ordered some pizzas en route to be delivered at the appropriate hour. We're quite fortune to have a pretty good pizzeria up the road and I went with two of our favourites - a quite spicy salami with chili and a stock standard something with nice ham, olives and anchovies.

I can't remember if we've had the garlic bread from here before but it was quite excellent.

The Dispensary (by Biggs)

The plan in Bendigo was to do some solid eating and so, we did. We went to a nifty little cocktail restaurant and did all the eating. They had one of those 'feed me' menus that I quickly becoming quite a fan of.

Generous amounts of olives, little duck wing nibbly bits that were delicious, a crispy chicken pork bun, a chicken roulade in broth, some lettuce salad and the absolutely best thing on the menu - a fuck off fucking excellent seared beef with hot sauce. Delicious.

Dessert was a chocolate tart with ice-cream which revealed Red's unknown love of ice-cream. Unknown to me at least. I've filed that information away in case she has to be happified one day.  Ice cream. If I need to be happified one day please note that you can feed me some more of that excellent seared beef.

It was a cocktail restaurant so we had some cocktails. Many in the end I think!

Practice Risotto (by G)

I bought a truffle at the weekend and decided that on Biggs' return I would serve it on top of some risotto. It has been a while since I cooked a risotto so I thought it best to have a bit of a practice go so as not to fuck it up at the critical moment.

The recipe was pretty standard except that I cooked the onions low and slow until they had pretty much fallen apart, then just some wine, the rice, stock, a butt load of butter and some parmesan - and topped off with a couple of types of mushroom. Interesting note - I didn't have any prepared stock so I used a Vietnamese soup stock cube. The flavour and texture of the risotto were most excellent, far better than the stuff you get in a can.