ANZAC

Being so close to ANZAC day we thought it only appropriate to honour them with our food.

The Theme

ANZAC

The Menu

Main

Chilli Kiwi Prawns

Chef's Rating: 8 out of 10 Caramel Failures

These were pretty delicious, and look how damn fancy they look. I know this is not what the ANZAC's ate, but you know, it has kiwi in it! If you ever make this at home beware the allure of making caramel from sugar and water (it's in the sauce). It is not as easy as one might think. One might think, "How can you stuff this up, it's basically just boiling water?" and then one might end up with some hard sugar crystals stuck in their pan.

Dessert 

ANZAC Banoffee Pie

ANZAC biscuit base with caramel, whipped cream and bananas. 1 is amazing. 2 makes you want to throw up.

Chef's Rating: 9 out of 10 bananas

You can't really go wrong with anything that involves caramel and bananas. 

Drink

The ANZAC

In the second one I muddled the kiwi fruit and pineapple together in the glass and BOOM! We invented a new cocktail. 

Chef's Rating: 9 out of 10 Hipster Jars

While the top picture looks better the second picture tasted better. You really need to smash that fruit up. I'm excited that we invented our own cocktail, and it actually tasted good! But I think anything with mushed up fruit in it is a winner. 

Good my sweet children of the silent night. 

Easter

Merry Easter to all and to all a good feast.

So, it's Easter. A time of re-birth and chocolate. And in my case, cooking failure. So let's just get on with it shall we?

The Theme

Easter

The Menu

Main

Greek Easter Break with Refreshing Easter Salad

I'm not sure where the tradition of dying eggs red comes from, but it's pretty cool.

Chef's Rating: 8 out of 10 Pink Eggs

The salad was really awesome and fresh. Tip: Lemon juice makes for a nice salad dressing and is healthier. The bread was some good looking bread, maybe the best bread we've made yet. It was maybe a little sweeter than it should have been, since I spilt a lump of sugar in the batter but it was still pretty good. We might finally be conquering bread!

Dessert

Epic Failure

This is the one photo I have from dessert. Let's not even talk about it. All I'll say is that there were smashed eggs and egg molds are very important. 

Drinks

Cucumber Something

I'm really sorry I don't remember what this drink is called. But I do know it had cucumber in it. 

Chef's Rating: 7 out of 10 Fresh Cucumbers

I don't even remember what this drink really tasted like. Oops. So a 7 sounds pretty good to me. 

I hope you all had a very relaxing Easter and I'll see you next week for ANZAC day!

Saffron

Listen up Children it's time for another round of Drunken Armature Hour and in true spirit I am sippin' on some gin and juice as I write this. Happy Easter to one and all!

So I was lucky enough to score a little baggy of saffron all the way from Dubai through some contacts. I have no idea what to do with saffron. I've never cooked with it before, but I knew that it deserved to go in a better dish than just saffron rice. Let's be honest, you could just use yellow food die in your rice and no one would be able to tell the difference.

The Theme

Saffron

The Menu

Main

Spicy Yoghurt Saffron Chicken with Saffron Potatoes

This definitely was spicy. All I can tell you is never add 2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper. Never!

Chef's Rating: 6.5 out of 10 Burning Mouths

The potatoes were really awesome. I don't think I've ever made potatoes so good. The trick, and this will show how much of an armature cook I am, is to cook them in the microwave first and then put them in the oven! Now the chicken was spicy, sooooo spicy that for me it was sort of not very enjoyable. But making a fragrant yoghurt and slapping it on some chicken generally seems to be a good way to go. 

Dessert

Saffron Pears

Chef's Rating: 9 out of 10 Gold Stars

This was really tasty. We had no dessert wine so used mead instead and it worked awesomely. I'm not sure if I could taste the saffron but it did make everything yellow so that was neat. The scones and mascarpone really helped it along too. 

Drinks

Some kind of weird shots that we made up

This is something similar to Baileys with some saffron sprinkled on top. Because that's how we roll.

This is some Saffron tea with Vodka. Pretty average. 

Chef's Rating: 5 out of 10 Saffron Strings

I wouldn't recommend adding saffron to your drinks.

I don't think I would ever use saffron if I had to buy it myself. Maybe my palette just isn't delicate enough.

Sleep well.

Amateur Hour is Back!

Yeah, you heard me! Amateur Hour is back!

I had a mini holiday last week living it up in Brisvegas with the fancy people. But we will be back this Thursday, the same as ever!

What's the theme gonna be? I don't know! Write in and tell us your suggestions for this weeks theme. If one persons, just one person commented, even if they said something terrible about my mother, I would be soooooo ecstatic that I might explode out my eye balls!

It feels wrong to do a post with no photos, so I thought I would share some of the fancy with you.

Just like your mother made

I like to take a casual stroll down memory lane every now and then. This week we reminisced about food our mothers/grandmothers had made us. So many memories can be attached to food.

We also had to think of  theme that would let me make Rhubarb Crumble, I've been craving it for weeks.

The Theme

Just Like Your Mother Made 

The Menu

Main

Bacon and Egg Pie

Vegetables added for health and shit

Chef's Rating: 8 out of 10 Chicken Fetuses

You can't really go wrong with cheese and puff pastry. It made for a bad ass breakfast too.

Chemo Boy's Grandmother used to make this for him.  

Dessert 

Rhubarb Crumble with Custard

Used real Vanilla Bean for the first time to flavour the custard. Dayum it was good. Vanilla Bean is a special treat, it was some fine ass custard.

Chef's Rating: 8.5 out of 10 Burnt Apricots

I added some apricots to the top of the crumble and it turns out they burn really easily. The ratio of crumble to rhubarb was also a bit out, personally I like more Rhubarb, less crumble. But it was still good because rhubarb is amazing. 

My mother used to make this for me.

Drink

Fluffy Duck

It was a full and merry house this week

Chef's Rating: 7 out of 8 Adorable Ducks

These cocktails were super tasty and actually worked really well with the vanilla/egg sub-theme that we had going on.

My Grandmother used to make these apparently (I didn't know until I told my mum about the fluffy ducks and she said she can remember Grandma making them when she was a kid. I love it when things work out)

I also spent the evening cataloging and rearranging our booze collection. That is how seriously I take this.

There is an unholy pleasure that comes from having things organised

Ok, that's me done! I am actually surprised I didn't fall asleep half way through writing this post.

May all your dreams be sweet.

Tropical Island

Good Evening my fellow food connoisseurs. Last weekend I went on a mini holiday to a near-by tropical island. I had quite an enjoyable time. I stuffed myself with food, played giant chess, saved baby turtles and swam with sea turtles. To celebrate (and I don't know why Chemo Boy was celebrating my holiday, but when there's a theme idea we run with it) we made some delicious food before I left.

These are some snaps from my holiday.

The Theme

Tropical Island

The Menu

Main

Tropical Skewers with Watermelon and Feta Salad

Chef's Rating: 8 out of 10 Tropical Fruits

I really enjoy the watermelon feta, salt and pepper combo. I just find it so interesting. I've heard you're supposed to add salt to fruit to make it taste even sweater. I've been meaning to give this more of a go and this salad is the closest I've gotten. 

The Skewers were lovely and fresh with all raw ingredients....except for the garlic prawns, they were definitely cooked.

Dessert

Chocolate, Banana and Some Kind of Custard Crepes

I'm not sure what you would call the filling, but it involved eggs, flour and condensed milk.. mmmm condensed milk.

Chef's Rating: 9 out of 10 China Towns (there's always a crepe store in china town)

These were so awesome. I was genuinely impressed with ourselves. The custard was smooth, the chocolate sauce wasn't burnt and the crepes looked like crepes.

Drink

Pina Coladas

Chef's Rating: 7 out of 10 Coconuts

To be honest, I can't even remember what these tasted like it was so long ago. Maybe that's not a good sign. But Pina Colada is a Pina Colada really. If you like em then you like em; if you don't, you don't.

That's it ladies and gents. That's all there is. There isn't any more.