Cook show and tell ?
We couldn’t afford to eat out all the time
At some stage last year, we threw a small dinner party with a few friends of ours. We wanted something simple, requiring minimal cooking, leaving plenty of time for chatting and playing Guitar Hero. As it turned out, the cooking wasn’t so minimal and the boys (including me) spent more time in the lounge room than they did in the kitchen. Fortunately, the women still managed to cook up an elaborate spread of food without our assistance. However, perhaps the food wouldn’t have tasted as good if it wasn’t for me ‘taste testing’ everything.
Prosciutto with Bill's eggs and caramalised onion tart
You can find the recipe here. We used the recipe from Bill Granger’s famous eggs and added a ‘bacon and egg’ theme to the tart. There were two versions, one with prosciutto and the other with smoked salmon for the two vegequarians at the dinner.
Button mushrooms stuffed with ricotta cheese, bacon and scallion
I had to warn everyone not too have too many of these as they can fill up appetities in no time. The button mushrooms stuffed with ricotta cheese, bacon, scallion and topped lightly with sea salt and cracked black pepper. Pop the mushrooms into the oven until the cheese is golden brown.
Steam scallops with vermicelli and xo sauce
We all order these at Chinese restaurants and they don’t come cheap. If you can find fresh scallops in the shell, you might as well make them at home. Preparation and cooking time took no more than a few minutes. All we did was top the scallops with vermicelli, soy sauce and xo sauce from a jar. Garnish it with a few pieces of scallion and steam the scallops for 2-3 minutes depending how well you like them cooked. If I can cook these, anyone can!
Steamed beans
Oven roasted vegetables (Zuchinni, tomato)
We overestimated the amount of zuchinni needed. I think there was enough here to feed a small village.
Roast pumpkin and tomato
The pumpkin and tomato turned out very moist and sweet. A dash of olive oil was put on top of these fellas before going into the oven.
om nom nom nom crackling
The crackling looked a bit like a mushroom cloud. As you could imagine, it was superbly crunchy and capable of clogging my arteries if I wasn’t careful with my consumption levels. It got to a point where for every piece of crackling I consumed, I had to have a piece of steamed bean in order to give my conscience the misconception of balancing the good with evil.
Crispy skin roast pork
We posted the recipe over here a few months ago. This was a good piece of pork belly as there was a good balance of meat, fat and skin.
Oven baked salmon with dill, spring onion, parsley, basil & lemon
The Tasmanian salmon was huge, the lens on squishie’s camera could barely fit the entire salmon. I love salmon but they are often too big to eat so this was the perfection occasion to cook up some fresh salmon. The dill, parsely, spring onion, basil and lemon was stuffed inside the salmon and baked for atleast 2 hours, I think it was close to 3 hours though.
Crème Brulée Tart with home made strawberry jam
For dessert, we decided to make crème brulée tarts as they are usually a sure hit with everyone. We used Wolfgang Puck’s recipe for the crème brulée tart and decided to experiment a little by covering the base of the tart with some home made strawberry jam. The jam had balsamic vinegar in it and resulted in a sweet and sour taste. This turned out to be an ideal partner in crime with the creamyness of the crème brulée.
I vaguely recall this dinner costing around $15 per person (9 people) with a few bottles of wine. While it was a bit of an effort, it just goes to show that with a bit of hard work and experimentation you can cook up a decent spread of food which doesn’t break the budget. In the current state of economic turmoil, perhaps eating at home more often might be a good option.
Author
By Howard
We started eatshowandtell in 2008, it was meant to be just a journal of where we ate. The first thing I usually do when I'm looking for a restaurant is check out eatability and the restaurant website. But what is usually missing is pictures of the food, how do I know I'm getting what I expect? This blog hopefully plugs that gap.
Follow howardtInformation
This article was written on 18 Jan 2009, and is filed under cookshowandtell.
Current post is tagged
Dessert, Dinner, pork, poultry
Recent articles
- Different Drummer, Glebe09 Feb 2012
- America! The Road Trip Part 303 Feb 2012
- Wasabi Bistro, Surry Hills31 Jan 2012
- Albee’s Kitchen, Cabramatta27 Jan 2012
- The Montpellier Public House, Randwick24 Jan 2012
- America! The Road Trip Part 220 Jan 2012
- Bar H, Surry Hills17 Jan 2012
- America! The Road Trip Part 113 Jan 2012
- The Everest Kitchen, Marrickville10 Jan 2012
- Mexican Pool Party05 Jan 2012
Recent comments
Who Are We?
Search eatshowandtell
Share
Sponsors
Categories
Creative Commons
Eat Show & Tell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License.
wow looks great. love the xo idea with the scallops and omg that pork crackling looks amazing! gone are the days of video games and pizza eh?
The stuffed mushrooms look yummy, I love ricotta. Looks like fun playing with the blowtorch, mmm creme brulee.
Arwen from Hoglet K’s last blog post..Kasturi
$15 per person, for All That Food! Good job Howard. I love eating in with my friends – tasty food, great company and I just adore the relaxed setting compared with eating out:)
Miss Honey’s last blog post..Jamie Oliver Vs Mario Batali – Celebrity Chef Faceoff!
What an epic dinner party – awesome! I can’t even pick a favourite dish.
Christie @ fig&cherry’s last blog post..Food profiling in the supermarket
oh man look at that crackling! and i love guitar hero heh heh can i come over!?
chocolatesuze’s last blog post..Nuffnang blogger meetup [7]
Helen : Indeed! I stopped eating Pizza Hut ever since the pizza’s got smaller :/
Arwen : Creme brulee is the only dessert I never get sick of, it’s awesome.
Miss Honey : Yeah the relaxed setting is what I like. It’s a bit of an effort, but you can take your time eating and conversing .. love it!
Christie : Thanks! Mine would of been the pork, mmmm crackling.
Suze : lol , Guitar Hero is cool but I like Rockband/World Tour now! The drums are hard …
Nice spread although I knew it would be
LOL at Guitar Hero. Have you tried Dueling Banjoes on that?
Lorraine @NotQuiteNigella’s last blog post..The Barack Obama Inauguration Pizza!
Hahah GH is awesome! and all that food looks just as good yuummm ^^! Invite next time pllleeasseeeeeeeeeeee (00)
FFichiban’s last blog post..Rengaya – North Sydney, Sydney (2)
Wow look at that crackling! Fantastic!
Y’s last blog post..And sous it is..
Wow, such a fantastic job you guys have done! It looks like you even have all the right tools. Brilliant!!