Green chicken curry, mmmmm mmm.

Possibly the best nachos ever...

Vegie fritters and chicken pieces...Nando's style!

Omelette and potato salad.

BIG roast dinner!

EAT your vegetables - zucchini slice, potato salad, garlic bread.

Spinach & ricotta lasagne by the Stegenas.

How to use lemons? Leek and lemon risotto of course!

Chicken kebabs + roast potato/pumpkin + yummy salad = lots of dishes!

The awesome bake that was really just...average.

The most romantic Valentines Day dinner any four people can have.

After spending the weekend down south with the parentals, I decided to ask my mother dearest for a couple of basic recipes so that I could cook a kick-ass dinner. Betty Crocker gave me an awesome recipe for a chicken dish, which she has made me on many occasions, so I had faith that I could cook a champion dinner for the day of love.

Got back to our humble abode and discovered that I was missing the most core ingredient: chicken. Shopping with K followed, which lead to a decision not to compromise on quality ice cream. It also lead to a wild goose chase to find strawberries. There were some very concerned people in Garden City that day when they saw K and I speed in and out of four different shops trying to find strawberries.

First I made the marinade, which I had to make twice due to a calculator error. Preparing the chicken was quite interesting, especially since numbers had increased to four, so deciding on what pieces to cook was a tough one.

With the chicken marinaded and in the oven, next was the salad. I decided to actually put effort into chopping the ingredients so it looked half decent. Made my own dressing too. Impressive, I know.

After basting the chicken a few times it was time to finally do the challenging part of the dish: the rice. Now, I know that most people would say "Rice as the most challenging component, get outta town!" I was outta town. I had never cooked rice without Betty Crocker by my side to guide me (which basically means me giving up and letting her take over.) I turned to my faithful house mates who, to my surprise, had both only ever cooked rice in a rice cooker. Henrietta (our amazing hen egg timer, who I wanted to call Henry, but this led to protest that you can't have a chicken called Henry) had started to cluck, so the chicken was done. Nerves set in. I glanced at the back of the packet on the rice about how to cook it and began to cook the rice how I thought would work.

Should of read the packet. I mean, the rice wasn't bad, but it wasn't what I wanted to serve when the rest of the dish had gone so well.

Next was dessert. It consisted of my cutting the only strawberries I could find in Garden City, adding sugar, leaving in fridge for half an hour. Then serving with vanilla ice cream that was too expensive for us to afford but we got anyway. Twas delightful.

Helpful hints:

1. Mothers have excellent advice and knowledge that will never cease to amaze me.
2. Know your rice and how to cook it.
3. Never, under any circumstances, go for cheap ice cream. You will regret it

9.5/10 for fail on rice cooking.
D
P.S- Yes, I know that it is late. Good blogging takes time.

If we could cook as well as we could bake...god we'd be good!

Seeing as the sole banana left in the fruit bowl had gone soft and was only good for cooking, we decided to test out our baking skills. As the only actual thing we had to bake with was the banana, D and I tripped off down to our local Coles to buy some baking materials (including a cake tin and muffin pans). $120.88 later, we've got baking materials but still haven't decided what to cook for dinner. More on that later.

First up, cupcakes. Lemon cupcakes. That's right, culinary geniuses, we are. Take a basic cupcake recipe, add lemon rind to the mixture, and add lemon juice to the icing. Done. Oh, and be prepared for a fair amount of whisking with a fork when your kitchen is lacking a whisk. We had to take turns; our arms kept getting sore.

So, our first baking effort seemed to be a success. Unwilling to taste-test them ourselves, we kindly offered one to our lovely painter, Phil...

Cue tense silence as Phil takes the first bite of his cupcake.

AND 10/10! That's right guys, he could "not fault them". Perfect, I believe was the adjective used. Smug smiles all round.

Next up - banana and raspberry muffins. Notice how healthy all our recipes are? I've cooked these muffins several times before, but as blueberry/banana or mixed berry/banana. First time using just raspberries. I figure I'm blaming D if anything goes wrong, she's the one who suggested the raspberries.

More of the exhausting whisking of butter and sugar and eggs et cetera. Even Mum came in and gave us a hand with the whisking. Note to selves: invest in a whisk.

Once these were done, we again decided to taste-test them with Phil. TEN OUT OF TEN. AGAIN! In case you missed the first time...

So, we figure we can bake. Pretty darn good.

However, just one pointer:

1. Invest in a whisk for your kitchen if you decide to do some baking. No, really.

10/10

B

The Crashing of Number 96 Mackie Street

Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll...
So one fine day (it was actually in the evening, but hey) B, D and I were invited around to our good ol' mate Farmer Scotty's house on Mackie Street to sample his "Morrocan Feast".  So we drove over there in B's awesome little car Barlow who was ripping up the streets, to find Scotty home alone (well, so would he be, being the only one in his share house who has actually moved in so far).  So as us three girls set ourselves down in front of the TV, Scotty set to work figuring out what ingredients were needed.  So began the hunt for an open IGA at 6pm.  As it turns out, GPS's are absolutely no use in finding out where IGA's are located.  Apparently, you have to actually know where it is you want to go.  Stupid technology.  After much a kerfuffle later, we had bought our 3 onions and chicken.  ON TO THE HARD PART.

Back at home, Scotty took no time assigning us all random jobs around the kitchen.  I ended up on bread duty, mixing yeast, milk, flour and water into a bowl creating the dough which would later be DELICIOUS! D was in charge of the scrumptious tomato and eggplant dish whilst B mixing it up between the pumpkin tangine and the tomato eggplant thingo.  All the time, scotty is busy basically overseeing us newbies and making an almond chicken pie.  Yummmmmmmms.

In the end, after 3 hours of hard labour, we got our food.  After turning up at 6pm expecting to be spoon fed, we ended up being not too bad at all in the kitchen resulting in a DELLLECTABLE dish at 9pm.  We were so starvarated! Made it taste all the better :D Definitely a great success.... just maybe a bit too complicated for our basic kitchen haha!

Pointers:

1. Be prepared. Know what ingrediants you need to buy, and go shopping BEFORE you are due to start cooking.
2. Be aware of stove size. A 4 hot plate stove top will not let you cook more than 4 pots at the same time.
3. KNOW YOUR SPICES.  Invest in a rainbow spice display if appropriate.  Or borrow someone else's!
4. Understand that a morrocan 'feast' is going to take more than 20 minutes to whip up.

9/10 (only not 10 cos of the time it took to make it.  FOOD CRAVINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

K

Last Spag Bog for the next couple of months...

So, my turn to prepare a meal for the masses. D gave me one hour, told me to time it and left. K took off too. This is how much they trust me in the kitchen. I set the timer on my phone, determined to prove them wrong.

Spaghetti bolognese. Easy. Mum taught me how, nothing can go wrong. Right?

Sliced the onions and capsicum, chopped the carrot, grated the zucchini. No blood yet. I'm doing great, in the scheme of things. No large pan, so let's use the electric frying pan. Onion in. Mince in. Vegies in. Sauce and tinned tomatoes in. Oops, sauce splattered over the white tiled splash back. Don't worry, it'll wipe right off. K walks back in at this point. Do I need help? Nuh, I'm on a roll. Oh yeah, you can clean that red mess off the walls if you like...

Alright, so now's it's simmering and you know what, that's it! I've cooked a meal. 28 minutes thank you very much, D. Just spaghetti to cook later.

D arrives home and reminds me that G advised putting red wine into the sauce. Let's add some! Oh, and pour ourselves a glass whilst we're at it.

About 30 minutes later, I've cooked the spaghetti (And tested it by throwing it at the wall where there is now a slight spaghetti mark. Perfect.) and we're sitting around the table eating. Pretty good, even if I do say so myself. Good even though it's spag bol with DUN DUN DUN fake mince! Yep, I don't eat red meat so I cooked it with that fake Sanitarium mince, tastes just the same ;) Surprise!

A little while later and we've gone through another bottle of wine, white this time. K wants seconds (yeah, you read right, seconds) so she puts on some more spaghetti. Half an hour later....

B: Is your spaghetti ready?
K: [insert expletive here]!

Burnt spaghetti, mmmm mmm

The rest of the night involved a lot of wine drinking. A lot. Red wine, white wine, champagne... Oh and we saw the spag bol again - all over the bathroom. Oops.

Pointers:

1. Don't cook spag bol in an electric frying pan - it gets messy.
2. Grate both the zucchini AND the carrot. It cooks faster.
3. Put a timer on whilst cooking spaghetti.
4. Don't mix your wines, EVER - it gets messy.
5. Leave the red wine to the spag bol, it handles it better.

Cheers!
7/10

B

Welcome to Bicton- Tomato Risotto

Sounds simple enough, but this one started with a band-aid.

Originally, this recipe was suppose to be a team effort, everyone working together on our first time every really using the kitchen. B volunteered to cut the onions. 

Two minutes later...

B: "D, where are your band-aids?"

D: "Hmm, you better not cut anything else, B."

Myself and K finished preparing and chopping the rest of the vegetables. We told B to heat the oil while we did this.

Three minutes later...

B: "Umm, why is the kitchen full of smoke?"

Turns out burning oil is easily done. One team member down, two remaining.

I, being the control freak that I am (or leader, take your pick) then proceeded to start cooking the rice, while K boiled water. Anytime B asked to help, we reminded her of the above two incidents. She sat in the corner and wrote out a recipe that was on the back of the chicken stock recipe. Oh, that reminds me, this was originally supposed to be a chicken and tomato risotto. Someone put the chicken the freezer instead of the fridge. Three guesses who that was...

Continuing on, K began to slowly get less and less involved when I took over, leaving one team member left. Everything else went relatively smoothly, until we went to serve it and realized that we didn't have a ladle. 

Surprisingly, it was pretty good. The photo does not do it justice, but it was taken on my phone as evidence for my parents that I can actually cook.

Pointers for future cooking of this recipe:

1. Don't put the chicken in the freezer if you want to use it that night.
2. Take care when chopping onions.
3. Have a supply of band-aids on hand at all times.
4. Actually watch the oil as it is heating, this will prevent smoke filling up your kitchen and save you embarrassment.
5. Be prepare to wait a while if you are serving with a regular spoon.

8/10

D

Success!

So, this blog has been put off for too long. It was something which I have been saying I was going to do for the past 3 weeks but never really got around to it. Finally, the blog is up. Let the successes (and failures) begin!
D