Monday, February 16, 2009

Build me a menu.

Ok, I need the help of the culinary geniuses that hang out around here.

I am going to cook for 8-10 on Sat night and I need you to build me a menu that is both easy to make, cheap and will make look like an Iron Chef.

Normally I would fill the guests full of booze before dinner and then serve up baked beans on toast, but nearly everyone will be driving and/or have babies to mind, so the missus and I may be the only pissed ones.

Oh, and the only acceptable seafood is Calamari. I don't usually edit comments but any vegan suggestions will be deleted. If something hasn't died, it's not a meal.

So help me out, otherwise it is going to be Indian or Thai takeaway.

36 comments:

  1. Stuffed calamari hoods?

    Greek recipe here:

    http://www.greeknet.com/cook1.htm

    Or look for a version you can do on the bbq as an entree.

    Then do steaks and salad.

    A great salad recipe...we do this one quite a bit..

    http://mylittlecornerstore.blogspot.com/2008/01/rocket-pear-parmesan-salad-with.html

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  2. Sorry, troop-you're on your own here. If I were a guest, Indian takeaway would be just fine with me.

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  3. Guinness & beef pies and you get to drink the left over guinness from the 4 pack (you'll only need 1 can to make 8 pies)

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  4. Start with a fondue of sauteed mushrooms, french bread and sliced up ham with a cheese fondue sauce (gruyere, swiss, Kirschwasser, and garlic to taste).

    Roast pork with a blackberry sauce, assuming blackberries are available there. Or, a shitload of buffalo wings. 8-10 people, you'd probably need about 150.

    Start with a wheat beer, and then serve chocolate stout for dessert. I have it on good authority that Red Oak, an Aussie brewery, makes an excellent one.

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  5. You are going to cook - you are obviously homosexual - call Chaz - problem solved!

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  6. Mmmm, Thai and Indian cuisine. :)

    I'd say chicken wings, but I don't think y'all have that in Oz. ;)

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  7. I take it a McDonald's takeaway won't suffice then!

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  8. Do you seriously want the headache of cooking? Go for the takeaway, put in on some fancy plates and claim it as your own.

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  9. I'd do it like a Chrissy dinner. Nibbles, like the chicken wings, some meats, veges, and a bucket of spuds.

    Maybe a BBQ?, do the chicken bad and poison them. That'll stop them from coming back!.

    Heard Pizza Hut does a decent pasta spread....lol that's what the ad says anyway.

    LOL @ Lerm.

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  10. If in doubt just chuck a leg of lamb in the oven with some peeled spuds (parboiled). Cut some slits in the skin of the lamb and jam some garlic slivers and rosemary in there. If you want crispness rub some oil on the skin and on the spuds. Cut pumpkin into chun ks and put in with the spuds after half an hour.
    Carrots, snow peas, whatever greens you fancy can be steamed or cooked while the lamb is resting.
    Remember, lamb can be cooked for a long time so don't fret about killing it with heat.
    Salmon cutlets on the bbq with a green salad and spuds done in their jackets and served with sour cream and chopped chives.
    Stuff a snapper with herbs and coat it in spices, wrap it in foil and put under a bbq hood or in the oven. Salad and spuds again.
    For dessert - get a punnet of strawberries, pour the juice of a lemon and a cup of sugar over them and stand in the fridge for a couple of hours. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

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  11. Naut, take a quick trip to carlton and go the boulangerie just accross from san churro and get soemj nice course pork or duck terrine. serve this as a starter with a good baguette or pain parisian with some 'pica pica'. Sliced jamon serrano/iberico, olives, maybe some feta in oil, sun dried tomoatoes etc etc just not too much and thats your 1st course done.

    For your main course go easy, slow braised lambshanks on crushed baby roast potatoes 9sprinkled with sea salt and rosemary with baby carrorts and brocolli. Serve with a small dollop of mint jelly. make sure you have plenty of thick liqour (gravy to to plebes) to go with it.

    Dessert? Cheat get some nice mini sponges whilst you're in carlton and serve with creme fraiche..even better get one of those death by choc cakes From brunettis!!!

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  12. Abe - Definate possibility, only problem is one of the guests does something similar.

    YD - Not off the cards yet.

    Uamada - Got a similar reciepe off the cook and the chef. Problem is pie tins will cost about $100.

    Steve - Hmmm, might pick a couple of those items. BTW buffal's don't have wings.

    Lerm - take that back! It is the Good Lady Naut's b'day and I expect to be reward, that's why I am cooking.

    Donali - Our chicken do indeed have wings just like yours;-)

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  13. Mr Stu - Maccas definately if I can get'em all pissed enough.

    DD - Takeaway is last resort as I won't get the credit from the Good Lady Naut.

    Moko - too many dishes, too involved. That pizza hut ad stops right before the customers crack the shits and ask for their money back.

    Therbs - Roast Lamb may be the go, just chuck it in the oven and then get pissed.

    Chaz - Sounds great but I kind of got lost after Carlton.

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  14. Would it be easier if i did it for you?

    I remember back in london my mate was trying to impress and held a bastille day party. Shot over to paris and got his mother to prepare various goodies and got back to london a couple of hours before the party and tried to pass the work off as his own.

    if you're not cheating you're not trying!!

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  15. Yeah, its fairly foolproof. Even I can do it.
    The strawberry thing works well. You get this lovely syrup at the bottom of the fruit. To serve, you scoop some of the strawberries into a dish, chuck in some ice-cream and drizzle a bit of the syrup over the ice-cream. Jam a finger of Lindt into it as well if you're feeling decadent. Girls love it. Champagne on the side and you're in!

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  16. Chaz - I can't have you cooking for me, Lerm will start rumours.

    Therbs - It's probably in the lead at the moment. I would love to do pies but just can't justify the spend on dishes. Rest assured the joint will be swimming in cheap bubbles.

    Lerm - Lol, you bastard!

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  17. lerm just gets jealous very easily the poor duckling

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  18. Lerm you don't roast frogs (too many already done at the moment) ... so frogs legs?

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  19. Damn! Lerm beat me to my suggestion.

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  20. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  21. I would not hurt the frog. He has friends.

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  22. Chaz, you're not helping.

    Bangar - You catch'em you can cook him.

    BBA - I think you have confused me and nowhereBob. I am just the regular male type pig.

    DD - Damm straight!

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  23. Mate, I have lost the menu list, but I reckon Birmo or it might even be Flinthart who posted. I put up about a 12 or 14 course chocolate dinner. EVERY course has chocolate in it. WICKED, but you just might want to hire a chef.

    OR, cook three or four courses and put approx 5 pieces of Cadbury chockie bar on the plate / food and apply blow torch to said choc.

    PS. I do not want to know how it goes, BADLY i would suspect, but if ya game.

    OH, and at a pinch, I would suggest road kill!....LMAO

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  24. Hey, what about getting a hold of some 10 man rat packs ( ration packs ) from the local Mil store

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  25. or, a quick trip to loraine, Bedak has potentially a dead cat, which if you offer a new one which is ALIVE, he might let you take the old one home..????, just a thought.

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  26. I always wanted to put a scrub worm in Jelly and freeze, then take out and serve to somebody else. Might be the time to try it.

    or

    You could by about 20 tins of SPAM, slice it up and cook it on the BBQ, STEAKS,,mmm yes, HONEST..

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  27. PS, I have Defensive fires registered on your house, if you so much as look at Curry I will kill your arse.

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  28. Naut... yep Sorry about that.

    A couple of Medical related thingies have been going haywire over the last couple of days and they have me on massive doses of drugs which have been causing all sorts of reactions. Has made for a couple of interesting moments.

    It should be illegal to drive a computer under the influence of drugs.

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  29. Jeez H, what are you going to be like when you finish work and have time on your hands? The rat pack idea would amuse me and possibly JP, but thats probably about it.

    BBA - No dramas, thought it might be something like that. Sounds like they have you on the good stuff. Hope it does the trick for you.

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  30. Naut, there shall be a period of pure vengeance, visited upon all mere unsuspecting mortals, in BIBLICAL fucking proportions..OH YES! This is going to be WICKED.

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  31. Yep it is good stuff but it makes the brain real fuzzy at times.

    So that is what Fuzzy Logic looks like...

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  32. Maybe Aussie buffalo don't have wings, but our buffalo are on a higher evolutionary plain. Haven't you ever read Darwin?

    Moko, don't tell me Pizza Hut is trying to convince Aussies and Kiwis that their pasta is considered to be excellent in Ital as well, are they? Those ads run constantly here, I'm tired of them.

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  33. H - can't wait.

    BBA - Lol it hasn't affected your sense of humour.

    Steve - Flying buffalo, how do you keep your cars clean? What happens to the powerlines when a buffalo sits on them.

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  34. Naut, it is my nature to cause chaos :))

    "blodd and souls for my lord Arioch"

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  35. Buffaloes only roam the Plains States. Residents of such places are already covered in cow shit, so the extra buffalo shit doesn't make a difference.

    And because of the snow, the power lines are often buried.

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