April Review - By Meg Keely

Beer Butt Chicken

I had been waiting and waiting for JJ to ask me over for her cooking blog experience and FINALLY she did.

I arrived at the perfect time – didn’t have to wait very long for the chicken with a VB up its arse to come out of the oven, but enough time to see JJ’s glasses fog up and the whole knife on the foot debacle!

No, it’s the 2^nd toe, not the mangy 4^th one.

So onto the review. Basically it was hit! The chicken was perfectly cooked and the skin could not have been yummier. The pumpkin was the best vegetable as Sian and I both expressed while stuffing our faces.

I’m not a fan of beans but I ate 4 and they were good… I might even eat beans again, who knows. The gravy which was a joint effort between Sian and Jo was delish. Forget that packet stuff, this was proper gravy made in the pan! Cudos!

Jo thought the chilli was a bit much and the beer might have tainted the vegies when she knocked over the chicken with the beer in the oven, but really I liked it. I know I even said in a stepford housewives voice “ooh JJ, what spices did you use on the chicken, it’s delicious!!”

I knew that part of my experience was to listen to music while it was all happening but I did something to the computer and the music was a no go on my behalf.

Do I regret getting 2nds? Yes, but I couldn’t help it cause it all was all so good! I will play the blame game and blame Jo.

Company: 5/5 – inappropriate topics that involved midgets and google image searches. My favourite!

Movie choice: 3.5 – but only due to technical difficulties.

Chicken: 4.5 – the wing was the best part

Vegies: 4.5 - pumpkin was the winner!

Running around like a chook with its head cut off (and a beer up its arse)

28th April 2011 - Beer butt chicken by Ed

After the amazing long long weekend I decided to get back on track and invited Meg over for dinner. It was a kinda hectic day, my shoe fell off in the middle of the road while I was running to escape the rain, I tripped down the stairs on a packed train and everyone stared, and I sat next to a woman who made someone vacate their seat for her and her pram... that had a dog in it! Mad.

Anyway, as it’s getting winterish I decided a delicious roast would be the perfect thing for Meg to review... it was time for Beer Butt Chicken by Ed.

I made Sian be on standby to help me out, but secretly I think I nailed it while she cleaned out the pantry.

Everything seemed to go pretty much to plan. I'd never cooked a whole chicken before so it was kind of fun to be able to do that. Sian said it reminded her of a baby and she wanted to hug it which is slightly worrying, luckily she didn't hug it, and I did cook it.

I made double the seasoning so I could chuck the rest of it on the veggies which turned out really well. I didn't have regular chilli powder so I used a Mexican one I had which smelt really strong and was slightly overpowering. You actually put a beer inside the chicken which was fun and it just stands there magically balancing, weird.

I only cooked it for around 45 minutes, but when I checked it was all looking perfect! I asked Sian to help me get it out of the oven and stop it from tipping over and (not blaming anyone) it tipped over and beer and chicken juice spilt all over the veggies. I’m not sure what we could have done to stop this from happening really. I wanted to - slash did - throw a little tantrum and then made Sian stop everything she was doing and make the gravy.

Meg seemed pretty excited about the whole dealio and was mocking me relentlessly. Maybe because I was wearing glasses and they kept fogging up when I'd open the oven. It all turned out pretty well though. I wasn't sure if I liked it or not at first, but then I couldn't stop eating it...neither could Meg.

It was quite a success - until I ate so much I wanted to vomit and had to put my pjs on to make myself feel better.

Overall, I was very impressed. As Em would say... RE-SULT! This is the perfect meal for when you want it to look and taste like you’ve done something amazing, but don’t really have the skills and time to do something too fancy.

Tips: Try not to drop a sharp knife on your foot, it hurts, bleeds and doesn't look good in front of guests (unless you're wearing steal capped boots, if that’s the case I'd be throwing shit at my feet to see what happens).

Music: George, Polyserena and The Beatles, White Album

The burgers are better at Hungry Jo's.

17 April 2011 - Alex's Beef Patties for Hamburgers

Another weekend, another engagement party, another Sunday night attempt at cooking due to a whole week of laziness! It was time to have a crack at Alex’s Beef Patties for Hamburgers.

I've got two hamburger patty recipes in my book already, so I've been looking forward to the competition that might arise from trying out these dishes! I decided to try Alex’s first, as they were in my book first (and I had almost all of the ingredients so wouldn't have to do much shopping).

The recipe is very easy and lots of fun to make. They were a darker colour than I'd imagined, but I had no reason for the image in my mind. The best part was definitely getting to mix it with my hands - particularly squeezing the egg and popping the yolk (something I thought I'd find gross, but actually really enjoyed).

It was very simple. I got to use the BBQ all by myself as Sian wasn't home and I felt very cool (in my glasses and my pyjamas and my post-braid crimped hair). It all went really smoothly. The patties fell apart a bit on the BBQ, but I don't know what I could have done about that really. They were delicious and I'm counting it as a hands down success!

I didn't know how to clean the BBQ so told Sian to check it the next morning. She cleaned it but roused on me for not turning off the gas. I said "I didn't have to turn it on so I thought it must just disconnect itself like Dad’s" to which she replied "Dad’s doesn't do that"... Epic fail. May now be responsible for empty gas bottles across the country!

Tips: Find out how to use the BBQ before claiming it was successful! Also, even though Alex wouldn't like it, it's not worth having a hamburger if you don't have beetroot!

Music: Blakroc

What has two thumbs and doesn't give a crap?

10th April 2011 - Donna Hay’s Steak and Rocket Sauce

Was away for the week at the work love-in. It's basically staff training but with lots of drinking and team bonding and stuff. It went better than expected. I was slightly concerned that some people's true colours might come out and people would start fighting, but it went surprisingly well!

Whilst stranded in rainy Forster Tuncurry I was able to collect a few new recipes which I'm pretty excited about. I, of course, had a wedding event that weekend and trotted off to an engagement party where there was at least one person drunker than me and I didn't fall down the stairs so I'm going with...raging success!

I did absolutely nothing the next day, watched Nanny McPhee (brilliant) and tried to convince Sian not to go out...didn't work. Instead she went out and I stayed in and cooked her dinner like some chump. I made Donna Hay’s Steak and Rocket Sauce. I’m already pretty good at steak (as it’s the easiest thing in the world), but the sauce was my new thing.

It was pretty good. It absolutely stank while it was cooking and I was convinced it would be horrible, but I served it up (with sweet potato of course) to Sian's worried face. It was actually quite nice. I wouldn't call it a sauce so much as a runny garnish but it was good. We ate while watching four episodes of Loser (makeover is always the best ep of the year, a real tear-jerker), a brilliant Sunday night!

Anyway, it was good, I think it would have been nicer with beans and mash and without the horrible smell of it cooking, but it was nice. It really shouldn't count as a weekly dish, but give me a break... Don't you know how busy and important I am?

Tips: My quantities were all out so I had slightly more sauce than the recipe indicated for the amount of rocket but it still wasn't enough. I'd probably quadruple the amount of sauce next time.

Music: I totally forgot about music! I was accidentally watching scrubs while cooking. Opps.

Anybody wanna peanut?

3rd April 2011 - Granny's Peanut Biscuits

After a weekend at home for a wedding I was able to collect lots of cool new recipes (and lots of cool new bruises). Was an amazing wedding, caught up with everyone who has ever lived in Kiama, fell down the stairs in the pub and watched one of the best couples I know say “I do”.

I knew it was going to be a hectic week as I was going away for a work love-in and had a million other things on, so I got straight to it and cooked Granny's Peanut Biscuits.

Granny can't write anymore, so I was able to scan this recipe from mums scrap book so I could still have Granny's writing. The biscuits were super easy and were quite nice in the end.

I hadn’t seen anyone else make them before so I'm not sure if they e the right texture and they felt really really weird. I think that that is something to do with the egg. I didn't so much beat it, as just kind of chuck it in, but it was ok.

I was sure to make the biscuits much smaller this time, but they weren't as sweet as the choc chip ones so probably would have been fine anyway. They went brown really quickly but I probably left them in for about 12 minutes. Some of the larger ones probably could have done with a bit longer, but I took them to work and they were gone within a day, so I'm not going to worry.

Tips: watch them in the oven, as they really do cook quite quickly

Music: Ray LaMontague