Month: April 2015

Cobert Downey Jr.

Party Food, Snack

While they are always a horrible choice, some people pull off coloured-lensed glasses, like RDJ, and some people don’t (we’re looking at you Bono). We tried to convince Bobs (we also call RDJ, Bobs) of this fact during our shared 90s rehab stint, but his look sold it to us.

Over the years we have acted as Bobs’ closest confidantes and despite some disagreements (we advised that he never work with Katie Holmes…on the advice of our friend, her daughter Suri), the friendship has been emotionally and professionally fulfilling.

Yes, we wanted him to fulfil us sexually…but that just seems to be how it goes with our friends, so it has never been an issue.

Bobs dropped over between the Australian and US release of Avengers 2: Age of Hard-On (it was definitely title and if not, I had one for Cap anyway), to discuss his work and provide him with crucial advice for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I reiterate, he really values our opinion.

For one of the highest earning actors, RDJ is so humble, kind and was terrified we would give him a bad review (the movie was magnificent, FYI) and cast him aside (it would never happen).

To celebrate his cinematic triumph and the fact we finally convinced him to push Marvel to sign us as we-can’t-tell-yet superheroes (it is in Phase 4), we whipped up a quick Cobert Downey Jr and discussed our enduringly loving friendship.

 

Cobert Downey Jr_1

 

You could never say a negative word about cob dip, nor you could put anything wrong inside a cob (well you can, but that is another arrest for another time). While I opted for the (comparatively) lighter spinach and vegie dip, nothing quite says Bunheads marathon like a cheesy bacon option.

Enjoy!

 

Cobert Downey Jr_2

 

Cobert Downey Jr
Serves: 4-8 if you’re social, 2 if you’re watching Netflix and 1 if you’re watching Netflix and emotional.

Ingredients
1 packet frozen chopped spinach, drained
300ml tub sour cream
250g cream cheese
1 packet spring vegetable soup
2 cob loaves

Method
Pre-heat oven to 180°C.

Cut one of the cobs up into 1 inch dice and lay out flat on a large baking sheet. Cut the top off the second cob loaf, dicing it into large chunks and hollow out cob, ripping it into large-ish chunks. Lay both sets of the aforementioned chunks and the empty cob on a second baking sheet.

Put both baking sheets into the oven and bake for 15 minutes, or until golden.

Meanwhile, mash cream cheese in a large bowl, and mix through sour cream, soup mix and spinach.

When cob is out of the oven, decant the dip into the hollowed cob and place on a serving dish. Whack the chunks of bread in a bowl, on a plate…where ever really. Then devour.

Celebrifriends: Age of Hard-On

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

It would come as no surprise to anyone, that we became close with Robert Downey Jr while on a stint in rehab.

We met on the set of Less Than Zero (the same place we met our dear friend Jami Gertz) where Annelie was part of McCarthy’s entourage and I was hired to advise RDJ (obvs, that is what we call him) on how to be a street hustler.

We became close, despite some unpleasantness following when I tried to convince him to go method for the sex scenes, after he helped us when we wound up in rehab together.

RDJ has long respected our opinions and nerd credentials and as such, wanted to drop by for our opinion on the new Avengers.

What says your acting can still take my breath away and your beauty can still assemble something in my pants?

Picture source: WENN.com.

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake

Dessert

At the risk of sounding like I’ve softened (and that I am potentially repeating myself), Christopher Knight is a gentleman, a scholar and a saint, and the last almost-fifty years of friendship have meant the world to us.

Now that the niceties are out of the way, let me take you back. We first met Chris and all of the Brady kids through our friendship with the Jackson 5. You see, we were choreographing for the Jacksons (and later invented the moonwalk, but I digress) and Michael introduced us to his girlfriend Maureen who got us auditions for two new roles in Season 5 of The Brady Bunch.

We nailed the auditions and came on board as twin cousins of the Bradys and were so universally despised by the audience that the show was put on hiatus after our first episode and retooled to include a different cousin (with all copies of our episodes and scripts burnt to ensure we were forgotten).

Yes, we were a worse option than Cousin Oliver.

After our unceremonious axing, we stayed close with all of the Bradys (family is family, after all) however it was Chris and Mo that were always our closest.

In honour of the celebratory catch-up, we whipped up a quick Christoffee Knight Cheesecake, (fun fact, it is the cake he made to cheer us up after our axing), to devour as we caught up on each others lives.

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake_1

 

The bleeding (well melting, but it kinda looks like it is bleeding so I’ll stick with that) toffee cuts through the delicate cake/cheese and with the added crunch of the nuts (nothing suss) you have no other option but to face-plant into the cake and devour.

Or maybe that is just us?

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake_2

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake
Serves: Well 3 in this case, 6-8 for normal people.

Ingredients
1 cup butternut snap biscuits (something equivalent), crumbed
2 tbsp butter, melted
500g cream cheese
½ raw caster sugar
½ cup thickened cream
3 tsp gelatine powder, dissolved in ¼ cup boiling water
100g peanut brittle, broken into smallish pieces.

Method
Combine the biscuit crumbs and melted butter, and press into the base of a 20cm springform pan and refrigerate while you make the filling.

In an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. With the mixer on low speed, add in the sugar, cream and gelatine until smooth and combined.

Fold through most of the peanut brittle. Pour mixture into the chilling pan (obviously remove it from the fridge, yeah) and return to the fridge for a few hours to set.

Remove from fridge about twenty minutes prior to serving and garnish with reserved brittle.

Here’s the story

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

During our dear friend Mo’s time in the South African, quote-unquote, jungle we took over the role of informing her fellow Brady Kids as to what she was getting up to (they hadn’t heard of a VPN) and enforcing their support in voting for her.

Being a huge fan of reality TV, Christopher Knight was crucial in helping us (almost) get Maureen into the finals … similar to how we helped him out when he and Adrianne broke up.

That is another story for another time.

Anyway, with our renewed closeness we invited Chris over to celebrate our job well done. (Thanks for all the help Susan, probs won’t be seeing you at the see-saw).

What to make, what to (not) bake?

Picture source: ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images.

George Takeios

Main

It is always difficult to maintain a friendship with someone you share an unbridled sexual chemistry with … thankfully, it has kind of become our thing.

We stayed close with George following our unplanned stint in the jungle and he and his husband Brad, have had us stay countless times (sadly, we stayed in guest rooms) and he even got us jobs as Julia Roberts’ and Tom Hanks’ stunt doubles on the film Larry Crowne.

George dropped by sulusolo however sadly he wasn’t there to share himself with us … just his congratulatory regards.

You see, buzz is building about this current catch-up project of ours in Hollywood and studios/networks are plotting to sign us any way they can! Don’t tell, but we would likely go with Netflix (unless Les is willing to give us the shared role of Probst’s on location assistants, and you know which location we will be on).

George excitedly shared what he had heard while we caught-up over a banquet of our George Takeios.

 

George Takeios_1

 

The Takeios, unlike our solo retreats to our respective bedrooms, were hot, spicy and were so tasty they make you weak at the knees. Enjoy!

Now to recalibrate the time machine to go back to Shatner’s big bash …

 

George Takeios_2

 

George Takeios
Serves: 6.

Ingredients
1 onion, diced
1 red capsicum, diced
1 green capsicum, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, sliced
A pinch of paprika
1½ tsp cumin
1 tablespoon chilli powder
500g minced beef
250ml beef stock
12 corn taco shells
Grated cheese and lettuce, to serve

Salsa
2 tomatoes, roughly chopped
Juice of ½ lime
1 shallot, finely sliced
1 tbsp coriander, roughly chopped

Guacamole
2 avocados
Juice of ½ lime
2 tbsp sour cream

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Soften the onion and capsicum in the olive oil in a large pan over a low heat. Add the garlic, paprika and cumin and cook for 1–2 minutes. Add the beef and stir until it has browned. Pour in the stock, cover and cook for 45 minutes.

Mix the tomatoes with the lime juice, shallot and coriander, then season carefully to taste.

Mash the avocados with a fork, squeeze in the lime juice, add the sour cream, season and mix it all up.

Spread the taco shells out on a baking tray and place in the oven for 3–4 minutes until crisp.

Fill the shells with the meat, salsa, guacamole, cheese and lettuce or lay everything out and let everyone help themselves.

Beaming up my Scotty

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Picture it: Tweed Heads, 2008. Annelie and I were on the run from the law (and another scandal) after being pulled over by the police/RBT cameras. Thanks to our close friendships with Bear Grylls, Christopher McCandless and Aron Ralston we were able to survive in the bush for three weeks before stumbling upon the set of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here where we met George Takei.

Seeing we were clearly in distress, George hid us from the cameras and took care of us until we were well enough to return to the world and again, go to rehab.

We have been close with George ever since and he is actually the reason we invented time-travel (he turned down all of my advances due to his husband, so I had to travel back in time for a mind blowing night on his enterprise).

George gave us a call over the weekend as he wanted to share something with us. Needless to say, I’ve got a (not-even) short list of things he will share with me and my hopes are very high.

What says thank you for your kindness, support, loyal friendship and that one wild night at Shatner’s pool party in the 70s?

Actually screw being coy, what says oh my, can you tak my ei, again?

Picture source: Unknown.

Hot Coco Austin

Drink

Let it be said and then repeated over and over again, Coco Austin is a saint.

I mean, not only did she look out for us on the cut throat dance circuit (trust me, it was way worse than Compton) but she has gifted us with the idea that, mark my words, will lead to a Tony.

Coco knew that our beautiful story from rival dancers with rival stage Momagers (Annelie was the greatest Momager I could have hoped for), through the aforementioned years when she protected us from Mary Murphy (she was Naomi Campbell to our Tyra Banks) to when Annelie introduced her to Ice and we all egged Meg Ryan’s home, was destined for the stage and knowing how talented we are as a trio, she knew that we were the only ones who could do it justice.

We have some money set aside from when Annelie and I scammed our dear friend Joan Rivers into listing us as the charity during her winning stint on Celebrity Family Feud (Ice and Coco threw the game for us), so feel the time is right to invest in our future plaudits.

We convinced her to leave that part out of the musical over a nice warm mug of Hot Coco Austin. Sadly though I have to relive the humiliation of being rejected as a Playboy model. I guess my torrid affair with Heff will make a good story though.

 

Hot Coco Austin_1

 

The key to amazing hot chocolate is cinnamon. Well actually, peanut butter is also amazing (you could remove cinnamon from the recipe and replace 1tsp peanut butter), but there is something so warmly, delightful and festive about cinnamon and chocolate.

Just don’t have it in 30° heat, or do. Get wild. Enjoy!

 

Hot Coco Austin_2

 

Hot Coco Austin
Makes: 1.

Ingredients
250(ish)ml milk
50(ish)g dark chocolate
1(ish)tsp raw sugar
generous(ish) pinch cinnamon
cream, for whippin’
extra chocolate, for gratin’

Method
Heat the milk, stirring constantly(ish), in a small saucepan over low heat.

When warm and starting to foam/bubble around the edge, remove from heat and stir in the chocolate and cinnamon until combined. Return to heat and cook for a couple(ish) minutes.

Remove from heat. Whip cream. Pour hot chocolate into a mug. Top with whipped cream and grated chocolate. Or extra cinnamon.

Also ish, obviously.

Dancing through life

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Since we have caught up with her husband Ice and neighbour Megsy Ryan in recent months, it was only appropriate that we give our old dance pal Coco Austin a buzz and see if she wanted to reminisce about the old days.

As you know, we have known Coco since our time as choreographers, when we found elite dance troupe, Jazz in your Face but we didn’t mention that Annelie is actually the one that introduced Ice and Coco.

Cokes was thrilled to get our call and is very interested in taking the story of our dance lives to Broadway. Needless to say, we all smell Tonys in our near future.

What says lets get our creative juices flowing and get the T of our respective EGOTs?

Picture source: Unknown.

Tina Souffle

Dessert, Easter Meggstravaganza

Step five is always a blessing and a curse. As Peter Parker famously said, with being a hero comes great power and great responsibility – so trying to pin down Teenz is always a tad difficult.

After we failed to befriend Amy Poehler through Adam Scott, we travelled back in time to the Delaware County Summer Showtime to befriend Tina in her (our?) younger years. It worked and thankfully, history was rewritten with the four of us being best friends (she totally got us in with Ames). Her love for us knows no bounds and she went on to write 30 Rock with Tracey Jordan and Jenna Maroney being based on us. We were also instrumental in the writing of Mean Girls, which was actually a thinly veiled attack at our less successful co-stars at the County Summer Showtime.

Tina was always keen as mustard to help us out with our blossoming careers. She got us auditions with Saturday Night Live, however Ben was overly keen to sleep his way in (even when this was explicitly not necessary). He peddled one junk-shot too many unfortunately and Lorne Michaels banished both of us from the studio, swearing our names would never be uttered on set again and rendering us the unofficial voldemorts of NBC.

Despite trashing the brilliant opportunities Tina generously found us, she still considers us two of her oldest friends. She is always willing to help out so jumped at the opportunity to help another person in dire straits – Meg Ryan and her pitiful, failing career.

tina 2

As Tina is the gold standard in entertainment, we needed the gold standard of desserts. Chocolatey and rich yet light and delicious like the lady herself, the Tina Souffle ticks all the boxes.

tina 3

Tina Souffle
Serves: 6

Ingredients
6 eggs, separated
180g dark chocolate
50ml cream
50g caster sugar
Butter and caster sugar, for ramekins

Method
Heat oven to 200C. Butter and sugar the ramekins.

Over a low heat, melt the chocolate and cream together and allow to cool slightly before whisking in six egg yolks.

Using a stand mixer, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form and slowly add caster sugar until a thick meringue forms.

Impossible Quiche Richards

Easter Meggstravaganza, Main

In amongst all the frivolity and grandeur that marking the torturous death of a religious figure brings upon us, Ben and I decided that for the good of humanity, and in line with our peyote induced visions, we would honour someone who, by divine intervention or other means, miraculously keeps on kicking.

Yes, Keith Richards is the perfect candidate for step four of our Meggstravaganza ritual.

A pal of ours since our days in the boys soprano trio (aka a barbershop quartet minus one) at Dartford Tech, Keith Richards was undeniably the talentless hack of the group. Ben and I had no choice but to force him out of the prestigious trio and lo and behold he landed directly in the arms of Mick Jagger.

Our relationship with Keith was rocky in the years that passed from the glory quartet-minus-one days. We comforted him after his survivor-esque fall from a coconut tree. We connected over the death of his father, and encouraged him to find comfort in the snorting of his ashes. Yet, he never truly forgave us for ruining the happiest days of his life at Dartford.

How is he still alive? In order to find out the secret to his longevity and give him the opportunity to piggyback off our resurgent fame and Meg’s soon-to-occur-comeback, we decided to invite Keith over for a hearty and nourishing, eggy dinner.

quiche 2

Our choice of meal was, like its namesake, a miracle of modern science – the Impossible Quiche Richards.

quiche 5

Impossible Quiche Richards
Serves: 6

Ingredients

6 eggs
300ml cream
½ cup self raising flour
¼ cup finely chopped chives
400g butternut pumpkin, diced into 1cm cubes
125g smoked ham, roughly chopped
½ cup green peas
1 ½  cups grated cheddar, divided

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line a large baking tray with greased baking paper and roast diced pumpkin for 20 minutes or until tender and golden.

Whisk together eggs, cream, flour and one cup cheese and season to taste. In the bottom of a large quiche dish, scatter half the pumpkin, ham and peas. Pour over half of egg mixture and repeat with remaining dry ingredients and remaining egg mixture. Top with cheese.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until set and golden.