Restaurant Impossible!

By now you have probably heard that the television show Restaurant Impossible was in our area some time ago, at a small place out in Corry called Michelles. Being the fans of the show and of chef Robert Irvine, the wife and I were excited to visit this quaint little restaurant out on Route 6. The week before the show aired, we made the drive out there to give the place a try. Unfortunately we will not be making the drive again.
Michelle's new decor is pretty nice, but not really among the best makeovers I have seen on the show. It is cozy enough I guess, and seemed clean, but the colors were not really my taste.
Given the recent visit of one of the bigger Food Network starts, I had expected that on a Friday night the place would be packed. I was wrong about that. When we walked in, there were only two tables taken. This should have been a sign. We were seated quickly enough, and the girl that was waiting on us was polite and courteous, and took our drink orders quickly. While waiting for the drinks to arrived we looked over the menu and decided on what we wanted to try. As anyone that watches the show would expect, Michelle's now has a fairly streamlined menu, so for appetizers I decided to order the Shrimp Corn Dogs, and the wife got the stuffed mushrooms. In Fairness and to let you know that the entire night was not a bad experience, the appetizers were delicious. The soup of the day that day was a beef barley soup, and since I had never had beef barley soup, I felt compelled to give it a try. I am very happy that I did, as it was fantastic. Additionally, the basket of bread that was served with the appetizers was very good.
For dinner, we both ordered the prime rib. I ordered an end cut as that is my favorite part, but first the waitress had to check if they could do that (never had that happen before). When she said they could I placed my order for the end cut cooked medium-rare, as did the wife. We both love prime rib and always order it medium-rare, which means a warm, red center. That was not what we got. The prime rib we were served was cooked to a light pink almost brown center, and it was dry. The wife actually sent hers back. The next piece that came out to replace it was the same. Another problem aside from being overcooked was that there was a serious lack of seasoning. Some places like the Outback have a tendency to over season their prime rib, but this literally had little to no flavor. I did not know it was even possible to make a bland prime rib, but this was.
Oddly, the best part of the dinner portion was the baked potato. They actually season those, and they had an unusual, but very nice flavor that I have never experienced in a potato.
After finishing dinner we spoke for a while with the owner, Michelle, and she told us that the prime rib was cooked the way chef Irvine taught them (or maybe she was just referring to the au jus), and I had a hard time believing that. Additionally she did let slip that she was doing the cooking. If you did manage to catch the show, one of the changes that was made was they hired a chef for the restaurant. Well, apparently, that chef is no longer there. Michelle also said on the show that she was not a very good cook. Judging by the prime rib she served us, I would have to say that has not changed.
When considering all of these things, our overall experience at Michelle's in Corry was a disappointment. So many restaurants left to try though.

Take the time to brine

My apologies to you my readers for not posting these past few weeks. Time and money have both been short so we have been relatively frugal with our meals, and I have just not had much time to sit and write. But we are over that bump in the road so, back to some interesting cooking tips.
One day last week we had planned grilled chicken, and while I have never had a problem grilling chicken, I have seen on several cooking shows people brining their chicken. Essentially, what i have gathered, is this; a brine is made up of water, salt, an acid of some sort, and whatever spices you want to impart into your chicken. Now, I am not a chemist or biologist, but from what I gather, soakign the chicken is a salty or acidic liquid causes the flavors you are trying to impart into your meat to actually diffuse into the meat because the outside liquid is more acidic or salty that the liquid inside. So I took a large pot, cleaned my chicken and placed it inside the pot and covered it with water. The next ingredient is sea salt, and quite a bit of it. I probably used 1/2 cup both times I have done this now. On my first attempt with this technique I used white vinegar in the brine for my acid, and I also added some garlic and onion salt. I allowed the chicken (a 10 lb bag of leg quarters) to sit in this bath for about 5 hours before cooking. I grilled the chicken as I always grill chicken, and I can assure you what we wound up with was the most juicy, best tasting chicken I have ever made. IT really was delicious, at least the parts that were edible. I am not very good at getting theleg quarters done all the way through, and some were still pink. Otherwise, brining was a success.
The next time I did it, we had boneless skinless breasts. The brine in this case had some lemon juice for the acid and I also included a healthy dose of italian seasoning as the chicken was meant to pair with some pasta Alfredo. This time the chicken sat in the brine for a good 6 hours. The results were very similar, The meat was tender and juicy and the flavor throughout the chicken was just delightful. There were no leftovers.
So whatever the science, brining is an excellent way to get more flavor into your meat and prevent it from drying out.

Poor Punkin!

Today is the wife's last day off of work, she goes back tomorrow. In honor of that momentous occasion that she is looking forward to so much, it was her turn for a chopped basket, and after the basket I got on Friday, it was definitely payback time. Originally I had planned on hitting her with Fillo dough, but i chose to forego that because there is a certain amount of preparation involved there that just is not workable with our current game format. So she got Pillsbury pizza crust (thin crust), southern style hash brown potatoes, leeks, and 72% cacao dark chocolate. To put it mildly, it was not her day in the kitchen, or anywhere else for that matter. We went to the store to gather her ingredients. While there a lovely gentleman put on a display of these solid stainless surgical steel knives with a lifetime warranty. We bought a set. The guy used one of the knives to cut the head of a hammer, and then cut a tomato. I was sold right there.So we leave the store with all of these goodies, and the new set of knives. As we are loading the car she realizes she forgot fresh parsley...or cilantro. Back in we go, pick those up and back home.

Steak Fajita hash with mole sauce and cheese sticks.

Once home, I helped her get the kitchen all ready to go for her and we go watch an episode of "Triple D". At right about 4, she say she is ready to go and time starts. From there, things kind of went a little awry. About 10 minutes in she found out just how sharp the new knives were, when she reached for something and hit the knife on a mixing bowl. The knife bounced back and cut her finger. The added fun in that is she had been working with hot peppers and had the juice all over her hands. After about 20 minutes, the bleeding stopped and she returned to the kitchen. After several other setbacks, some extra time, and a complete revision of her plan in the middle, we wound up with a very good dinner, the preparation of which I will leave for her to describe. Sadly, she could not even eat it with us at dinner time. Poor Punkin.

Irish Cousins kitchen returns!

I am a little bit behind the times with this post, but here is the news: A few months back Irish Cousins got some new owners, and the new owners decided to bring the kitchen back. The wife and I spend a fair amount of our Saturday nights there singing karaoke (usually pretty well, I might add) with DJ Josh Walters and whatever friends or family happen to show up there. In addition to that, the new owners are in the process of renovating the old corner bar.
Enough about that, let's talk food. Two weeks ago was the first chance I had to sample their food, when we were enjoying some barley sodas and singing our hearts out. The wife decided she was hungry and ordered an antipasto. Holy salad, Batman! It was perhaps the largest bowl of salad I have ever seen. Easily large enough to share. All of the ingredients were crisp and fresh. The red wine vinagrette was a wonderful complement to the meats, cheese and other standard Antipasto components. So 1 good experience. The next time we were there, I ordered their three meat Calzone, I believe the price for that was $10.79. This item is definitely too large for any one person to eat (please do not think I mean that as a bad thing), so if you order this plan to share. It had a wonderful golden crust that was perfectly cooked. The wife thought the sauce was sweet, but I liked it. So there is number 2. Last night, after having eaten early at the graduation party, I realized I was hungry, so I looked over the menu again, and settled on their Guiness Brat. Beer brats are easily towards the top of my list of favorite foods, and Cousins serves their's with a combination of Red cabbage and sauerkraut. It arrived at the table in a basket with a nice sized portion of french fries. The fries were a lovely golden brown color, and while not quite crispy, they had a very nice texture inside and great potato flavor. The Brat on the other hand was nothing short of perfection. the red cabbage - saurkraut mixture was to die for. I am not sure how they prepare the red cabbage, but it was much like sauerkraut, only sweet. When combined with the tanginess of the saurkraut, well that just heightened the senses even more. The Brat itself which is apparently cooked in Guiness with onions, peppers, and cayenne had a nice dark outside, was cooked perfectly through and had a bit of a back end heat to it. It was served on one of the best buns I have had this side of Philadelphia. So if you find yourself in the Lawrence Park area late on a saturday night, or need lunch after a late saturday night of singing and drinking, or any other time, give Irish Cousins a try, They are a three time winner in my book!

On a footnote here, Josh shared a piece of his greek dog pizza with me, and I wish I had ordered that. In the future I will be putting one of those in my face. Pizza crust with greek sauce sliced Smith's hot dogs, and cheddar cheese over top. It was so good it made me mad. WTG Cousins!

Congrats to the graduate!

First things first...Congratulations! You are now a graduate and I am sure the future holds wonderful things for you! I am not using your name here, because there are on occasion some weirdos out here on the internet, but you know who you are.
Second, Thank you to those that commented on this little hobby of mine today. I was actually somewhat surprised that anyone was actually reading this. I appreciate the encouragement and since I know you are out there I will definitely try to be more diligent about updating.
Additionally please feel free to share your own adventures and comments, and if you can figure out how to follow this blog, that would be awesome!

OMG! Really?

Ok so now that I am through catching up over the past week, tonight was my turn for a basket again. Dear spouse and children, Not funny! I get my basket today and the ingredients are as follows: A giant spiral sliced ham (one of my favorite things), Shiner Bock beer (another of my favorite things), Kale (WTF?) and ...Triple Berry Newtons (you know, like fig newtons but with berries instead of figs). I stared at the ingredients at a complete loss as to how to make any of them work together. First thought? Ham sandwich with kale chips and a glass of beer and Newtons for dessert. But, no, alas I will rack my brain and figure out some way to actually cook with these things. On the way out the door I am thinking breakfast for dinner, ham, eggs, some kind of berry newton french toast? Would that even work? We get to the store, and after a haircut for the wife and I (she said I got extra time to think, but I actually was not thinking about the basket at all) We begin the shopping. I am still at this point thinking breakfast and wandering aimlessly trying to figure out what to do when I find myself standing in front of sliced turkey breast when the clouds part and a ray of sunlight shines down and all things become clear to me. A few months ago a new restaurant opened in our town called Cheddar's and they serve a Monte Cristo sandwich, however instead of maple syrup on the side they serve theirs with raspberry preserves on the side. Inspired by this I made this sandwich at home a few months ago and it was a hit. I pick up the turkey, Swiss cheese from the deli counter, Sourdough bread from the bakery, some strawberry-blackberry preserves (thank you Smuckers), and I have a plan. I also grab potatoes, and red beets for a side dish that has also just dawned on me. I complete the shopping trip with some fresh blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. The menu played out like this:
Beer battered Monte Cristo
Homemade potato, beet and kale chips
Triple berry custard crisp
At 3:30 I begin prepping the kitchen for the challenge of cooking all of this in 1 hour. It is at this point that everything begins going wrong. Part of the food processor is missing. I go looking for it everywhere, and wouldn't you know it, it is in the last place that I look. Know why? Because once I found it I stopped looking. Then I pull out the deep fryer, excited to use it for only the second time in the 5 or 6 years we have owned it. It is filthy. It was never cleaned after the last time it was used, So i have to break it down into all of its components and scrub it down. Just as I finish that, I realize I have no idea where the cord for it is. I still don't. So, I have to deep fry the old fashioned way, in pots on the stove. Good times!
Finally at 4:41 I begin my cooking time which is supposed to be an hour. I will save you the nail biting and tell you now I did not finish in time. Not really even close. Not much went right in the kitchen today. Really it was all of the deep frying that did me in. Part of that may have been that i was using Canola oil which I do not think is real ideal for deep frying, and the other part I think is that the stove is just not as good as a deep fryer.
Anyway the first thing I did was begin the crisp, because I had to bake it, so it had to go in first. I got oil on the stove heating up then got my berries into the baking dish. 2 pints of raspberries, 1 pint of blueberries, and 1 pint of blackberries. I sprinkled one cup of Splenda sugar substitute (you may recall the wife is watching what she eats) 3 eggs, and 3/4 cups of milk. I mix it all thoroughly and throw it into the oven at 375, and set the timer for 20 minutes. 1 whole carton of newtons get obliterated in the food processor. Into a mixing bowl they go, and I add about 2 cups of oatmeal. My youngest son was "assisting" me today, playing Sous Chef, and I ask him to melt some butter for me, which he does, and then he dumps it all into my crumble/crisp. I am mixing it with my hands and I realize it is way to moist, so I add more oatmeal, some flour...time is ticking here. Eventually I just drop gobs of this oatmeal newton cement mixture onto the berries and hop for the best, throw it back in the oven thinking 15 more minutes and that will be done. I forgot to set the timer here though...
Between the berries going in and the crumble debacle, I slice beets on the mandolin, or at least on the little $10 mandolin gadget we picked up today that is like a mandolin and I am putting those into the first pot of oil to make my beet chips. A lot of color comes out of the beets into the oil and I realize I should have done the potatoes first because now the oil will discolor the potatoes. So I grab another pot and put oil in it and get it heating. After twenty minutes sitting in hot oil, the beets are still not crisp or even browning. At about 25 minutes I take them out anyway, thinking maybe they will crisp up while they drain, so I remove them from the oil onto paper towels to drain. I drop my first potatoes into the other pot at about the same time, then the second batch of beets go in. The oil erupts when they go in this time which I take to be a good sign. Then the crumble. You will recall, I still have to pull off a beer battered sandwich at some point here too.
I made my batter with 6 eggs, 2 cups of flour, and one bottle of beer whisked together. I then whisked in about 2 tablespoons of cinnamon. That may sound like an odd combination, but a traditional Monte Cristo is made with French Toast. I threw some butter into a large skillet, then took two slices of sourdough, put a slice of the ham, a slice of turkey, and two slices of baby swiss in between and then dipped the whole sandwich into the batter then onto the skillet. In a small saucepan I put some of the strawberry-blackberry preserves and heated that up, adding just enough water to melt the preserves into a berry syrup to dip the sandwich into.
The end result, the first meal was plated at about 6:05, and the last was closer to 6:30. The overall presentation looked nice as you will see in the picture. The sandwich was amazing, although very rich and heavy. The chips looked nice, although some of the kale chips got over done which is actually kind of interesting because once they turn brown they will just about disintegrate in your fingers, but the later batches I took out quicker while still green and the girls loved them. The beet chips never really crisped up, but the sweet of the beets with the sea salt ground over them was fantastic, and the potato chips were also wonderful, although varied in crispness from batch to batch. The most amazing part, the triple berry crisp that I forgot about did not burn, and was wonderfully tart, I just wish I had remembered to buy vanilla ice cream.

Lizzie's basket

Chopped basket number 4 in our house went to the daughter unit. We gave her boneless pork loin chops, Cheez-it crackers, Dr. Pepper, and brown rice. While I am not 100 percent clear on the cooking process, I will leave it to her to elaborate if she chooses, she made us Cheez-it breaded pork chops with a spicy Dr. Pepper sauce, cheesy rice and a tossed salad with cheez-its for croutons. She also made blueberry smoothies (don't tell her, but I hate smoothies). Overall it was a success. The Cheez-its on the salad were actually delish! The pork chops were good as well, although, some were a little underdone, but considering it was the first time she has ever cooked pork chops, I would say she did well. Awesome Job Liz!

Dirty Rice!

In recent years I have learned that on occasion I am a fan of Cajun cuisine. Not all Cajun cuisine, but some of it works for me. Jambalaya for one...I love it. Sadly the spouse is not as fond of it as I. I have never tried Gumbo, someday I will get up the gumption to try it (get it? Gumbo/gumption? ok nvm back to the story.) but for me the big turnoff is the okra. I cannot really explain it, but okra just makes me gag. just thnking of it really makes me a little icky. But I digress. Last week, as we got towards the end of our monthly fundage, we needed to make use of a couple of pounds of ground round in the freezer. I remember having the Army's version of dirty rice a time or two and I always kind of liked it, a nice simple hearty meal. For those that have never had it, it really boils down to this (oh look! another food pun) rice with onions garlic peppers and ground beef. So off to the store I went armed with the knowledge that we literally had beans to get by on for the week, So I bought a bag of brown rice, some poblanos (have I mentioned before how wonderful poblanos are?) and some lovely concentrated soup base made by Knorr which came in a nice 4 pack for under $4.00. Home I went excited by how thrifty I had been at the store and ready to do some serious grubbing. Upon arrival at our domocile I gathered my ingredients as follows:

2 lbs Ground Round (80/20)
Garlic of course, I use quite a lot, but for this i used minced garlic from a jar.
1 Spanish onion (love Vidalias, but I did not want a really sweet onion for this)
2 Poblano peppers (ask for them by name)
Approximately 2 tbsp of olive oil (I never measure the oil in the pan)
2 of the small cups of that lovely Knorr beef soup base or concentrated broth...I will look it up and post it later
4 cups of water
4 cups of brown rice

So the actual preparation of the dish is fairly simple. First into the pan with some olive oil and get it heating. Chop your vegetables to your liking, but in dirty rice, at least any that I have ever eaten, they are fairly finely chopped, which is what I did. Onion and garlic always go in first, as they take the longest to really sweat out the flavors you want. While they are sweating in the pan you can dice up the poblanos. Hint: When using poblanos, if you remove the seeds and the placenta (the lighter green ribs inside) you will get a more mild flavor, leaving the seeds and placenta will result in more heat. When the onions begin to brown some stir in the peppers. This is also the appropriate time to add some salt, black pepper, white pepper and either crushed or ground red pepper to the mix. Do not be afraid to taste your cooking and adjust as needed. Also remember at this point, you want some strong flavors because the beef and the rice will be absorbing it as we progress from here. Once the peppers are tender, add the beef and brown it right in with the vegetables. Some people would choose to remove the veggies before browning the meat, but you want all of that flaver to get into the beef as it cooks. Now comes a dilemma, Drain the meat or not? Well for me, no. The grease, while it is of course not real healthy, now contains a lot of flavor, and you lose some of it if you drain it off, but if you are a health nut, on a diet, or just bothered by somewhat greasy food, by all means drain it away. At this point, add the beef soup base, all of the rice and water, and mix well. bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover it and heed my words here...leave it alone for the next 50 minutes. I was very worried that with my pans it would burn so after about 35 minutes I opened it. The result was my rice was a tad underdone. Set the heat to low and trust that it will work out and leave it be for the 50 minutes.
Please bear in mind that this is not minute rice, but whole grain brown rice. Trust me, it is better.
The end result, aside from the slightly underdone rice was a delicious meal that did not cost us more than $10 and fed our whole family with plenty left for lunch the day after.

The kid wants to play too!

So after the wife and I had fairly successful bouts of chopped! at home, The older two kids informed us that they would like to play too. I must admit I was a little nervous about having to eat something one of my children cooked, but I was outvoted and they were allowed into the "competition". The oldest got his first basket, and the ingredients were flank steak, fresh pasta (linguini), whiskey and rainier cherries. Since he recently turned 21 we thought he would enjoy the whiskey part. I have asked him to post on here and explain his undertaking, but he assures me that will not happen. Suffice it to say I was pleasantly surprised by the flavors he was actually able to develop. He made the linguini and a nice tomato based sauce that had the rainier cherries and whiskey in it, but neither of them overpowered the sauce and he cut the flank steak into strips and added it to the sauce. Our only real critique was the flank steak was a little tough, as flank steak will be in most preparations. He also prepared us a libation on the side using cola flavored vodka and the cherries, which tasted a lot like a flat cherry coke. All in all a nice surprise. Good job Son!

Last night's disaster...

So last night I tried to recreate a smashing success i had making homemade mac and cheese. It was a disaster. The first time I had a wonderful creamy cheese sauce, and last night I tried to make it again but using all non-fat ingredients. While it did taste pretty good, it had a weird gritty consistency which was just not at all pleasant. I am not sure how or why this was the case, all I can think is that because all of the ingredients were fat free the lack of fat caused the grittiness. That or I overcooked the roux. The grilled Italian sausage was delish though, so at least we did not go hungry.
I have also decided that I will also be including trips to various restaurants in my blog, so for those of you that live in or near Erie, you will get the average guy's opinion of local eateries as well as my own successes and failures in the kitchen. I believe our first stop will be Ricardo's on East Lake Rd. here in Erie. I have been driving by it for years but never stopped in, so we will be visiting it next payday! That is all for now! See you soon!

Something Fishy

Sunday while watching "Triple D" and seeing several fish dishes my wife says to me, "I have a challenge for you. Make some fish that I will actually like." God love her, Karyn hates seafood. Somehow I have always managed to bring women into my life that hate seafood. I forgot to add that line in the screening questionaire. So for the most part of my married life, I do not get to have seafood.
Karyn also loves southwest/Tex-Mex/Mexican foods. So here are the things I knew going in. I needed a mild fish, and some kind of southwest flavors to pull this off. My first plan was to make tuna steaks. To go with it, I decided I wanted to try polenta, and serve it all with a salsa. I found inspiration on the internet in a recipe for pan seared tuna steaks, polents and an avocado mousse. After work on Monday afternoon I headed off to the local grocery store made my way back to the seafood counter, and had a mild stroke. Tuna steaks $19.99 a pound! Really? Filet is not even that much, even for the certified Black Angus.
I scan the counter, and Talapia is only 6.99 a pound, but we have not had luck with talapia in the past. besides I really wanted something a bit more meaty, my exeprience with Talapia is that it falls apart and is very light and flaky with such a mild taste, it really has no taste at all, just what you cook it with.
Finally after scanning the rather small selection of over priced fish I settled on fresh cod fillets which were large, meaty white fish goodness, for 12.99. Oddly, swordfish steaks were only 9.99, and if I were to do it again I would get those, just because I love swordfish.
Another product that I discovered I like a lot when Karyn did her basket was these Kellogg's cornflake crumbs. So i got some of those for a breading. I was concerned because while I knew cod to be a mild fish, I have never seen cod served without a breading, so I felt like I needed to bread it.
Next was the polenta. I found the ground corn meal and got some fat free cheddar cheese, as well as fat free sour cream. I also picked up a nice mango lime salsa to flavor both the fish and the polenta.
Now for those that have never eaten polenta, it is not grits, but winds up being so similar it might as well be. Polenta is made by boiling cornmeal until it turns into mortar which in my case was in about 2.3 seconds. The recipe I had said to "using your left hand whisk the boiling water while pouring the corn meal into the water slowly". With my left hand? Really? I happen to be very right hand dominant. So much so that I am not sure why I was given a left hand. It then went on to say continue boiling and whisking until all of the water was soaked up, as I said that happened right about the time I finished pouring the meal in. Wow it was thick. really thick. If you have ever seen the mortar they use to lay bricks...like that.
Back to the fish. I chose to do a marinade with soy sauce and brown sugar in equal portions, with salt, pepper, cumin and ginger. After the marinade I seasoned flour with salt pepper and cumin, made an egg wash (milk and eggs) and then completed my breading station with the corn flake crumbs. I took out the enormous cast iron skillet I bought for Karyn last Christmas and got it heating with some olive oil, breaded my first huge piece of cod. Into the pan it went and good things were happening. After about 4 minutes it was time to turn my first pieces, and this is where things first started to go wrong. The first piece turned ok, but the second kind of fell apart. Did I overcook it? maybe. As I have said before we do not do fish a lot. So I decided for the rest of the fillets to cut them into spatula sized pieces and bread them to prevent that problem. The smaller pieces worked out and I was able to serve some very nice looking pieces of fish. The breading did not stick to the fish very well though and began falling off some when removed from the pan and plating, which was unfortunate.
The final plating: I took a spoon full of the polenta/cheddar cheese mixture on the plate, topped it with the lime-mango salsa and a dollop of sour cream. I rested a nice piece of fish against the polenta, and to the side of that the avocado mousse which was simply avocado blended into plain greek togurt with salt and pepper. It was not the prettiest plate, but also not ugly, the colors from the polenta, avocado mousse and salsa were very bright and vibrant with the fish. The best part? I made a fish that my fish haters loved. Maybe next time i can get the breading to stick better or maybe skip the breading completely!

Round Two!

The second round of Chopped! in our house was Karyn's turn. I had so much fun doing my basket I could not wait for two weeks as we had originally agreed so I went and get the stuf for her basket the day after mine. I wanted to get stuff that did not naturally pair well to see how creative she could be. What she wound up getting was:

Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
Graham Crackers
Raspberry All-Fruit
Soy Sauce

I figured these would be an odd mix of ingredients. She took it in stride and off to the store we went. I will let her share the rest, but all I can say is wow!

Chopped! Round One

So, for my first article, I want to share the weekend we had. Karyn and I have recently become quasi obsessed with the show Chopped! on the Food Network. We decided we would go about implementing our own Chopped! challenges in our home, although with some slight modifications. The modifications are necessary because we do not have the pantry they have at their disposal (if you see the show you will know what I mean), and we do not have a kitchen with 2 ovens and a massive 6 burner range. So the actual cooking would be next to impossible in the home.
Here is how we changed it:

1) After receiving your basket we go right out the door to the local grocery store. We have 30 minutes in the grocery store to buy all of the ingredients we will need to complete our meal.
2) there is only one round, or goal and that is to make dinner with the ingredients in the basket, no appetizer - entree - dessert round.
3) you have one hour to cook the meal, from beginning to end. Set up is allowed, in that you can get water boiling if needed (they have that on the show) you can get bowls, pans, utensils and so on out, but as soon as you handle the food, time starts.

Now, you might think having watched the show that an hour is a long time. I assure you it is not, and having completed one basket each we can attest to how amazing it is that the chefs on the show make anything in 30 minutes.

Now, round 1 was my challenge and it went like this. I opened my bag and found the following:
Ground Bison
Lime Juice
Whole Milk Mozzerella
Avocados
Sweet and Sour Pickled Beets

My trip to the store, my purchases were Vigo Yellow Rice (love it!) pablano peppers, a spanish onion, and whole grain tortillas.

Now, there is an additional challenge here because, due to my wife's diet, I have to try to keep everything as low fat, low carb as I can while still delivering the protein.

The final result of my basket was a Bison Taco with a sweet and sour pickled beet salsa, homemade guacamole, and a mexican take on a caprese salad served in an avocado shell with lime balsamic dressing.

Taco meat:
3 lbs of ground bison
1/2 Spanish onion
3 tbsp minced garlic
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Ground Cumin

Place about 1/4 cup olive oil into a large skillet. Heat until it starts to smoke. Add in onion and garlic and saute until they start to get nice and brown. Add in Bison, and seasonings, to your taste, chop up as fine as possible while browning. *Note: The bison is a very lean meat, so there is not a lot of grease or liquid and alone it can be dry. It was my intention to make a lime/greek yogurt sauce for the tacos to combat this, but time did not allow. They were delicious anyway. You could certainly use this same preparation for any meat and it would be just as good.

The Salsa:
~ 20 Sweet and sour pickled beets (from our Giant Eagle, I am not sure where else you could get them)
2 pablano peppers, chopped
1/2 spanish onion, coarsely chopped
6 Garlic cloves, chopped
Olive oil
Lime juice
3 tbsp Fresh Cilantro, chopped
Cumin
Salt and pepper to taste

For this salsa, heat a skillet with olive oil, then add the onions, garlic and pablano. They should just start to turn brown before removing from heat. Pour into a good sized mixing bowl. Dice the pickled beets and mix into the onion/garlic/pepper mixture. Splash lime juice over the mixture and stir. Add the chopped cilantro, some cumin, salt and pepper to taste. The color of this salsa is amazing, and the beets makeup for the lack of tomatoes with their sweetness and tang from the pickling. Everyone in my house loved this salsa even the youngest that will not eat veggies. Served on the taco the flavor was just perfect.

The Guac:
3 avocados peeled, pitted and sliced or diced, does not matter they will be mashed anyway.
Lime Juice
Dried Cilantro
Olive oil
Ground cumin

Nothing special here, mash the avocado, sprinkle with lime juice (about 2 tbsp), salt, cumin, and pepper and about 1 tsp chopped dried cilantro. Mix well. Add Olive oil to improve the consistency of the Guacamole, I used about 2 tsp. What I will say is I will never buy Guac again, Homemade is light years better, and fairly cheap to make in comparison to store bought.

Mexican spin on Caprese Salad
Avocado peels (from Guac) for plating.
1 lb of Heirloom grape and cherry tomatoes
Whole milk Mozzerella (about 1/4 to 1/2 lb will do)
Lime Vinagrette dressing (store bought, kind of a copout on my part, but time constraints made anything else impossible)
Fresh Cilantro

Caprese Salad is an italien thing, and as you can see in the picture above a beautiful dish. I wanted to keep the pretty colors while using my ingredients, so this is how I made it. Cut 1 Handful (7 or 8) of the grape tomatoes in half. Cut an equal number of roughly 1/2 inch cubes of the mozzerella (about 16 cubes for the mathematically challenged, balance is important.) Mix the tomatoes and cheese cubes together and place in the avocado shell. Drizzle lightly with the lime vinagrette (normally a Caprese is drizzled with balsamic, but I chose the lime to go with the overall theme of the meal). Coarsely chop some of the fresh cilantro (A real Caprese would have basil leaves) and sprinkle on the salad and serve.

So assembling the tacos went like this, a nice sized spoon of the meat in the middle of the tortilla, followed by a spoon of the red beet salsa, a swish of the guacamole and some of the mozzerella shredded right onto the taco. I will admit that the Mozzerella was a bit lost in the taco, but I think it was made up for in the Caprese, which also went on the plate next to the taco and rice.

The whole meal was served with a helping of yellow rice, not because it needed it, but in our house we do like to have a starch with our dinner.

Next Post: Karyn's First basket!

Welcome!

Welcome Welcome Welcome!
I am an average guy who believes a man's place can be in the kitchen too. Women, god love them have been tied to home cooking for too long. Does anyone else think it odd that women are expected to cook in the home, but more chefs are men? We can cook, and we should cook to relieve our loved ones once in a while. Pull our weight so to speak. Recently I have found a renewed passion for cooking in the kitchen, on the grill and anywhere else I can. Here on this blog I will share my adventures and my wife's as well as we travel this strange road called life! So tell all your friends, come hang out, and share your adventures as well!

E. J.