“Chopped” at home

2011.06.19

Anna and I are really getting into the show Chopped as of recent – it’s a Food Network show (which is porn for fat people, as we know) that throws 4 chefs into a 3 part challenge to create meals from mystery ingredients. So you might have for the appetizer round celery, tuna fish, calf liver and some Mediterranean vegetable no one ever uses. Chefs get 30 minutes to whip that up into something people would pay top dollar for.

Frequently, while we’re watching Anna gets into berating the contestants about falling back on the same ideas every episode. “I’d totally be grabbing bacon right now.” “Just crumble it! Use it as a topping!!” And so on. So I finally said on a lark, “OK, we’re doing Chopped here at home.” She’s all into cooking and baking, so the idea intrigued her.

Yesterday I swung by Publix to pick up the mystery ingredients, trying to keep it somewhat mixed but not crazy difficult for a first go. And so, here goes the first Anna Chopped:

Appetizer

I grabbed by basket of ingredients, debated the groupings, and settled on the 4 I’d give her:

  • Peaches, fairly ripe
  • Provolone cheese, “smoke flavored” (I use the quotes gingerly)
  • Sour cream and onion Pringles
  • Pepperoni

It ain’t exactly a softball lob, but doesn’t require too much imagination to use these together.

Flatbread with provolone, pepperoni and peaches

First thing we quickly realized is the time element really makes the show hard. I took it easy on Anna and gave her 40 minutes for the appetizer (think the show gives 20) to account for kid interruptions I can’t intercept and to make sure she doesn’t cut her fingers off in the mad rush. After 40 minutes, she needed another 5 minutes to let the flat bread fully cook.

The second thing we realized is you need some chef training to come up with good names. I asked, “so what is this?” Anna replied “Flatbread” with a smile. OK, flatbread annndd…? We’re still not settled on a decent name.

To help the dish, she added prosciutto (we didn’t have bacon) and some basil from the garden. After eating it, I really liked everything together, and actually would have liked more peaches, oddly enough. But, I’m a sucker for pizza, so this was a winner on flavor front. The only thing I could criticize was the originality – flat bread seems like the go-to idea. Sounds harsh, but Ted Allen would agree.

Flavor, 5/5, presentation 3/5, creativity 2.5/5

Dessert

The flatbread was really filling, so we skipped to dessert. I modified the second group and came up with:

  • Corn chips
  • Dates (my aha!!)
  • Cream cheese
  • Honey

Again, not too hard really, and Anna can make anything given cream cheese. The result:

Custard with date pudding and cream cheese sauce in corn shell

Again, Anna wasn’t thrilled with her presentation aspect. I told her she needs to squirt green stuff on a blank white dish to surround anything she’s plating. It what I see constantly on those artsy cooking shows.

The only failing of the dish was the abundant sweetness. She added sugar to the custard part, and with the honey in the corn shell + brown sugar and the powerful sweetness of the dates in the pudding really made the dish way sweet. I ate it, it was delicious. Anna and Babcia got through a little, but not too far before stopping to avoid sugar coma.

I was feeling jaunty about the dates – I don’t really know dates well, and Anna really didn’t know what to expect with dates. But, they really made a nice topping to the whole dish. I really liked the pudding – almost like a sweet plum pudding. I suspect Anna has a predilection toward these creme-brulet cups, so it’ll be interesting to see if she is able to incorporate new containers for her future desserts.

Flavor 4.5/5, creativity 3.5/5, presentation 3.5/5

Outcome

It was damn fun, actually, and I got a dinner out of it. Anna was feeling like I was treating her by helping her cook for me. That’s a rare win / win scenario any husband would endorse. We’ll see where this goes, but it’s feeling like a good way to get Anna more acquainted with new ingredients and cooking methods.

I’m already preparing our next round. Wonder how long before I can incorporate oddball fruits from the international farmer’s market?

A Simple Christmas

2009.12.25

This is our first Christmas with a child cognizant of Santa Claus and his merry role (Elena is 3). We got a great batch of toys (over the top even, thanks to Emily and grandparents), set them up for the morning, woke the children up at 7am, and cheered them on as they tore into a haystack of wrapping paper.

After a nice breakfast with my parents, Anna and I proceeded to do nothing at all. The kids ran around with their new toys, and we simply did next to nothing. I’m continuing to do nothing. And it’s wonderful. It’s like all my childless friends like now – a blissfully free schedule with few commitments.

And this is what Christmas apparently means for parents. Two hours of kiddy madness followed by a wonderful day of nothing.

TV Chefs

2007.06.13

Recently, I’ve been trying to record more shows from our basic cable package. Being a new inductee to “parenthood”, my tastes are getting blander by the minute, leaving me to two kinds of cable shows: shows about trophy wives throwing tons of expendable income and poor taste at a house “flip” project, and shows about cooking.

Food Network has a whole cast of TV cooking personalities, but like any buffet (the only food analogy, I swear), they ain’t all created equal. You’d think it’s a pretty basic thing to show people a recipe – any idiot with a cook book should fit the bill, right?

Well, on TV, it works a little different. Sometimes, all a TV cook is good for is showing you how rich people eat, while others are good at showing you how to use more exotic ingredients in the stuff you already eat and end up with more dirty dishes when you’re done. For the uninitiated, I’ve taken the liberty of passing sweeping judgments on the major Food Network personalities.

Yes, these images are flagrantly snagged directly from Food Network’s site, and my understanding of each “chef” is sometimes brief and limited to as much as I can ascertain from the images I’ve just grabbed. Excuse me for not knowing what the hell I’m talking about.

Bobby Flay

Bobby Flay is a cocky chef who got recognized from winning Iron Chef tournaments – although don’t know what that implies exactly – and now goes toe-to-toe (or you can use some kitchen metaphor here – cause I won’t) with cooks on his “Throwdown” show. He seems like a “chef’s chef”. Don’t plan on getting a whole lot of tips on rice krispie squares from him – he’s more of a “let’s walk into a commercial kitchen and use top-grade kitcheware to craft something people pay top-dollar for” kinda TV chef.

He also seems like the kind of Chef to drop a few hundred F-bombs around sensitive old people. He just does.

Emeril Lagasse

Oh, we don’t need to cover his catch phrases. It was cute at first… OK, it was never cute, really. My Dad loves him, my mother-in-law thinks he’s stuck up. I’m sure they’re both right. The man has a Jazz band and an audience that applauds every time he uses garlic. That’s his show in a nutshell. “Today, we’re making blah-blah, and to start I’m gonna’ use some garlic…” Wild applause.

My Dad also likes garlic.

Giada De Laurentiis

Her name can break a spell checker, but it’s her smile that seems to sell. What is she smiling about now? Nothing at all – she’s Italian, she loves life, and she’s Italian. And for thirty minutes, she may cover a few meals, and twenty eight of those minutes she’ll be smiling. It’s almost hypnotic.

My thing is, she’s thin, and I don’t trust thin cooks. Something tells me she could sell a show just assembling condiments on Ritz crackers, and her ratings wouldn’t adjust.

Mario Batali

This man inspires all kinds of culinary confidence. He’s a large, red-headed Italian – a triple threat! You trust large people to know what tastes good, you trust Italians to know fine cuisine, and you trust red-heads because… well, I don’t personally trust red-heads, but I’m told most people do.

One thing with Mario – he’s mental with the blood oranges. Again, like Bobby Flay, Mario’s a “chef”, not a cook. Don’t expect an ordinary meal using ordinary ingredients. The final product always looks delicious, but it also looks like if it were served to you in a restaraunt, you’d probably have to take a loan out to pay the tab.

Rachael Ray

Rachael, Rachael, Rachael.

Yes, the “girl-next-door” of cooks (about 3 years and $300 million ago). Rachael definitely cooks for the normal person with pots from Goodwill and food that’s actually found in a normal supermarket.

She’s also incredibly hyped right now. I think part of her appeal comes from being the kind of cute that most guys can feel, maybe with the right amount of alcohol, they have a shot with her.

Yes, she’s very likeable, but insanely perky. You know, maybe that’s a good thing, but it rubs me the wrong way. It’s can be the kind of perky I want to choke after ten minutes.

Seconds. Ten seconds.

Paula Deen

I’m not sure whether to envy or feel sorry for her sons. It could either be nice working with your mom, doing relatively nothing and inheritanting a potential empire someday, or it could be maddening having your Mom, years after you’ve left your home, once again calling the shots with that sweet, controlling southern voice.

Paula Deen is basically your mom or friend’s mom, who cooks good home food, but has never had the grace of modern nutritional information. She could find a way to use a stick of butter in making a cup of coffee. The only thing her recipes are missing is a defibrillator.

The one thing that hits me watching her: if she can make millions cooking chocolate-covered cheese butter in cream sauce, why can’t every other Baby Boomer housewife in America?

Alton Brown

Alton’s got a show called “Good Eats“. Craziest thing about the show: the food is relavent, normal recipes, the untensils and ingredients are largely common in supermarkets, and as he cooks he explains all the actual chemistry and mechanics behind the food preparation and cooking process, which ends up demystifying cooking.

It’s a really basic idea, and really good. The recipe is about 4 minutes of the show, the cooking another 10, and the rest of the show is almost a science lesson in how food works. Good stuff if you’re just a normal shmoe like me who’s trying to get the basics down pat before moving on to stuffed mango capers with Brazillian lime capers in hollanaise sauce (which I entirely made-up – recipe on back).
This is just scratching the surface of TV cooks – which all seem to be white, now that I’m looking at it. Hmm. Not a whole lot of diveristy here, hunh? I think 5 of these 7 are Italian – I’m pretty sure good food comes from places outside “the boot” as well.

Well, when your watching these folks or any other cooks on the telie, just remember: 1) they love extra virgin olive oil, 2) their ovens are all gas, and 3) you never see the dirty dishes after the show. That’s because as easy as it is dazzle an audience with an elaborate, exotic dish, it’s just as easy to turn them off to it when they see the amount of dishes they’ll be cleaning immediately afterward.

Gobble Gobble!

2006.11.23

Perhaps it’s too late, but to make good for the holiday that remains, enjoy your gobble day. Remember the tradition of over-eating only comes 5 or 6 or 12 times a year, so dig in and make the most of it. And, if there are any procrastinating families who have yet to start their turkeys, here’s the key to getting it done right. All you need is 4 hours for a 12 – 16 lb turkey. So, if you start RIGHT NOW, you should be ready to dig in by 9:00pm!

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Fill a turkey pan with about an inch of Budweiser (or any beer will do), and some chopped celery and onions.
  3. Set turkey belly up into a turkey rack inside the turkey pan. Gotta’ have these two accessories to make a good turkey.
  4. Cover turkey with aluminum foil, and cook for 1 hour.at 350.
  5. Remove foil, and cook for another 40 minutes, basting with juices intermittently.
  6. Now, turn turkey over, breast facing up. Cover once more, and cook for 50 minutes.
  7. Remove foil and cook for another 40 minutes, again basting occasionally. If you notice during this last phase the turkey isn’t browning enough, punch up to the heat to 375 or 400.

Viola! (the French expression “behold”, not the stringed instrument). You have a turkey. Now get some clipart like I have, and tell all your friends that the stock photograph they see is your turkey. You’ll be instantly admirable for about 30 seconds.

Happy Thanksgiving, and hope your embarrassing family moments are memorable.