Harriet Van Horne: "Cooking is like love: it should be entered into with abandon or not at all."
So after work I had drinks and grabbed a bite to eat with a couple friends. We went to Common Grounds. I'd never been there but it was pretty good! This week we continued our process of watching every movie that has ever won an Oscars for best picture in history. Unfortunately, Netflix doesn't have Cavalcade (1933) so we skipped over it for now. We watched It Happened One Night (1934) which was pretty good, you have to love Clark Gable! Tonight, we watched another Clark Gable movie, Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). For those of you who didn't know that was based on a true story and if you haven't seen it, I'd definitely give it a shot!
Okay let's get down to business! It's Friday Night in Winslow and time for our twelfth Mystery Bag Challenge! It's Damon's turn to pick the mandatory ingredients and my turn to cook.
Recap: The rules are simple; whoever is cooking has to make dinner using each of the mystery food items that the other has put into the mystery bag. We can also use other items that we have in the fridge and pantry, but MUST use some of each item from the mystery bag, and MUST be ready to plate-up dinner before 1 hour has passed after seeing the ingredients for the first time. Last week we agreed to turn it up a notch and start thinking more outside the box for the mandatory ingredients we'd be picking for the other!
And here's what I ended up with for tonight!
Again, you might be thinking that this isn't a big challenge but I felt no creativity flowing whatsoever. I had an idea or two but nothing to kick it up a notch. I thought I could pretty easily make a stew with it, I even thought about making spaghetti and serving it over fried potatoes instead of noodle but that just sounded weird in the moment.
So, I literally paced around the kitchen for almost twenty minutes, the longest either of us has ever taken to at least get going on something, even if we hadn't figured out what we were doing 100%. I was screwed.
Sadly, I had to do it. I had to call "uncle". Once I did, Damon told me the ideas he had thought up when he was deciding on my ingredients. Wouldn't you know it, my husband, the breakfast hater, came up with breakfast ideas! I LOOOOVE breakfast food but tend to shy away from making it, along with soups, because my wonderful husband doesn't like them, and he gives me breakfast ideas.... I'm not bitter or anything :-) Just disappointed in myself for not coming up with an idea on my own. I will also just mention that I don't typically think of ground turkey meat for breakfast and I don't think many other people do either!
Anyway, while he was telling me his thoughts I went ahead and got some oil going because I wanted to test the canned potatoes to see if they would actually fry or if they would just get mushy and nasty. Turns out, if you get the oil just right and don't overcrowd the pan, those suckers will fry up quite nicely!
So, Damon was thinking of doing a breakfast burrito or a quiche. My time is dwindling quick so no time for a quiche but I thought I could pull off a frittata easy enough. I start browning up the turkey and season it with Tabasco sauce and start getting my other things together.
I went with some peppers to give it a kind of southwest flavor, thanks for the Tabasco sauce honey! I throw the veg into the turkey and stir fry it a bit and then take the pan off the heat and start stirring in my eggs.
Okay, I'm doing great on time and add the drained dice tomato, give it another stir, and I put the pan back on the heat. To ensure that my fritata is going to cook through I stir it around a couple minutes, even it out and top it with cheese, salt, and pepper and then throw it in the oven to finish. Then I get my canned potato in the dutch oven (filled with piping hot oil).
Check out that muscle.... Damon and I have been lifting weights, yeah bitch!!! Sorry, my mind is wandering.... Okay, with about seven minutes left, I begin my plating. I spread a spoonful of plain Greek yogurt across the plate and sprinkle a little tabasco sauce around. I Pull my pan out of the oven and let it rest a minute while I finish pulling my potato from the oil. I cut squares out of the fritata and place them on slightly on top of each other. Put a dollop of plain Greek yougurt in the middle, sprinkle a little shredded cheese and top with some banana peppers. Then a small pile of fried diced potato on the side. With three minutes to spare......
I was really worried when I started the challenge, and I am kinda mad at myself for not coming up with something brilliant on my own, but it is what it is. In the end, the flavors all went together really well and it was a pretty tasty dish!
A reminder of our scoring system...
being done on time = 0-1 point
dish presentation = 0-2 points
dish creativity / originality = 0-3 points
dish flavor = 0-3 points
portion size = 0-1 point.
We did our scoring and in the end, I ended up with an average of 8.5 points. Damon and I both counted myself off for creativity!
Damon = 51.5, Christina = 50.5, and that keeps Damon in the lead!
Next week is Damon's turn to cook and my turn to turn up the heat on this challenge!
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