November 21st, 2014

Lewis Black: "All food is comfort food.  Maybe I just like to chew."

So we're still on our process of watching every movie that has ever won an Oscars for best picture.  We watched Hamlet (1948) and I love Shakespeare but my God that movie was pretty slow.  Probably worse to read though I'm sure.  Next we watched All the Kings Men (1949), I know they made a remake and I remember liking it but again, this movie was pretty slow!  Still they are classics and Oscar winners, you should give them a try! 

Oh and it was a particularly cloudy day today... I say cloudy because we live at about 2,000 feet elevation, so this stuff isn't fog, it's actual clouds!

Okay let's get down to business!  It's Friday Night in Winslow and time for our fifteenth Mystery Bag Challenge!  It's my turn to pick the mandatory ingredients and Damon's turn to cook.  I had a few drinks last night and pulled my protein, little smokies, from the deep freeze.  I didn't think through anything, I just pulled them so I wouldn't forget to get something out in the morning.  Today was my last day of work before I go on vacation for a full week so I've been a little all over the place!

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.  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 Damon ended up with for tonight!

Little smokies, shredded cheese, green onion, and Serrano peppers. I thought I was totally screwing him with the protein so I felt like I should go a little easier on him with the additional ingredients. Maybe I'm crazy but little smokies aren't usually a main dish so I didn't want to be too hard on him.

I look down and start typing and by the time I look back up again, Damon has all kinds of stuff out of the fridge and pantry.  Green beans, Feta cheese, half & half (which we basically use for any milk source), salsa, Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, flour, butter, and pasta, oh my! 

Okay, Damon seems to have made up his mind pretty quickly!  He's going with a penne pasta, cheese, peppers, and little smokie casserole, topped with toasted bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese.  On the side he's doing a green bean dish with red onion and pepper flake, and he is going to serve all of that with a toasted croissant on the side.  I cannot wait!!  My first thought was making school cafeteria food upscale; tell me you remember getting the macaroni and cheese with little smokies on top, I thought they were awesome but maybe that's just me. Macaroni and cheese has to be my absolute favorite food!

 

Damon is making his cheese sauce from scratch, using butter, flour, half and half, and shredded cheese. he's got his pasta in to boil, his pepper diced for the cheese sauce and his little smokies chopped! 

Damon is doing awesome, I'm starting to smell the smokies and the cheese and he's still got over twenty minutes to go.  Now he's pacing the floor about his plating, how to make a casserole look nice on a plate.......

Damon has just over fifteen minutes to go, his base sauce is almost to a boil so he's taking it off the heat and is adding in his cheese and diced peppers.  It's coming together nicely, cheese, cheese, cheese, and more cheese, what could possibly go wrong?  The pasta is done and he's getting ready to put everything in the baking dish.  The penne pasta, the little smokies, the cheese sauce all get mixed together and put into the casserole dish, then he tops it off with panko bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, and just a touch of some left over feta cheese crumbles, and throws it in the oven. He's finishing off his green beans, which he added some bacon bits to and he's prepping his plates.  He checks the oven and decides to go from 450 degrees to hi broil to get some brown on top of his casserole.  He pulls the casserole out at just over six minutes to let it rest and set-up a minute.  He puts his crusants into the toaster and he's got four minutes to go! 

And there it is, my dinner served to me with the timer going off!

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, Damon ended up with a perfect 10 points.  Damon did great, everything tasted great and looked great too!  I so want seconds but turkey day is coming up so I need to do my dieting beforehand!

Damon = 70.5, Christina = 60.5, and that puts Damon back in the lead, damn.....

Now that were done with dinner, we're off to watch one more best picture movie, All About Eve (1950).  This ones got Betty Davis, so I'm expecting a little more out of it, here's hoping!!  I'm so glad I'm on vacation and so happy that in a few days it's Thanksgiving, bring me the turkey, the stuffing, mashed potatoes, homemade (by me) rolls and biscuits, and most importantly, the pumpkin pie!  I cannot wait!!!

Next week I think we'll take a little break since we will likely be in food coma's from Thanksgiving!