August 1st, 2014

The West Wing's, President Bartlet:  "You know what we're starting with tonight?"
Josh Lyman: "No, Sir."
President Bartlet: "Hot pumpkin soup with cheese gnocchi and a chevre brioche."
Josh Lyman: "Was anything you just said food?"

We're heading out to Tulsa tomorrow for dinner with Damon's parents and for my brother's belated birthday celebration so tonight we're pretty much just hanging out and getting ready for our little road trip.  We made some dinner, homemade pizza with salad.

and watched some more of our Criminal Minds marathon, we're just about to finish up season 4 and the show is still just as addictive as it was when we started it!!!

Anyway, you all should know by now that we really like to cook, we're also into a lot of cooking show competitions.  Master Chef, Hell's Kitchen, and I recently started watching Cutthroat Kitchen and Chopped.  So, we got to thinking that it might be fun to do our own little cooking challenge!  We don't want to start out being as mean as Cutthroat Kitchen is to their chefs, and make the other person cook with the worlds smallest pan or something like that, so we're opting for our very own mystery box challenge!

Tonight, we set up our  ground rules.  Next week will be the first time and Damon's up first.  I'm going to pick four ingredients that he HAS TO USE in his dish, one protein, one starch, and two wildcard items, and he will still have full access to our kitchen and pantry.  For example, if I give Damon pasta as the starch in his mystery box, he can't switch it out for rice, but he could add an additional starch or protein if he's so inclined.   

If we find that's too easy, we'll crank it up a notch, maybe a bigger mystery box and you can only use what's in it?

This should be fun!!!

                                Goodnight Winslow!