J.R.R Tolkien: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song, above horded gold, it would be a merrier world!"
It's Friday Night in Winslow and time for our third Mystery Bag Challenge! It's my turn to pick the four mandatory ingredients and Damon's turn to cook.
So after watching a few more episodes of Criminal Minds on dvd, and having a good sturdy shot of Crown (because I had one hell of a crazy week), Damon gets to open his mystery bag!
Recap: The rules are simple; Damon has to make dinner using each of the 4 mystery food items that I put into his mystery bag. He can also use other items that we have in the fridge and pantry, but he 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 his ingredients for the first time.
A pound of ground turkey meat, a bag of russet potatoes, a yellow onion, and Worcestershire sauce.
Take a minute and think about what you would make for dinner with those ingredients?
Honestly, I felt like I might be really screwing him with such basic ingredients... We always try to use ground turkey instead of ground beef in recipes when we can, just because ground turkey has almost no fat at all in it, and it also costs about a dollar less per pound compared to ground beef, but there really aren't a lot of recipes out there that call for ground anything, except burgers, spaghetti, etc. so we're trying to be more creative!
After seeing what he had to work with, Damon decided to make a funky spin on the classic British dish, Shepherd's Pie. Surprisingly, that is one of the things I thought of when coming up with these ingredients for him!!! He came to it pretty quick too, under 10 minutes for sure! Great minds think alike! lol!
So, having an idea of what to make, he's off! Here he is frying up his turkey, pealing his potatoes for his mashed potatoes, and cutting his carrots!
Thank goodness Damon didn't feel like I totally screwed him!
And here's what he ended up with!
A pound of ground turkey meat, a bag of russet potatoes, a yellow onion, and Worcestershire sauce.
Take a minute and think about what you would make for dinner with those ingredients?
Honestly, I felt like I might be really screwing him with such basic ingredients... We always try to use ground turkey instead of ground beef in recipes when we can, just because ground turkey has almost no fat at all in it, and it also costs about a dollar less per pound compared to ground beef, but there really aren't a lot of recipes out there that call for ground anything, except burgers, spaghetti, etc. so we're trying to be more creative!
After seeing what he had to work with, Damon decided to make a funky spin on the classic British dish, Shepherd's Pie. Surprisingly, that is one of the things I thought of when coming up with these ingredients for him!!! He came to it pretty quick too, under 10 minutes for sure! Great minds think alike! lol!
So, having an idea of what to make, he's off! Here he is frying up his turkey, pealing his potatoes for his mashed potatoes, and cutting his carrots!
Thank goodness Damon didn't feel like I totally screwed him!
Next Damon is getting some beef broth ready and making a flour and water slurry to thicken the broth. Let's face it, ground turkey may be healthier but it's sooo not beef, so you have to be creative! Turkey can still be healthy and taste every bit as good as the all American goodness that is BEEF, if you do it right!
Like I said, Damon came to his decision quick, so he's got a plan and 30 minutes in, he's doing great!
I so would not have come up with a take on Shepherd's Pie without my research on the lovely internet, so yea him!!!
35 minutes in and the kitchen smells awesome!
Damon is tasting everything and seasoning as he goes, which I'm sure Gordon Ramsay would be proud of! Slightly before his potatoes are done, he's breaking out what he wants to put into his mashed potatoes... some shredded cheddar cheese, milk, butter, Parmesan cheese, and green onions. How could those potatoes not taste like pure yummy goodness????
Damon is tasting everything and seasoning as he goes, which I'm sure Gordon Ramsay would be proud of! Slightly before his potatoes are done, he's breaking out what he wants to put into his mashed potatoes... some shredded cheddar cheese, milk, butter, Parmesan cheese, and green onions. How could those potatoes not taste like pure yummy goodness????
He has about 15 minutes to go and he has drained the potatoes and is ready to mash them with our lovely ricer, which we got as a wedding gift just a few months ago.
I'll take this time to tell you that, after each of us have done one mystery bag challenge, we thought we should expand on our scoring system.
Now we are going with a 10 point scale...
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 this because we quickly realized, after our first challenges, that we needed to be able to give a broader range of scores for each category.
Damon's down to the wire and is plating his unusual take on Shepherd's Pie. First, using a ziploc bag, he piped his mashed potatoes over the top of the beef broth, vegetable, and meat mixture. Then he topped that with cheddar cheese and put it under the broiler, with less than five minutes to go! I'm giving Damon the minute countdown and he's getting nervous!
Finally, with less than one minute to spare, Damon pulls his dishes out of the oven and sits before me his yummy looking take on the classic Shepherd's Pie!
What's important to note is that neither of us have ever eaten Shepard's Pie, much less cooked it before, so Damon really is out on a limb here. But it turned out sooo good that now we have a new ground turkey dish we can make!
We did our scoring and I counted Damon off one point for flavor, just because I thought it could use a little heat, maybe a little pepper flake or something for some spiciness. Damon also counted himself off one point for giving me too much mashed potato compared to the meat mixture. So, in the end, he ended up with an average of a solid 9 points!
Damon = 13, Christina = 4, can't wait to figure out Damon's next Mystery Bag!!
Next week is my turn to cook!
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