August 8th, 2014

Julia Child: "I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate."

Thank God it's Friday!!!!

I swear I thought this week would never end!  Thankfully, it's Friday and that means it's our first Mystery Bag Challenge!!  It's Friday night dinner and here is Damon's mystery bag:

Okay, it looks a little like a trash bag but I had to use something that he couldn't see through, and I don't have a fancy box with a big M on the side of it lol.

As you a may recall from last week's "Firday Night In Winslow", the rules are simple.  Damon has to make dinner using each of the 4 mystery food items I have chosen to 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 he MUST be ready to plate-up dinner before 1 hour has passed after seeing his ingredients for the first time.

So what was in his mystery bag you ask?

For Damon, I went with two Pork cutlets, a tube of refrigerated buttermilk biscuits, a small block of chipotle pepper white cheddar cheese, and a bottle of Chardonnay.  I knew early on I was going to go with pork and then slowing came around to a spicy cheese because I thought that could taste pretty bad ass stuffed in the pork.  Then I started thinking a spin on chicken cordon bleu or a beef wellington and thought, biscuits!  I figured that could be pretty good if the pork was stuffed and then wrapped in biscuits.  I struggled all week for the fourth ingredient, mostly because I figured the new cheese and the biscuits could throw Damon for a loop.  So after work today, I stopped by and picked up the bottle of wine. I figured he could cook with it or at the very least just serve it as is.

  

Ten minutes into the challenge and Damon doesn't have a clear idea of what he's going to do, but he figures he can at least trim the fat off the pork while he continues to brainstorm on what to make.

Twenty minutes in and Damon's made up his mind, he's going make what he is calling "Chardonnay Braised Pork Medallion Sliders".  So he's prepping his biscuits to go into the oven and quartering the pork cutlets.  So he could do something with the wine, he first tried to make a chardonnay infused aioli, to act as a spread for the sliders, but after he made it, he didn't care for the consistency of it and decided to scrap it, so he decided to use the wine to cook the pork.  The hour time limit was maybe a little too much for this dish, but I'm sure Damon enjoyed having the extra time so he could think through what he was doing.

And here we have it ladies and gents, Damon's Chardonnay Braised Pork Medallion Sliders, served with a Greek Yogurt and Parsley spread on the side, and a glass of Chardonnay. 

They were absolutely yummy!!  I'm sure people have done pork cutlet sliders sandwiches before but we never have, and the point of our challenge was to get us to try new things... and it worked!!

I made little score cards for us to fill out after dinner. We both graded his dish based on being done on time, the presentation/appearance of the dish, creativity in the concept of the dish, and the flavor.  

Out of 5 possible points, Damon gave himself a 4, because he thought the spicy cheese didnt make the sandwiches spicy enough and thought he could have added a cumin or chili powder rub to the pork to punch it up some.  I also gave Damon a 4, just because two little slider sandwich's for dinner wasnt quite enough food.  We averaged the scores and Damon came away with a solid score of 4 out of 5!

Next Friday night, it's my turn.  Damon will be picking ingredients for me and I hope I do as well as he did!  

Damon = 4, Christina = 0, game on!!

What we do in Winlsow to entertain ourselves on a Friday night, right! lol

                                Goodnight Winslow!