November 14th, 2014

Edward De Bono: "Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way."

This week we continued our process of watching every movie that has ever won an Oscars for best picture in history.  We watched Going My Way (1944) and The Lost Weekend (1945), which was basically about this guy who is dealing with PTSD, from his service in World War 2, and his drunken weekend.  Movies around this time are pretty slow but most of them have still been pretty good movies.  

Okay let's get down to business!  It's Friday Night in Winslow and time for our fourteenth Mystery Bag Challenge!  It's Damon's turn to pick the mandatory ingredients and my turn to cook.  I can tell you, I'm a little nervous after last time I cooked!

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 I ended up with for tonight!

Hamburger meat, shredded cheese, red onion, and siracha (a very spicy Asian hot sauce), I open my bag and don't really know what to go for.  I had a couple of ideas (because I was looking through a cookbook earlier in the evening and that's not cheating, I was just looking for inspiration) but I'm worried about going one way because of the cheese and the other because of the siracha.  Hmmmmmm....

I decide that I want to use potatoes as my side dish, so I  get those cut and decide to marinate them a little in the siracha, add some seasoning salt, and some canola oil, and let them sit a minute.  

Okay, what in the world to do next.  One of my first ideas was to make some little meatball sliders with white gravy but I was too much in my head, worrying about using two starches, whether or not it would be enough food, if I could even make a white gravy from scratch (because I never have).  Anyway, after all of that, I decide to go for it.  I put my meat into a bowl, dice up some red onion, add Italian seasoned breadcrumbs, and an egg, and mix it all up.

I get my meatballs formed and throw them into a hot skillet to brown them before I put them into the oven to finish cooking.  Next I throw my potatoes into the oven to roast.

 

Next up, I start my gravy.  I paid attention last time we made something that started with a roux, so I was hopeful it would turn out ok.  For those of you who don't know what a roux is, it's equal parts flour and butter, the basis of any kind of gravy, sauce, or dip that you want to make.  I was going for a classic white gravy so I added milk (otherwise known in french cooking as a bechamel sauce or the white sauce), brought it to a simmer and it wasn't as thick as I wanted it to be but, not bad for my first time making gravy from scratch!

Everything is looking pretty good and I throw the meatballs into the oven to finish cooking and turn the heat up on the potatoes just a bit because I'd like them a little crispier than they've gotten so far. 

My time is running out and I start getting my plates together, toast my bread, trim the crust and cut them into four pieces.  I pull out my roasted potatoes and get them on the plate and begin assembling my meatball sliders.  Damon gives me a four minute warning and I start to hustle.  I'm going to present Damon with his dinner and he get's busy watching what I'm doing that he didn't count me down and the timer goes off!  I realize I didn't put my cheese on top of the potatoes (a mandatory ingredient), so I grab the cheese, put them on top of the potatoes on his plate and give it to him. 

We agreed to not count me off on the time because Damon got sidetracked and didn't count me down like we usually do for each other.  Anyway, I provided ranch for dipping the potatoes as well as some extra gravy, which after it set a minute started to thicken up to where I wanted it, yea me!!!

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 a perfect 10 points.  Damon was impressed and I was just happy I was able to think of something!

Damon = 60.5, Christina = 60.5, and that puts us at a tie!!!

Now that were done with dinner, we're off for one more best picture movie, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).  You guessed it, another after war, PTSD, unable to deal with regular life after coming back from the war movie.  Still, I'd have to say it's one of the better movies we've watched so far.

Next week is Damon's turn to cook and my turn to pick what he has to cook!  Until next time.....