January 23rd, 2015

George Washington Carver: "Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise."

First, check out this beautiful Winslow sunrise this morning!

So we're still on our process of watching every movie that has ever won an Oscars for best picture.  Now that the holidays are over and we've finished our Christmas movie marathon, we're back at it.  We watched Gigi (1958) which was okay but I'm not sure I got the fascination.  I'm not sure how much of a "classic" the movie is to you but to me, I thought it was long and slow.  It was a good classic "girl loves the bad-boy, bad-boy doesn't want to change his ways" kind of movie and was set in Victorian times but it just wasn't enough to keep me involved.  Then we watch Ben-Hur (1959) which is a classic and if you haven't ever seen it, I don't know what planet you've been living on.   It is a pretty long movie (I think my generation is when the ADD starting kicking in because I don't know how the hell people sat through all these long ass movies!!!) and probably doesn't really need to be, but it is a classic and everyone should watch it.   

Okay let's get down to business!  It's Friday Night in Winslow and time for our nineteenth Mystery Bag Challenge!  It's my turn to pick the mandatory ingredients and Damon's turn to cook.  It's about seven o'clock and I'm wandering about the kitchen in search of ingredients for Damon's bag.  In the beginning, when we started doing this challenge, I would think up the starch and the protein and then start to think of things that would be different.  Then once I had a few ideas, I'd do a quick search online to see if anyone else is using the ingredients in the same way.  I did this to make sure I wasn't picking something crazy that didn't go good together. Nowadays, I just pick stuff quite randomly and usually just minutes before we start the challenge!  

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!

Ground beef, spicy hot barbecue sauce, red onion, and sweet peppers!  What to do, what to do?  What would you do?

So Damon gets the ball rolling pretty quick, pulling out extra ingredients, preheating the oven, and acting like he has a plan, you know, mise en place, B$5&#!!!

Damon decided to go with two mini meat loaves, using the spicy barbecue sauce on top as a glaze, and he needs to go, go, go, to get this done on time!  He's also making mashed potatoes which can take some time.  Damon gets his loaves in first, which I want so bad to say, "start the potatoes first!!!!" but I don't. He gets the loaves in the oven and then gets his potatoes boiling. Then he hurries up and waits!  Poor Damon, doesn't know what to do in the kitchen when he's just waiting for his food to cook!

Now that Damon's done waiting, waiting, and waiting for the meatloaf to cook, he's mixing up some cheesy potatoes.  Three cheese potatoes and they look yummy! 

the clock is getting dangerously close to running out and he hasn't started plating yet.  He finishes up the potatoes, gets them nice and creamy and finally the meatloaf is done resting!

Damon starts to plate and there goes the timer....... DAMN!!!  But he serves me my dinner and it looks yummy!!

We dig in and everything tastes great!! I don't usually care for peas but they even taste great!!  The mashed potatoes are nice and cheesy and the loaf is nicely seasoned! 

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, he ended up with 9 points, losing a point each for not being done on time. 

Damon = 87.5, Christina = 80, and that puts Damon back in the lead, but I'm determined to crush him next week!  Next week will be our twentieth challenge and we're thinking we will again change up the rules a bit for our next ten rounds!

Now that we're done with our challenge we're off to watch The Apartment (1960), it looks promising.  It's about a guy trying to get a promotion at work by lending out his apartment to the high ups at his job to have affairs!  

Next Friday we'll also be bottling our first batch of wine!!