Iron Chef Dinner: Battle Wine

Me -vs- the week from hell.

Let's see, this week involved new neighbors who leave their junk on the stairs and block my parking space making me late for work, a coworker having a heart attack at school, a ticket for going straight at the intersection of Randolph and Oak Park Avenue (which  I totally know better) amongst other lesser annoyances and drama.  I would like to think that my ever wise and loving husband knew that I needed a battle that would be relatively quick and easy and boozy to boot!

This is one of the first battles that I actually made in under an hour.  I opted for steaks smothered in baby portabellos and a Pino Noir reduction, with a side of almond green beans.   Yes, I used yellow tail and barefoot wines.  I figure, its a step up from cooking wine and not breaking the bank.

Then, for desert I made two kinds of wine poached fruit. Pears were poached in pino noir, and peaches in a pino grigio and then served with a reduction of their poaching liquid and some sweet marscapone cheese.  

It's always amazing to me how wine and cheese can just make everything in life a bit better. 

Iron Chef Dinner Party!

Battle Goat Cheese and Kale

Shawna and Jerry were invited over for dinner, and as the guests of honor, they got to choose the secret ingredients.  Jerry was of course difficult and his chosen ingredient of kale required a special trip to a special grocery story. Billy's Fruit Market was happy to provide me with the kale I needed, and so the battle was on!


We were so happy to socialize and eat and drink, that no photos were taken.  That is just fine.   For appetizers I made my traditional goat cheese in tomato sauce, tapas style served with french bread.   Then the meal was a goat cheese and mushroom meatloaf roulade, goat cheese mashed potatoes,  a kale, squash and goat cheese casserole with a panko bread crumb crust, and then a simple but delicious sauteed kale and garlic.  The meatloaf was my favorite part, and I will be making that again.  Surprisingly, the experimental casserole was enjoyed even by Dan, who doesn't like squash. That just goes to prove, if you put enough butter and garlic in anything it will taste good.

Iron Chef Dinner: Battle Curry

Me -VS- the spice cabinet

We are back from vacation, and tired of fried food.  There is a joke about Canada, they say that Canada could have had French cuisine, American politics, and British culture and instead they ended up with British cuisine, French politics, and American culture.  So true, so true.   The fish and chips were excellent but I can only eat so many meals accompanied by french fries before my stomach begs for mercy.

In preparation for tonights dinner, we got to go to Penzey Spices which is always a treat. I picked up a hot curry spice and a bottle of garam masala seasonings.  I also picked up a recipe for a coconut pie so I could use up all the coconut left over from battle mango.

First I slowly caramelized some finely chopped onions with a single whole star anise.  This made the house smell AWESOME.

Then I had to make a curry paste out of all my seasonings.  This was made of garlic and ginger paste, curry and chili powders and enough water to make it come together.  In with the onions it goes... 

Then comes the magic.  Somehow, pureed carrots, pureed onions, yogurt, sour cream, and some chicken broth produced this...

Just add chicken and let cook.  

I tossed in some green peppers, left over frozen baby corns, and cashews after it had cooked for a while and this was the final product. 

Oh, and for all of you who want me to come over and cook in your kitchens... this is what Dan gets to deal with when the meal is over.  Be forewarned. I didn't even bother to photograph the floor because that is just too embarrassing. 

He also gets to eat this.   Served with Trader Joe's garlic Naan and some rice. 

Tuesday: Battle Tomato

Me -VS- My complete and total inability to spell tomato with out a spell check. 

I had planned to take today off from the iron chef dinner because Dan is working super late, however Allison wanted to hang out and was happy to supply me with an ingredient!

Since I was at Valli Produce yesterday and bought a bajillion tomatoes from their clearance section (yes! Clearance fruits and veggies people! its amazing@! )  I was thrilled that Tomato was Allison's chosen ingredient.

Tonights dinner was a stuffed tomato, with a soufflé like filling.  The filling had bacon and onions and peppers that I sautéd and then mixed in with goat cheese and queso fresco and some egg yolks.   Then I whipped up some egg whites and folded them in, Stuffed the whole thing in the tomatoes and baked for 20 minutes or so.

While the tomatoes were baking I made a tomato cucumber salad with the left over poppy seed dressing from a few days ago, and the best bruschetta ever.  It was so worth it to splurge on those heirloom tomatoes at Dominics this afternoon.

It is actually sad that the basil is on top of this tomato, because this was the prettiest tomato that I have ever sliced.   It was also very very sweet.

Monday: Battle Honey.

Me -vs- the total over stimulation provided by Valli Produce


For this battle, I converted my grill into a smoker.

I put charcoal on the left side with a pan of wood chips on top, a pan of water on the right side.  Then I put the ribs on top of the grill rack and let them cook for 2 hours.  I used a thermometer and added wood chips and charcoal as needed to keep it between 225 and 250 degrees.  After 2 hours, I wrapped the ribs in foil and added some apple juice and let them cook for another hour with out adding wood chips.  Then I finished them off with a home made honey bbq sauce.  I also made some honey cornbread muffins and cinnamon honey butter and corn on the cob.

Then, because I had 3 and half hours during the cook time, I made up a drink I decided to call the Tini Bumblebee.   Strawberry honey lemon aid, mixed with vodka and elderflower liquor.    Yum.

I rounded out the meal with a cheese plate that included almonds, dried cranberries, and some wild flower honey we had brought back from Sonoma.   I think the cheese plate was over kill. 

Cooking Project

It's time to repurpose this blog into something useful.  Instead of writing pages and pages about my new cooking project on Facebook, I will post those updates here and then link to them.  I have much too much to say, and I'm pretty excited about the project.

I decided at the end of the school year that I needed to take cooking classes or something this summer.  Cooking is always exciting and creative for me, so I thought it would be a good thing to pursue.   Upon further reflection I realized that I didn't want any one else to tell me how to cook.  That isnt the fun part.  I just need to cook more!   So I came up with my Iron Chef plan.

Each night, Dan chooses an ingredient, and I make dinner.  I don't adhere strictly to Iron Chef rules, but I try to use the ingredient in as many dishes as possible, and at the end of the week Dan chooses a winner.  I may some day go so far as to invite guests over and allow them to choose my secret ingredient, but the project is young, so we shall see.

Last week was our first week, and this is the summary of the meals.

Monday:  Battle Eggplant
I had this beautiful eggplant that the kid at the farmer's market conned me into buying ( it was the last one, and he gave it to me for 75 cents! ) so I made chicken and eggplant parmesean over rigatoni with a doctored up canned tomato sauce.

Tuesday: Battle Mango
I marinated pork chops in soy sauce, ginger syrup, and olive oil  (with some spices) and cooked them in the grill pan.   Then I made homemade sweet and sour and spicy veggies with mango, pineapple, peppers, onions, and baby corn.   I have always loved mango sticky rice, but Dan finds it too sweet.  I switched up the recipe and made it using coconut milk and salt and pepper and less mango, which was much more to his taste.

Wednesday: Battle "Whatever the hell is left over and also Dan wants tacos" 
I raided the fridge and pantry and ended up with frozen chicken that I cooked for a couple hours in some left over coconut milk and taco seasonings and onions.  Came out WAY taster than I expected.  I broke down and bought a tomato and jalapeño and made some home made salsa.  I also mixed up some guacamole with an old avacodo that had been living in the back of the fridge.  A dash of coconut milk made it just a bit sweet.  I rounded the meal out with a pre packaged mix of black beans and rice.


Thursday: Battle Green Pepper

Ironically, every meal I had prepared prior to this had peppers as an ingredient.  I also was very anti stuffed peppers for this battle... sooo...  I made grilled steak and pepper sandwiches with this AWESOME salad.  The salad was comparable to a coleslaw, but it was peppers, carrots, red onions and green onions all cut up into matchstick sized bites in a homemade poppy seed dressing. 

Dan declared the winner of week one to be Battle Mango.    Stay tuned for more!