Week 2

Mystery Ingredients:  Kielbasa and Cream Cheese

Another successful meal!  This week Benjamin and I made Jambalaya and Cream Cheese Biscuits.  I've always wanted to make jambalaya but have been quite intimidated by the mere name alone.  It just sounds hard!  But, that is what this challenge is all about.  Plus, Benjamin found this recipe and has been begging me to try it.  The recipe calls for polish sausage, but I felt that kielbasa would be an acceptable substitution.

At about 5:15 on Sunday night, I decided to start preparing the jambalaya.  I thought it would need to cook for awhile and there was quite a bit of prep work.  We also eat kind late (around 6:30).  As I read more closely through the recipe, I realized it was a slow cooker recipe!!!  That needed to cook for 6-7 hours!!!  I had read over this recipe three or four times and didn't see this one minor detail.  But, the show had to go on.  This was not going to stop me from making our jambalaya.  I realized the cook time was necessary to fully cook the meats so I decided to saute them before adding them to the big old pot that I was going to need to make the jambalaya.  Problem solved.  The only other change I had to make to prepare the meal on the stove top versus slow cooker was to add some tomato sauce (which I fortunately had on hand).  Slow cookers keep moisture in, stove top cooking does not.  I might actually add more tomato sauce the next time.

After I got the "soup" ingredients added and it had started to simmer, I called Benjamin in from outside where his little brother was beating him in a basketball game (okay, Jonathan had a little help from Mike) to cut up the kielbasa.

I then sautéed the sliced kielbasa in Benjamin's non-stick skillet.  Yes, it's his.  I purchased some cooking items for him when he decided to learn how to be the next great Iron Chef.  His skillet (which I use all the time) and his knife are the best in the house.  The knife is the one he's using in the picture above.  Notice they are both red...which is one of Eden Prairie's school colors.  Not a coincidence.  And, as Chef Anne Burrell would say, Benjamin needs to work on his knife skills.  As you will notice, the slices of kielbasa are of varying sizes.

While Benjamin was cutting up the kielbasa, I started the rice.  If you do not have a rice cooker and eat a lot of rice, buy one.  The way a rice cooker cooks rice cannot be achieved when cooking on the stove top.  Mike made fun of me for purchasing yet another kitchen appliance, but it was on clearance :)  Love it!

Now it was time to make the biscuits.  They only take 12 minutes to bake and they are best warm, so we waited until the jambalaya was simmering nicely to make the biscuits.  I mixed up the dough and Benjamin cut them out.  He really wanted to roll out the dough as well, so I let him give it a try.  He ended up having biscuit dough all over the palms of his hands and the dough was stuck to the rolling mat.  I decided he should stick with just cutting out the biscuits.  Yes, he also has a red apron.  It has a picture of a cow and says "Udderly Delicious".  The only non-girly apron we could find.  And, we thought it as funny.

As Benjamin was finishing up the biscuits, I added the cooked rice and shrimp to the jambalaya.  It looked so good!

As we waited, we made some salads (our family eats a lot of salad).  It was soon time to eat!  Our Chopped Week 2 meal was complete.

It was so good!!!  There was a lot of jambalaya, but by the end of the meal there was so little left that it wasn't worth saving.  Jonathan learned how to pull the tails off shrimp, which he found quite entertaining.  The kielbasa tasted just like smoked sausage, and the biscuits were super light and fluffy.  The biscuit was the only thing Jake ate from the meal, which was no surprise to any of us.  Another success and a couple more recipes that have been given the "keeper" status.

Next week's mystery ingredients:  Cheetos and Grapes.  Mike thought he was being funny by selecting Cheetos but I did warn him that he has to eat anything I make out of them.  Once again, I already have my meal planned.

Week 1

Mystery Ingredients:  Bacon and Sweet Potato

This is the first official week of our family's Chopped challenge.  And, I must say, it was a very successful week.  According to Benjamin, both recipes are "keepers."

I made Rigatoni Carbonara and Sweet Potato Rolls.  The carbonara recipe specified an Italian cured ham called pancetta.  But, after much searching on the internet, I learned that people often make carbonara with bacon so I decided that bacon was a reasonable substitution.  The sweet potato rolls called for pureed sweet potato.  But, given I had to use an actual sweet potato, I had to bake the sweet potato and then puree it in the blender with a little added water to form the right consistency.  So, I had my plan in place.  Now it was time to actually make the food.

I started with the rolls.  They were super easy to make and essentially like any other yeast roll.  They raised nicely and baked quickly.  They got a little browner than I might have liked, but they were not overdone on the inside and actually a perfect texture.  

This shape of roll is great because you can just split it down the middle and add butter.  Super easy to eat - even my kids can split and butter their own rolls (well, at least the older two).

Next was the carbonara.  It was a bit more involved.  I learned from watching "Worst Cooks in America" on Food Network that it's important to have all your ingredients ready at the start of the cooking process.  I believe Chef Anne Burrell calls this "mise en place".  Yes, I'm using my kids' snack bowls.

Since I'm using bacon instead of pancetta, I decided to remove excess fat from the bacon and work just with the meat portion of the bacon.  Yes, that eliminated most of the bacon!  But, I just needed 1/3 pound of meat so I figured that if I trimmed the fat from a pound of bacon, I'd be left with about 1/3 pound of meat.  Seemed to work...  I next had to saute it in a drizzle of olive oil.  

I quickly learned that this pan was not going to be big enough!  Towards the end of the cooking process, I was going to have to combine the bacon mixture with the rigatoni pasta.  So, I needed my BIG pan.  This pan looks huge, and it is.  But, you would be surprised how much I use it.  And, with three boys, I'm sure it will get used more and more as their appetites increase exponentially with their age.

I'm almost there!!  So, I decided to bring in my sous chef (Benjamin) to make some salads to go with dinner.  Look at him peel those carrots!  It's a Food Network peeler and its so easy to use.  Just be careful as it's also super sharp.

I next combined the egg yolk with parmesan cheese and fresh parsley to make the sauce.  In order to ensure the egg yolks are cooked sufficiently, boiling water from the pasta is added to the sauce.  Cool idea!  Once the sauce was ready and the pasta cooked al dente, I combined everything in my big skillet.

I just had to sample it and it was so good!!  Seriously, I didn't think I was capable of preparing something this yummy.  Here's my first Chopped meal...

With the exception of the snowman plate that I really need to store away until next winter, it looks pretty good.  We essentially had no leftovers of the pasta, but we had enough rolls to freeze for another meal.  Benjamin had three servings of pasta.

Next week's mystery ingredients:  Kielbasa and Cream Cheese.  I've never eaten kielbasa and I'm not a fan of cream cheese.  But, I do have an idea for the meal.