"Iron Chef" - The Great Race - Week 2

This past Friday night was the second round of the "Great Race" "Iron chef" competition of 2008.
There are two more, but we will unfortunately be missing next Fridays due to work schedule conflicts . We're looking forward to the finale in two weeks - we are hoping there will be a pie fight. There HAS to be a pie fight - "The Great Race" is FAMOUS for its fantastic pie fight!

In the Movie, the first stop was a western town - thus our western theme for last week, and this week was paying homage to the scene in the movie where they are on an ice berg floating in the ocean and had to eat what food was in their cars.

The competition Friday night was to come up with a main dish, a side dish, and a desert - all using foods that might be found in a car - at least for starters. A quick car race using toy cars decided what each team (4 teams) would start with - the non-vegan (vegetarian) teams had their choice of either a bag of chicken McNuggets (4-5 boxes of 10 pieces) , a bag of Arby Roast Beef Sandwhiches (about 8) or a bag of Hormel chili - 4-5 cans.

Our team consisted of the wife, Dave (Mr. Hot Sauce), myself, and our friend Ed from our monthly gaming sessions.

Unfortunately, we did poorly in the initial race, and had the last pick - and of course all that was left was the chili.

There were some more races to decide on the picking order of the ingredients for the side dish, and then for the dessert.

Our side dish ingredients contained some Slim Jims and beef jerky.
Our dessert bag contained a box of Hostess Ding Dongs and some other sickly sweet items.

For our main dish - since we had cans of chili - we decided it would be simplest just to make chili - but with additions - like chopped up hotdogs and ground up Slim Jims and beef jerky for flavoring. I wasn't that enthused with the main dish - I was concentrating on the dessert - more on that in a second.

For the side dish, Dave found the fixings for french bread, so we made a loaf of french bread - and then some garlic butter - and I made sure we went easy on the garlic - since it is so easy to get carried away. (especially when you have "too much is never enough" Dave on your team!)
They then topped off the bread with cheese - and it actually was not bad.

The dessert was the highlight of the meal for me. The rules stated that the end product could not be simply what you started with - which we kinda bent with the chili - but what are you going to make out of cans of chili?! Hmm, in hindsight - maybe we could have made some sort of chili burgers or Sloppy Joes. Oh well - maybe next time.

So we could not simply serve Hostess Ding Dongs - we had to do something with them.
I came up with the idea of using a blender to make them into a pie filling - since we had found some pie dough.
Blending a whole box of Ding Dongs went pretty well - but we needed some binder, so we found a tub of whipped cream and used the whole thing. At that point, the mixture was too fluid, so we needed something to thicken it up. Digging through the cupboards we found some chocolate and vanilla instant pudding mix - so we added three boxes of pudding and a cup of milk.

At this point we were laughing and joking about the sugar content of our dish - and asking if there were any diabetics in the house - at which point our host replied - "Not yet!"

Unfortunately, our Pie crust did not turn out very well - it sorta fell into itself while in the oven and we just ended up with a baked circle of dough at the bottom of a dish.

The pie idea went into the garbage along with the crust, so we went to plan B - using the filling as a sort of a pudding - along with some Nilla wafers for use as scoops.
In retrospect, it was probably a GOOD thing that the crust plan went by the wayside, for the crust to come into play - one would have had to cut a THICK slice of our desert - and consumption of that much tasty goodness, may have been seriously detrimental to anyone wishing to get some sleep that night or the next night or.... ;-)

We arranged the pudding in a bowl with Nilla wafers around the edge - and then Dave found some strawberries and placed one in the middle for color. Whipped cream would have looked good on it also - but alas, we had already used all there was.

After everyone was done with their dishes - we all brought them to the dining room table for presentation, where everyone sampled each others dish - and then later voted on which team you felt had the best main dish / side dish combination - and which team had the best dessert.

I did not have very high hopes for our chili - and our main dish /side dish tied for third place.
Hmmm - same as last week - at least we are consistent!

What was a BIG shocker to us though - is our dessert came in first place!
There was a lot left over - because it was super rich - but people really liked it. I think I had only a spoonful of it - and it had probably as much calories as the rest of the meal I ate.

Our chili - as expected was not that good - I just do not like bought chili other than the chili served at a local restaurant "The Barn" - and this was no Barn chili.

As usual we had a great time - and talked to our friends - and then left for home about 11 - getting there about midnight.

"Iron Chef" - The Great Race - Week 1

Like last years event - this years "Iron Chef" type competition has a theme - and the theme is "The Great Race". The movie, "The Great Race" is based (loosely) on an actual race conducted in 1908 that really passed through Cleveland Ohio in February 1908 - and it is only fitting that the 4th and final competition is going to be held approximately the same day the competitors passed through Cleveland 100 years previously. A piece of trivia - the actual racers went down Euclid Ave. - approximately two miles from where we are having the competition.

The first week's contest was designed to reflect the fact the that first major stop shown in the movie was at Borracho - a "typical" Western town during that era - and the main ingredient everyone was required to use was 2lbs of ground meat.

As usual, our extremely gracious hosts supplied the ingredients for about 6 different meals - and our five teams then decided which one they wanted to make. Our teams ended up choosing Spaghetti. One of the choices was hamburgers - and had we chose that - we probably would have been done early. (and our hamburgers would have been quite boring)
The team that chose hamburgers combined chili sauce with them - and topped them with bacon - we were told they were quite tasty - but neither my wife or I would try them due to the ingredients being used. I did give them one vote during the voting phase just to be fair.

These cooking completions are always a lot fun - the kitchen gets quite crowded with four groups of people in each others way - and once the smoke settles -everyone places a sample of their dish on the dining room table - and then the nights main judge tries them all.

Afterwards - everyone grabs a plate and gets some of the food (ideally- some from each team) (see above) and after eating - votes on which dish they thought was best.

Since we ended up with five teams - we had five dishes - so each person was given 5 poker chips.
For each dish, there was a jar that you would put as many poker chips
in as you wanted.

So - if you thought all meals were equally good - you would give 1 vote (poker chip) to each jar.

I personally tried the our spaghetti even though our sauce contained a lot more ingredients than I normally prefer - such as some peppert etc and I tried meat loaf (actually quite tasty!) and finally, I made the mistake of trying the chili.

Our spaghetti actually came in 3rd place - and the hamburgers won - so no accounting for taste...

The chili was the hottest I had ever tasted - and I only had a small portion - I much prefer a blander chili like my family makes - w/out the hot chili peppers.
I was told the chili was actually "mild" - but I had to have some ice cream when we got home two hours later - to finally get the taste out of my mouth before going to bed.

Luckily - it did not upset my stomach like I was concerned it might - as I said - it was HOT! to me at least.

The competition starts shaping up around 7pm, and the eating/judging is usually about 1-2 hours after that.

We really don't care how well we do in the competitions (which is a good thing!) we go since we don't see the hosts very much - and meet new friends there (one is a fellow biker) and we always have a good time.

Cooking - Iron Chef Style! (last year)

Cooking? Me?

Two years ago if you had told me I'd be having a ton of fun getting together with a group of friends in a cooking competition - I'd have laughed - and asked you what you had been drinking.

A year ago, everything changed. We were invited to a "Iron Chef" style competition some friends of ours have been putting on for a number of years now - and since we had nothing else to do that Friday night - and we had not seen the hosts in some time - we figured what the heck - give it a try.

That was a definitely a night to remember - and the start of something FUN!

Neither the wife nor I had ever seen the TV show "Iron Chef" and still have no real desire to do so - but if it is half as fun as what we have been doing - maybe I might some day.

Our first competition last year required us to create a main dish around BABY OCTOPUS! We were told that there is one strange ingredient night per 4 week season - and it was just our luck that was the night.
Seeing that it was over a year ago - my memory is a little fuzzy - but I know we came up with some sort of casserole dish using our supply of baby octopuses (octopi?) and that I even gathered up the nerve to eat one - while my wife took my picture as proof.

Imagine a pale white gelatinous rubbery mass about the size of a thimble. Now imagine it has 8 little legs and you just popped it into your mouth.
Trying very hard not to gag - I swallowed it whole - since I really, REALLY did not want to chew into the thing.
The highlight of that night was the secret ingredient a teammate of ours added to our casserole (his initials are Dave) which so badly seared ones palette - that you completely forgot you just ate a mouthful of baby octopus - and instead went running in pursuit of some liquid fire extinguisher...
We have taken great care that from that day forward he is no longer allowed anywhere NEAR the hot sauce!

***

Not all of the meals we made last year required something with more legs than should be legal - we actually had a night where we had to make home made pot pies - which amazingly enough - were pretty damn tasty!

I had never known what a shepherd pie really was until I tasted one - I had always thought it was something you were careful to not step in ;-) (My grandparents raised cows - so I should be forgiven for that erroneous conclusion)

As it turned out, we were damn glad we took the chance and attended last year - we met a lot of new friends - and two of them were even motorcyclists like we are!

Brrr!

Wow - it is hard to believe, during the summer I thought the riding season would go on and on - and now I sit here exactly two months after putting our motorcycles into storage for the winter...

Today's high was forecast to be 12f which is GREAT if you are a skier - but not so great if you are a motorcyclist like we are...

On the bright side - the days are gradually getting longer, and the equinox (end of winter) is almost in sight - two MORE months away. *sigh*

We went for a drive through the Cleveland Metro Parks yesterday afternoon, it sure looks different w/out all of the foliage. Definitely not as cheerful a drive as it would be if there had been leaves on the trees and birds singing their songs.

Speaking of birds - the local birds must have told their friends about our bird feeder today, since I had to refill it twice in six hours - and it usually one filling can last a week!

C'mon Spring!