My Personal Quickfire

It will not surprise you to know that I am a bit addicted to reality T.V. Two shows that I particularly love are Top Chef and The Next Food Network Star. (I am, however, behind on Top Chef episodes this season. It's hard for me to get through that intro in which Padma says, "Hail to the Chef.") Despite my growing culinary prowess and personal sense of adventure, I marvel at the brains of these chefs during the dreaded Quickfire Challenge. "You must make an appetizer from food found in a vending machine." "Create a dish using only three ingredients." "Satisfy Padma's pregnancy cravings using only your psychic powers and superb knife skills." Okay, that last one was never a real Quickfire Challenge, but you get the idea. Crazy parameters, no time in which to do it. Go!

This afternoon, I got to participate in my own personal Quickfire Challenge. My mother-in-law was in town on an impromptu visit (a topic for a different kind of blog), and she thought she was being picked up at 6:00 and that she would be eating dinner on the drive back to Wisconsin. Bryan and I had secretly planned to make tonight our first Pizza Friday of the school year, and were mentally salivating over Detello's menu. At 5:00, however, the call came. Mother-in-law will be picked up at 5:45. Her traveling companions have already eaten. Dinner must be on the table in thirty minutes or less for her to eat before leaving. 

Gentlemen, start your engines. 

Quickfire Challenge

After a brief squabble ("You don't have to cook for me." "Don't be silly; you need to eat." "No, no, I'll just drink some water in the car. I think I have some mints in my purse...."), I grabbed my iPod and bounded upstairs. What do we have, what do we have? Saturday is shopping day, so we were down to three chicken breasts, miscellaneous leftover greens, some cottage cheese, and French Vanilla yogurt (plus condiments, obviously). I tossed the chicken on the counter, briefly wondered if we would really taste the French Vanilla if I spiced up the yogurt with my tandoori spices (I decided we would), and started rummaging through the pantry. I came up with some whole grain breadcrumbs, flour, and vegetable oil. The fruit basket produced a lemon and a handful of Yukon Gold potatoes, and I had my idea: lemon-crusted chicken and rosemary potatoes. Brilliant. 

Twenty-eight minutes to go. The first step was to scrub the potatoes. Three potatoes in, I change tactics and decide to peel instead. I peeled and diced my six potatoes, tossed them into the pot and covered them with cold water. Boiling potatoes, check. I then turned my attention to the chicken. After trimming the fat from the breasts, I laid a sheet of wax paper on top of my cutting board, placed the chicken on top, and topped it with another sheet of wax paper. 

This is when Connor's screaming was too loud and persistent to ignore. Although my husband and mother-in-law should have been watching him, he had crawled upstairs and attached himself to my leg, face red and tearful. "Mom!" he cried. "Mom! Mom! Mom!" (That's right, not "Mommy" or "Mama." I am Mom.) So I picked up my newly clingy son and proceeded to pound out the chicken. 

Let's skip the continued play-by-play; in summary, the lemon was zested, the chicken dredged and breaded and browned and baked, the potatoes cooked and drained and milked, buttered, and rosemary'd. The green beans? They were microwaved. Thank you, frozen steamer veggie revolution.

Judges' Table

Quickfires are a messy business.

This was not a winning dish. In my haste, I had forgotten salt. I actually pictured Padma Lakshmi telling me that my chicken was bland, and it was. It needed more seasoning and it needed a pan sauce of some kind--I'm thinking white wine and lemon juice would have done nicely. The potatoes were fine, but not creative. I think that Connor's interpretation of my dish--chicken and potatoes dropped in his glass of water, topped with a handful of diced peaches--would have won due to sheer creativity. 

In short, a Quickfire Challenge is not easy, and it is extraordinarily messy. It took me longer to clean up from this meal than it did to create it. However, I did send my mother-in-law on her way with a full belly and a sense of wonder at what her daughter-in-law can do with some chicken breasts and thirty minutes in the kitchen.

Setting Goals: Adventures Await

Goal #3: Be Adventurous

Finally, the third goal. For me, it's an essential one: be adventurous. Be fearless, in fact. Of course, in this respect, I am specifically talking about cooking. It is easy for me to fall back on my old recipes without trying anything new. And why not? I know how to make lasagna, chilli, burgers, and marinated chicken without consulting a recipe, buying unfamiliar ingredients, or thinking too hard. The problem? It's boring! Hideously boring. So boring, in fact, that it will ultimately make me fail Goal #2 when I decide that I can't possibly eat chicken and salad another night so I order a pizza instead. 

In pursuit of this goal, I have bought two new cookbooks (more on them in future blogs, but to whet your appetites they are The Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics and Rachael Ray's MYOTO cards.) My first step in adventurous cooking was a Rachael Ray original--Chipotle Chicken Rolls. I had never bought or worked with phyllo dough before. I was thrown when, in the freezer section of Cub Foods, I could only find "fillo" dough. At the checkout line, the cashier (my regular) commented, "You always have such interesting ingredients. Now what," she continued, shaking the rectangle of frozen dough at me like a wagging shame-finger, "do you do with this?" She looked at me expectantly. I glanced around the store for inspiration, and Connor chucked his toy on the floor, thus saving me from answering. 

Thirty-six hours later, I can now say with come confidence that I know how to work with phyllo dough. I can make something darn tasty out of phyllo dough. And I have something fun rolling around in my head for a new recipe or two as well. If you're looking to cook something adventurous, start with something like this! Easy but impressive. Essentially, this is a combination of meatloaf and a Mexican egg roll. It is a mixture of scallions, chipotles, sharp cheddar and ground chicken rolled and baked in phyllo dough--a paper-thin pastry that is surprisingly easy to work with. And the best news, for me, is that I now have lots of leftover dough for experimentation. (Note: if you decide to make this recipe--and you should--the dipping sauce was terrible. It tasted like limes and salt. Make a guacamole and you'll be good.)

Update: Goal #2 

Today was muggy. Connor and I spent the morning at the Children's Museum, and I spent the afternoon painting the bathroom. Our grill is out of propane. So we went out for dinner. Kidding! I pulled together a Fancy Fridge Meal, one of my back up plans that will prevent the mid-week pizza ordering phenomenon. I put some No Name Steaks under the broiler, steamed some bag-o-green beans, and microwaved the Simply Potatoes I bought on sale this week. Dinner in 25 minutes for under 450 calories and $4 per serving? Yes, please!