In an odd turn of random chance I (Sam) won the die roll for this week's Dubious Chef with Greg providing the secret ingredient. Apparently Greg and I have decided that we need to monopolize all the attention since we didn't get a turn until after everyone else....
My featured ingredients were:
- Cheese, Cottage cheese, or Cream cheese
- Eggs
- Mollusks (Clam, Oyster, or Scallop)
I started the week with a very strong idea of what I would like to focus on because the night before I won the die roll I had noticed that my local Walmart had scallops available for just under $5/bag. The Epicurious app on my iPad quickly pointed me towards an excellent Seared Scallops with Creamy Noodles and Peas recipe that I felt could be easily adapted to use cream cheese, would look attractive garnished with boiled eggs, and that I felt had a good chance of allowing for the incorporation of whatever random ingredient was presented. As luck would have it Greg happened to choose lemon juice as the secret ingredient this week and it quite handily complemented the dish.
Seared Scallops with Lemon Cream Sauce Noodles and Peas
- 8 ounces medium egg noodles
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 1 pound bag small bay scallops
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/2 package cream cheese
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Bring a large pot of salted water to boiling and cook noodles until almost ready then stir in peas and cook about 3 minutes more. Drain in a colander, then coat bottom of pan with olive oil and toss noodles and peas to coat until ready to plate.
In a second small pot hard boil two eggs, then set aside in sink under cold water.
While water is boiling, rinse and pat scallops dry and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat butter in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat, then add scallops. Increase heat to high and sear scallops until golden brown and just cooked through. Add wine to skillet and deglaze by boiling, stirring and scraping. Stir in cream cheese, chopped chives and lemon juice and boil until slightly reduced and then pour sauce over plated noodles. Garnish with slices of hard boiled eggs and chives.
Final Score:
- Creativity–9
- Presentation–10
- Taste–9
Items Purchased:
- Bag of Bay Scallops - $4.97
- Cream cheese - $1.98
- Half dozen eggs - $0.59
- Egg noodles - $1.75
Total: $9.30
Did not use:
- Half the cream cheese
- Two thirds of the eggs
- Half the egg noodles
Brought from Home:
- White wine
- Olive oil
- Fresh chives
- Frozen peas
- Half stick of butter
- Salt & pepper
For our fifth episode we decided to skip our random die roll to determine who would be next, and instead I (Sam) won a coin flip with Greg to be the next Dubious Chef.
My featured ingredients were:
We did go ahead and randomly roll to determine that Ken would be the Mystery Ingredient provider for this episode, and much to my consternation he brought, drum-roll please.... Flour tortillas.... .... .... Yeah, I was so totally expecting THAT to be an option....
- Oatmeal, Cornmeal or other Cereals
- Cheese, Cottage cheese, or Cream cheese
- Apricot, Cherry, Peach, Plum/Prunes or other Stone fruits
I actually had several false starts while planning because of the "Oatmeal, Cornmeal or other Cereals" selection. Immediately after the roll I thought I'd go with something breakfasty, but despite the fact that I almost always have oatmeal for breakfast myself I couldn't really come up with an idea "fancy" enough that I could see getting decent points for the creativity category. Once I had discarded breakfast as a theme I moved on to the concept of using Cornmeal and Polenta as my foundation. Unfortunately I've never made Polenta before and the couple of quick trial batches I made did not turn out well at all. About mid-week I was discussing possible options with my friend Miki and after he suggested a Roasted Peaches with Honey Mascarpone Cream recipe he was fond of my entire concept suddenly formed up as a holiday meal. Once the flour tortillas were exposed as the secret ingredient I was pretty sure how to incorporate them into the main dish, but failed rather poorly in an attempt to also include them in the desert. A quick experiment with the heat gun and some Cinnamon Sugar showed that I wasn’t going to be able to create anything similar to a cinnamon churro so I tossed the experiment and proceeded with what I had.
Roasted Peaches Flambe with Honey Nut Cream Cheese
Preheat oven to 350F.
- 2 peaches, halved and pitted
- 2 tablespoons butter, softened
- 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
- 4 tablespoons Philadelphia Honey Nut Cream Cheese
- 2 shots of Grand Marnier
Mix the butter and brown sugar together to form a paste.
Place the peach halves, cut side up, in baking dishes. (I used small cast iron cauldrons for extra presentation points.) Place a large spoonful of the brown sugar mixture into the center of each peach half.
Put the dish in the oven and bake for 35 minutes.
Allow to cool at least 5 minutes.
Top with a large spoonful of the Honey Nut Cream Cheese, insert a cinnamon stick for garnish, and add a half a shot of Grand Marnier to each dish and ignite.
Cherry Ham Steaks with Sharp Cheddar on a Flour Tortilla
In a small saucepan bring the cherries to a slow boil, add dashes of Liquid Smoke and extract of Cinnamon. While liquid in cherries is reducing by half, brown the ham in a large skillet then add the reduced cherries, lower heat, cover and simmer at least 10 minutes. In a another skillet brown the tortillas and melt the cheese.
- 1 pound fully Cooked Boneless Ham Steaks
- 1 can Del-Monte Dark Sweet Cherries
- 2 cups Kraft Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese
- 1 package Flour Tortillas
- Dash of Liquid Smoke
- Dash of extract of Cinnamon
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Cornbread Stuffing with Pine Nuts
Prepare stuffing per box directions substituting real butter for margarine and adding Pine Nuts while fluffing.
- Stove Top Cornbread Stuffing Mix
- 1/2 stick of Butter
- 2 tablespoons Pine Nuts
Final Score:
- Creativity–9
- Presentation–9
- Taste–9
Items Purchased:
- 2 peaches $0.79
- 1 box Stove Top Cornbread Stuffing Mix $1.42
- 1 pound fully Cooked Boneless Ham Steaks $2.98
- 1 can Del-Monte Dark Sweet Cherries $1.00
- 2 cups Kraft Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese $2.00
- Philedelphia Honey Nut Cream Cheese $1.86
Total: $10.05
Did not use:
- Half the Cream Cheese
- Half the Cheddar Cheese
Brought from Home:
- Half an airplane bottle of Grand Marnier
- stick of butter
- brown sugar
- Pine Nuts
- Cinamon Sticks
- Cinnamon Extract
- Liquid Smoke
- Salt & Pepper
Experiment: 20100903
It’s been a point of geek pride for me to be able to say that except for my very first (A Power Macintosh 6100 bought in ‘94.) I’ve always built my own home workstations. That being said, in recent years I’ve noticed a trend in my improvements where I have been moving away from attempting to build high-end computers, and focusing more on comfort and usability. I believe I may have reached the culmination of this trend with the build I have dubbed the “CompuLounger 1000”. Over the last several months I have been experimenting with the “living room computer” concept, and thanks to a very understanding wife and the purchase of a few final extended length cables I think I have found the right mix with a Lane Bandit Snuggler recliner and a Easy Chair Mount bolted to the floor for stability.
Adventure 20100821
This last weekend I drove over to Nashville State Community College to attend SQLSaturday #51. This was my first time at a SQLSaturday conference and I had a great time. The staff was very friendly and the site was quite comfortable. The drive from Knoxville to Nashville was pretty good, just plugged in my audiobook (The Hero of Ages: Mistborn, Book 3 by Brandon Sanderson, narrated by Michael Kramer) and drove, but I had to get up really early to make the three hour trip in time for the 8:30 AM first session. My timing for the trip also ended up being a little closer than I would have liked as I barely had time to go through registration before the first session started.
Here are the sessions I attended:
XQuery Basics - Allen White
Design and Implement like Edison - Bill Pearson
Fundamentals of SQL Server Internals - Jeremiah Peschka
From Access to SQL Server - Jack Cannon
Fortress SQL Server - Brian Kelley
Introduction to SQL Server Statistics - Andy Warren
My pick for most informative session would have to be Allen White's XQuery Basics. His example of extracting XML mapping data from his Garmin Forerunner was particularly awesome.
I have to say that I was most pleased with my swag from this conferance. Beyond just the normal promotional items I also came home with copies of Being Geek by Michael Lopp and Beginning T-SQL 2008 by Kathi Kellenberger, an Apress ebook gift voucher, and I won a copy of Blueberry FlashBack Pro screen recorder in the raffle.
In contrast to the drive to the conference the trip back to Knoxville in a rainstorm was an exercise in white-knuckle terror. It was partially my own stupid fault though. I actually got ahead of the storm for a while just before Cookeville and made the mistake of stopping at Jack in the Box to feed my addiction to their tacos.
Experiment: 20100806
I have successfully constructed my first “hey, I wonder if I can just make that” Arduino project using a for loop to light LEDs in sequence, then turning them off in 5 minute intervals over a 60 minute period. I’m inordinately proud of myself, despite the simplicity of the project and the fact that I had to toss out the buzzer feature I had first envisioned. (I’m guessing I got the wrong kind of buzzer at Radio Shack as it sounded like a congested squirrel.) My gaming group and I will be using it as the official countdown timer for our home-grown RPG themed cooking show tomorrow.
Shopping List:
12 220Ω Resistors
3 Red LED - 5mm
3 Green LED - 5mm
6 Yellow LED - 5mm
1 Arduino
1 Half-Breadboard
Adventure 20100612
My latest adventure involved driving up to Detroit for my friend Jon's wedding. I moved out of Detroit back in the Fall of 2001 and I have to say I was rather shocked by how much it has changed in the last nine years. Jon is the only friend I have kept in contact with from my time up in Detroit, but a few people remembered me (I tend not to be an easily forgettable person) and other than the driving time itself it was a pleasant little trip.
Adventure 20100514
I was recently lucky enough to be able to attend a two day ScrumMaster certification training session led by Michele Sliger and gain my certification from the Scrum Alliance. Michelle did a great job of making the information interesting and understandable.
Experiment: 20100507
Greg and I decided to share a birthday celebration this year. I asked Kathy to make me a huge peanut-butter chip cookie and I made Greg a very colorful Red Velvet Cake. Considering this is actually the first real cake I've made this year I was a little disappointed, but I suppose I've just gotten out of practice.
