Meat and Potatoes!

We decided to have an old-fashioned meal of steak and potatoes and couldn't resist throwing in the competitive edge to it by involving Betty. We have been experimenting with our new sous vide (pronounced "Sue Veed") machine so we decided to use it to cook steaks.  Basically, you vacume-seal your food then put it in a very low heat water bath in the machine.  It cooks slowly and retains the juices of whatever you're cooking.  Since Connie doesn't eat meat, that job goes to Bruce!

                            Sous Vide Machine


For this week's competition we are featuring Au Gratin Potatoes to go with the steak.  This was Connie's favorite dish growing up and she couldn't resist making it.  We don't typically eat white potatoes and cheese at our house, so this is a decadent treat!

                                          Yummy Au Gratin Potatoes


Bruce is serving as Betty this week with her recipe:

Betty's Au Gratin Potatoes:            

6 medium potatoes

1 medium onion, chopped

1/4 cup margarine or butter

1 tablespoon flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 cups milk

2 cups shredded natural sharp Cheddar cheese

1/4 cup fine dry bread crumbs

Paprika

Peel and slice potatoes into thin slices.

Cook and stir onion in margarine in 2 quarrt saucepan until onion is tender.  Stir in flour, salt and pepper.  Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is bubbly; remove from heat.  Stir in milk and 1 1/2 cups of the cheese.  Heat to boiling, stirring constantly.  Boil and stir 1 minute. Place potatoes in ungreased 1 1/2 quart casserole.  Pour cheese sauce on potatoes.  Cook uncovered in 325 degree oven 1 hour 20 minutes or in 375 degree oven for 1 hour.

Mix remaining cheese and the bread crumbs; sprinkle over potatoes.  Sprinkle with paprika.  Cook uncovered until top is brown and bubbly, 15 to 20 minutes longer.  6 servings.



The Challenger's Au Gratin Potatoes:
This is Connie's original recipe adapted from the dish she enjoyed as a child...

3 large baking potatoes                                         

4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup cream
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 slices of American cheese
1 cup of shredded Cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Make the cream sauce:
In a small saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat.  Add the flour and stir constantly for 3 minutes.  Add the cream and milk and stir until slightly thickened.  Remove from heat.

Slice the potatoes thinly.  Spray a 9 x 13 inch casserole with canola oil.  Spread 1/3 of the potatoes in an even layer in the casserole.  Top with slivers of 1 tablespoon of butter, 1/3 of the cream sauce, 1/3 of the salt, pepper, and garlic powder, 1 slice of American cheese (cut into strips), and 1/3 of the Cheddar cheese.  Repeat for the next two layers. 

Cover the casserole with aluminum foil and cook for 1 hour.  Remove the foil and cook for approximately 15 more minutes until the top is golden brown.

So, who do you think will win this week's potato challenge...Betty or Connie???

This Week's Very Diplomatic Judges!

Bruce's young granddaughters, Elise (6) and Emma (3) came for a summer visit and we asked them to be judges in a very special Betty Crocker cookoff.  Since they are both chocolaholics, it seemed fitting that we'd make double chocolate cupcakes. 

We tried to keep it secret who was cooking which recipe, but clever Elise spotted Poppy adding white chocolate chips to his recipe.  She quickly came over to Connie to report that she'd probably win since Elise does NOT like white chocolate!!! 

Once all the cupcakes were made, we let the girls add sprinkles to all of them...I mean, what's a girlie cupcake if it doesn't have pink sprinkles?

                        Elise and Emma Displaying the Finished Cupcakes

Once they were seated and ready we discreetly placed 3 cupcakes out for tasting. 

                                     Emma Eyeing the Cupcakes

Before Elise could begin, Emma quickly scooped in and grabbed a Betty Crocker cupcake.  One  big bite of the icing and she declared this cupcake the winner!!!  Woohoo for Betty!

                                          Emma Eating All the Icing Off Betty's Cupcake

As Connie was trying not to jump around the kitchen in a victory dance, Elise glanced at the cupcake Emma was devouring and realized that it did not have white chocolate in it.  She glanced worriedly at Poppy and Connie knew that Betty was toast.  Without skipping a beat, she daintily tasted both cupcakes (carefully avoiding the white chocolate chips) and pronounced the cupcake with the white chocolate chips her winner! 

                                               Elise Carefully Making Her Decision

Yes, this child may be a future Secretary of State!!!  We profusely thanked this week's judges and declared their decisions to be fair for all.  So, this week's cookoff is a very sweet tie with even sweeter judges!

The Scorecard Remains:
Betty:                   3
The Challenger:  2

Cupcake War!!!

Since we were expecting some special guests for a summer visit we decided to make cupcakes for two of our very discerning culinary guests.  Connie will cook a batch of Betty Crocker cupcakes and Bruce....well, Bruce decided that it would be appropriate to challenge Betty by cooking a batch of Duncan Hines-inspired cupcakes!

That seemed a bit wimpy (in Connie's mind) since she was cooking everything from scratch.  Bruce held fast to his contention that we had enough to do getting ready for our company's visit that he wanted the cooking part of the week to be easy.  Of course, after seeing his recipe it was a bit more complex than at first expected.

So, up first, Betty's Cocoa Fudge Cupcakes with Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting:

Betty Crocker's Cocoa Fudge Cupcakes

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
   2/3 cup cocoa
   1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
      1 teaspoon salt
      1 teaspoon vanilla
      2 eggs

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Line 30 medium muffin cups with paper baking cups.  Beat all ingredients on low speed, scraping bowl constantly, 30 seconds.  Beat on high speed, scraping bowl occasionally, 3 minutes.  Pour batter into cups, filling 1/2 full.  Bake 20 minutes.  30 cupcakes

Betty Crocker's Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting

1/3 cup margarine or butter, softened
   3 squares (1 ounce each) unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
   3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup dairy sour cream
   2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix margarine and chocolate; stir in powdered sugar.  Stir in sour cream and vanilla; beat until smooth and of spreading consistency.  Frosts 30 cupcakes.

Duncan Hines' Triple Chocolate Cupcakes

Prep: 20 mins
Cooking:  25 mins Cooling: 10 mins
Yields:  30 cupcakes (2 1/2 dozen)

"These Triple-Chocolate Cupcakes make a delicious and easy treat for birthday parties and are a chocolate lover's dream! Chocolate cake mix, chocolate pudding and chocolate morsels combine for a dangerously delicious treat. Do you dare to put chocolate frosting on, too?  Of course!!!" 

Ingredients:

1 pkg. (18.25 oz.) Duncan Hines chocolate cake mix
1 pkg. (4 oz.) chocolate instant pudding and pie filling mix
1 container (8 oz.) sour cream
4 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
1 container (16 oz.) Duncan Hines prepared chocolate frosting
Assorted candy sprinkles

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease or paper-line 30 muffin cups.

Combine cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, eggs, vegetable oil and water in large mixer bowl; beat on low speed just until blended. Beat on high speed for 2 minutes. Stir in morsels. Pour into prepared muffin cups, filling 2/3 full.

Bake for 25 to 28 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Frost; decorate with candy sprinkles.

After the recipes were decided upon, the only other big question was if Duncan Hines was a real person or was he a corporate image like Betty???  We discovered that Mr. Hines was indeed a real person!  See below for more about him:

                                                    The Very Real Mr. Duncan Hines

Duncan Hines (March 26, 1880 – March 15, 1959) was an American pioneer of restaurant ratings for travelers. He is best known today for the brand of food products that bears his name.

Hines was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Working as a traveling salesman for a Chicago printer, by age 55 in 1935, Hines had eaten a lot of good and bad meals on the road all across the US. At this time in the United States, there was no interstate highway system and only a few chain restaurants, except for those in large, populated areas. Therefore, travelers depended on getting a good meal at a local restaurant.

Hines and his wife, Florence, began assembling a list for friends of several hundred good restaurants around the country. The list became so popular that he began selling a paperback book, Adventures in Good Eating (1935), which highlighted restaurants and their featured dishes that Hines had personally enjoyed in locations across America.^[1

So....which of these icons will win the cupcake war????

And the best gazpacho is.....the Challenger!!!

For this week's challenge it only seemed logical to have Ellen and Linda be our judges.  Ellen is a bonafide, true vegan and Linda is quite a gourmet cook.  Connie, Ellen, and Linda started their friendship in a metalsmithing class (that is another story!) and progressed to monthly outings usually involving field trips, food, and the (occasional) glass of wine.

On a beautiful summer day we met at one of our favorite restaurants where Connie discreetly passed bags of gazpacho and accompaniments to our judges for them to take home and taste.

                                                             Linda and Ellen

First up, Betty's gazpacho:

                                                                 Betty's Gazpacho

One thing that we've learned through our weeks of doing this cook-off:  Bruce has a hard time sticking to the recipe!  His creative juices get to flowing, and he wants to deviate big time.  So, that works fine when he's the Challenger because he can adapt the recipe at-will, however when it comes time for him to follow Betty's recipe....different story.  For this recipe, it called for lemon juice and since we didn't have any lemons (and Bruce didn't want to make his 15th trip to the grocery store that evening) he decided that Betty would have used bottled lemon juice.   Connie suspects that is why Linda commented as she did about Betty's dish.

Here's what she said:  "I liked this one, but something about it was a bit off...like it had an oil that was stale or something.  With a bit of sugar...it might have won with me".

Next up:  The Challenger's Gazpacho:

                                                         The Challenger's Gazpacho

Again, Linda had one constructive criticism:  "It was a bit salty for me.  I'm pretty sure it's the Betty Crocker one (wrong, Linda) because it tastes just like the old recipe I used to make...so I have to go with this one as this week's winner".

And, perhaps Ellen summarized this week's contest best:  "For me, it was hands down the Challenger's Gazpacho.  It was chunkier and more flavorful for my taste buds"!

So...lessons learned this week:  when a recipe calls for lemon juice, use the real thing.  And, as the ancient Romans used to say...if you need to take a drink when you eat gazpacho, you've added too much salt!"


The Current Scorecard
Betty:                          3
The Challenger:         2

Moving on to.....Gazpacho

Since Connie primarily eats vegetables (and some seafood), gazpacho is one of her favorite Spring/Summer dishes.  After the rhubarb debaucle, we decided to work with something we know and love:  tomatoes!

Now, for a quick history lesson on the origins of gazpacho:

This popular soup from the Andalusian area , (an autonomous community of Spain), mostly known now for being served cold, has many different influences from Greece and Rome, but also from the Moor's and Arab culture.

The original soup was blended stale bread, olive oil and garlic, with some liquid like water or vinegar that was pounded together in a mortar. Different vegetables and almonds that were available were also added.

This soup evolved into different varieties, the most popular around the world is a tomato based variety, served cold. It is often served heated in certain regions in Spain.

Now Gazpacho has become a generic term for a cold soup that has a vegetable or fruit base or both , that has similar spices to the traditional.

While it was common for Roman soldiers to carry dried bread, garlic and vinegar to make the basics of this early soup, it was Christopher Columbus who changed the dynamics of gazpacho.  Christopher Columbus probably took this soup with him on his voyages from Spain. When he brought back tomatoes, cucumbers and different peppers that is when the soup evolved to it's present state.

Now all kinds of things are added such as watermelon and cantaloupe.

Betty's Gazpacho (prepared by Bruce) from her 1988 cookbook:

1 1/2 cups tomato juice

  1/2  cup chopped cucumber

  1/2  cup chopped green pepper

  1/2  cup chopped onion

     2  tablespoons lemon juice

     1  tablespoon vegetable oil

  1/2  teaspoon salt

  1/4  teaspoon red pepper sauce

     2  tomatoes, chopped

  

Accompaniments:  About 1/2 cup each chopped cucumber, green pepper and onion and 1 cup seasoned croutons

Place all ingredients except Accompaniments in blender container.  Cover and blend on medium speed until smooth.  Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours.  Serve with Accompaniments.  8 appetizer servings.  65 calories per serving.

 

 

The Challenger's Version (prepared by Connie):

As shown in the recipe

Makes six servings.

Ingredients

• 2 Roma (plum) tomatoes, quartered
• 1 large cucumber, peeled and halved
• 1 onion, peeled and halved
• 1 cup green bell pepper, diced
• 1 (4 ounce) jar diced pimento peppers, drained
• 2 (12 fluid ounce) cans tomato juice
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup croutons
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh chives

Directions

1. In a blender combine one tomato, half the cucumber, half the onion, a green bell pepper quarter, the pimento and 1/2 cup tomato juice. Blend at high speed for 30 seconds to puree the vegetables.
2. In a large bowl mix the pureed vegetables with remaining tomato juice, 1/4 cup olive oil, vinegar, hot pepper sauce, salt and ground black pepper. Cover mixture and refrigerate until it is well chilled (about 2 hours).
3. Meanwhile saute the croutons in oil and add the garlic; transfer to a small bowl.
4. Mix remaining chopped tomato, cucumber, onion and green bell pepper with the pureed vegetables. Serve soup in chilled bowls, garnish with chives and croutons as accompaniments.

Nutritional Information

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 167 | Total Fat: 12.9g | Cholesterol: 0mg

One more important thing to know:  According to our research, if you need to have a beverage with gazpacho, then there is too much salt in the recipe.

 

So...who do you think will win this week's Gazpacho Cook-off????

 

The Contest That Would Not End!

The whole problem started when Bruce (very graciously) agreed to do all of the grocery shopping for both of our dishes.  He did not know how much rhubarb it would take to equal a cup so he bought one bunch of it.  He made his Challenger dish first with half of the rhubarb and left Connie the other half.  His dish was quite beautiful, but looked more like a cookie than a crisp.

                                                  The Challenger's Rhubarb Crisp

Since she waited to the last minute to make her dish (and there was not enough rhubarb left for the full recipe) Connie was not able to make the casserole-sized dessert that the recipe called for. So, in her "finite" wisdom she decided to makae half the recipe as two small servings for our judges to taste.

Both Connie and Bruce decided that the rhubarb looked stringy and cut all of the exterior red part away. Then we both agreed that the remainder should be minced since it looked so unappetizing....more big mistakes!

Connie's recipe took forever and still didn't look like the topping had browned, but she stopped the cooking (at twice the recommended amount of time)!  The dish looked awful and the more that she thought about it, the more she decided that the whole problem was caused by Bruce not getting enough rhubarb...it couldn't have been her lack of cooking skills!

                                    Betty's Rhubarb Crisp with LOTS of Whipped Cream

 

On to our judges:

Tom and Kris have been our very good friends for many years.  Bruce and Tom used to work (and still golf) together and Connie and Kris are big-time hikers/walkers. We chose them for this competition because they come from the midwest and both are die-hard rhubarb lovers!  Strange folks, the Midwesterners!

                                                                                                              

They invited us over to their house so that we could all make individual pizzas.and we agreed to bring the dessert:  rhubarb crisp, of course!

                                Kris and Tom Hosting the "Make Your Own Pizza Party"


We ate way too much and laughed way too hard as we quickly covered their kitchen in flour and pizza toppings.  The wine, rum, vodka, and beer flowed steadily which probably didn't help our creative skills, but the pizzas were all delicious.  As we got ready for our yahtzee competition (yes, we are a wild bunch!) we set up the rhubarb crisps for tasting.

Both Tom and Kris were quite perplexed with our creations, flatly stating that they had never tasted rhubarb like ours before!  Given that they are very kind people, they struggled hard to say something positive about both dishes:  Bruce's crisp was buttery, but the rhubarb flavor didn't really come through and Connie's was more like pie filling (Midwestern speak for "mushy, overcooked mystery fruit").
They then quizzed us on how we prepared the rhubarb and brought out their cookbooks to try to help us...definitely not a sign of a successful cooking competition.  We realized that you are supposed to leave the outer skin on the rhubarb and cut it in big chunks instead of mincing it!

We were quite disillusioned with the whole rhubarb experience, but Connie decided to give it one more attempt.   Back to the grocery store went Bruce to get the correct amount of rhubarb and this time she prepared it correctly and made the casserole-sized crisp.

                                                          Betty's 2nd Rhubarb Crisp

For the second tasting, Tom and Kris came over to our house for a Mexican Fiesta which included pulled pork salad and tilapia enchiladas...those dishes should have been this week's challenge!  As we got ready for another yahtzee competition (no, we aren't stuck in our ways), Connie prepared Betty's 2nd Rhubarb Crisp.  The comments were MUCH more positive -- they happily said that this was almost like something they've tasted before!  Not exactly glowing praise, but ....whatever.  Our experiemnentation with rhubarb is over and we've declared this week's competition a DRAW...no winner!

One final note:  We're boycotting the rhubarb.

The Current Scorecard Stays the Same:

Betty:                     3
Challenger:           1

(These) Southerners Should Not Mess Around with Rhubarb!

Neither Bruce nor Connie knew much about rhubarb, so it seemed like an intriguing idea to attempt Rhubarb Crisp...seriously, how hard can it be to make a crisp?  Visions of Apple Brown Betty danced in our heads and we knew that we were up for the challenge!

                                                  Apple Brown Betty

First problem:  we didn't even know what a rhubarb looks like (we thought it might be like eggplant)!  And, we had no idea where you buy the things!


Off  we went to Wikipedia to find out the basics and this is what we learned:

Rhubarb is a group of plants that belong to the genus Rheum in the family Polygonaceae. They are herbaceous perennial plants growing from short, thick rhizomes. They have large leaves that are somewhat triangular-shaped with long fleshy petioles. They have small flowers grouped in large compound leafy greenish-white to rose-red inflorescences.
Although the leaves are toxic, various parts of the plants have medicinal and culinary uses. The traditional Chinese pharmacopeia features rhubarb (as a laxative).^[1]
In culinary use, fresh raw stalks are crisp (similar to celery) with a strong tart taste. Most commonly the plant's stalks are cooked with sugar and used in pies and other desserts. A number of varieties have been domesticated for human consumption, most of which are recognised as Rheum x hybridum by the Royal Horticultural Society.
Rhubarb is usually considered to be a vegetable; however, in the United States, a New York court decided in 1947 that since it was used in the United States as a fruit, it was to be counted as a fruit for the purposes of regulations and duties. A side effect was a reduction on imported rhubarb tariffs, as tariffs were higher for vegetables than fruits.^[2]

Bruce agreed to go in search of this mysterious ingredient and he went to the most exotic shop we frequent...Kroger!  (Actually, we sometimes venture out to Publix).  And, this is what he found --

                                                                ^{The Mysterious Rhubarb}
                                                                                     
They're quite pretty...like red celery.  They seemed kind of stringy so we made a joint decision to skin them first and chop them up really small...first big mistake!  Our second big mistake was not buying enough rhubarb for both of our dishes.  Our third mistake was not tasting the thing before we started cooking with it...we were both kind of scared of it! And our final (and biggest) mistake was serving this to one of our judges who had just had a colonoscopy (we didn't read the fine print from Wikipedia that it is used as a laxative...whoops!)

Anyway, on to this week's recipes:

Betty Crocker's Rhubarb Crisp

4      cups cut-up fresh rhubarb
1/2   teaspoon salt
1 1/3 to 2 cups sugar (depending on tartness of rhubarb)
3/4   cup all-purpose flour
1      teaspoon cinnamon
1/3   cup butter or margerine
Whipped Cream

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Place rhubarb in ungreased baking dish, 10x6x2 inches.  Sprinkle with salt.  Measure sugar, flour and cinnamon into bowl.  Add butter and mix thoroughly until mixture is crumbly.  Sprinkle evenly over rhubarb.

Bake 40 to 50 minutes or until topping is golden brown.  Serve warm with whipped cream.

6 servings.

The Challenger's Rhubarb White Chocolate Crisp

Prep Time:  10 mins
Total Time:  1 hrs 10 mins
 Servings:     12

Ingredients:
4 cups rhubarb, chopped
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place chopped rhubarb in a 13 x 9 cake pan
Bake for 20 minutes.
While rhubarb is baking, mix the rest of the ingredients.
Crumble mixture on top of cooked rhubarb and bake 40 minutes longer


So, who do you think will win this week's challenge??? Stay tuned for the strange story of the rhubarb cookoff!!!