Iron Chef Blogger Challenge Week 7 and 8

Once again, I have a double ICBC post. I felt like I should get this posted since this week was my turn for picking.

Week 7

The background: Two weeks ago we had "something pickled" as our ingredient. I briefly looked into making my own pickles, but once the "super easy" recipe started talking about sanitizing your pickling jars, I glazed over and moved on. I decided to go with a sweet relish pimento spread, since relish is pickled (but thankfully, not pickled by me. I love pimento spread from the jar, which is salmon-y pink and really not good for you. My mom grew up eating it on white bread, and my grandma would always serve it as an appetizer on celery. So, I decided to make it myself.

The Prep/The main event: I don't remember much from the preparation of this spread. I do remember thinking that it contained a lot of cheese, and that the tastiest point was when I had whipped together the cream cheese and cheddar cheese mixture. This was another one of those put-it-in-a-bowl and you're done recipes.

The wrap-up: I was pretty disappointed in the spread, but it's not entirely the spread's fault. I had forgotten how much I don't like bread and butter pickles, and sweet relish (aw, that should have told me something) tastes just like b & b pickles. Ick. So it wasn't like the tasty treat. Maybe the nostalgia makes it hard to beat, too?

The final score: For prep, 5 out of 6 (easy, but I was sad that most of these ingredients ended up just sitting in a bowl in the fridge) and for taste, 2 out of 6.

The recipe:
Tom's Sweet Pimento Cheese
From AllRecipes.com


Ingredients

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 12 ounces shredded mild Cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup creamy salad dressing (such as Miracle Whip®)
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 2 tablespoons sweet pickle juice
• 1/2 cup sweet pickle relish
• 1 (4 ounce) jar chopped pimentos, drained

Directions

1. Beat the cream cheese and Cheddar cheese together with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the salad dressing, garlic salt, sugar, and pickle juice, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl. Stir in the pickle relish and pimentos. Refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

Week 8

The background: It was my turn! Hurray! I had been pondering my ingredient for a few weeks, trying to find something unique but used in a variety of recipes. I considered doing chocolate, with the rule that you had to make something non-dessert with it, but I figured the only real option for that is a version of mole sauce. Not a big fan of mole, surprisingly. Anyway, when we were in Vegas for Brian's marathon, I managed to find the Citrus Marketing Inc. table in the exhibit hall, sandwiched between shoe vendors and wonder goo sales people. They were pushing grapefruit and I happily grabbed all their free samples. Included was a set of grapefruit recipes and from that I decided that some fun could be had with one of my absolute favorite fruits. So, there you go. I put the Texas Citrus Salsa to the test.

The prep: Grapefruit (and oranges) are about the only fruits in season so they were easy to find. The grapefruit in the stores right now are HUGE and so amazingly tasty.


On the chopping block.

The main event: Chop, chop, chop. The steps for making the salsa were simple, but gave me a chance to work my chopping skills. Food is hard to cut into pretty, small pieces. I thought about how nice it would be to have a food processor, but then thought about how nice it was to just spend some time preparing something, beyond dumping and heating up or venting and microwaving. Sometimes, the time you save just goes to surfing the internet for another 10 minutes. I learned how to section a grapefruit, a very useful skill, I'm sure.

The wrap-up: Despite my love for grapefruit (gee, have I mentioned that?) I almost didn't want to try the salsa! Something about combining fruits with onions and salt just seemed weird. But I love mango salsa! So I took a bite and - hurray - it was great. Very satisfying and good on corn chips. A warning, though, it's medium to hot if you put in the whole jalapeno. I definitely needed water after the first bite! I recommend throwing in more tomato, too.

The final score: Cooking experience was 6 out of 6, because I put on some music and enjoyed slicing and dicing (Got a CD by Jem for Christmas and highly enjoy it. No, not the 80s cartoon.) For taste, 5 out of 6 - fabulous, though the flavor was pretty quiet. Spicy, but quiet, if that makes any sense. Brian, the salsa king, refuses to use my 6 point scale, so he says 8.75 and continues singing "Jingle Bell Rock."


*Smonch, smonch, smonch*


I am not a hand model. Please ignore the cilantro under my nails.

The recipe:

Texas Citrus Salsa
From TexaSweet

Ingredients
1 Grapefruit, sectioned and chopped
1 orange, sectioned and chopped
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 cup of diced bell pepper
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
3 tablespoons chopped red onion
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions
1. Mix all of the above ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Refrigerate until ready to use.
3. Drain juice before serving

The card recommends trying this over a baked potato, grilled fish, or grilled chicken. So there you go.

Unrelated pictures:


We saw Joel McHale (from The Soup and Community) for New Year's Eve. Very entertaining. He's also very, very tall.


My brother introduced my to Threadless last year and it has come to this - matching shirts. It took my parents about 10 minutes to notice as we casually talked to them in the kitchen.