Posts from — May 2008

OK so after watching Episode 8 of Top Chef, I decided to put the $10 meal to the test. As expected, I was well over budget after adding up the cost of all the ingredients. I think I hit the $10 mark after adding up the chicken, noodles, bok choy and red pepper (although stupid Safeway charged me $1.99 for the pepper which I think is highway robbery). I guess you could make a meal from that stuff alone, but the main flavor of Antonia’s dish came from teriyaki sauce which will set you back at least $3 if you get a cheapo brand, and $5 (at Safeway) if you get my fav, Soy Vey.

Anyway, since the Bravo website’s recipe for Stir Fry Whole Wheat Noodles was seriously lacking, I decided to Snarkyize it.

Sooo, I didn’t think that would taste all that great so I changed some stuff in the recipe. Basically, I used all of the ingredients listed above minus the carrots and cilantro (because I forgot the carrots, and I don’t really like cilantro). Here’s what I did:

1. Cut up chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces or strips, and marinate in teriyaki sauce for up to 2 hours.

2. Cook whole wheat pasta (I used linguine) according to package directions. Mine took about 7 minutes so if you have the pasta water boiling and start cooking it right before you start making the chicken/vegetables everything should be ready at around the same time.

2. Drizzle a large pan with just enough oil to coat over medium-highish heat, add chopped onion. Saute until the onions are just starting to become translucent (about 2-3 minutes).

3. Add the chicken pieces and cook for a couple minutes until most of the pinkness goes away. Add the chopped red pepper and stir everything occasionally, until the peppers are just softened.

4. Add the chopped bok choy and cook until the greens are wilted. (Note: I only used the leafy green parts and discarded the white, celery-ish bottoms because they can be pretty hard and have a strong bitter taste which I didn’t think would be tasty with the pasta, but if you want to leave them in — go for it! Just know that the stalks take longer to cook, so I would add them with the peppers before adding the greens.) Also, this is a good time to add the shelled, frozen edamame.

5. At this point all of this stuff has most likely given off some water, which is probably sitting at the bottom of your pan. Carefully pour off as much as you can, and then drizzle the entire mixture with some teriyaki sauce (NOT the stuff you just marinated the chicken in, weirdo). I also put in a couple squirts of sriracha (you could also use hot sauce) because I put it on everything. Mix until everything is lightly glazed with sauce. Set aside.

6. Your pasta should be ready now, so drain it off and place it in a large bowl.

7. I think what the Bravo website recipe lacked was sauce for the pasta (since I think store-bought teriyaki is kind of nasty and the thought of dousing my noodles with it made me kinda barfy), so I made my own using:

• ¼ c. sesame oil
• ¼ c. soy sauce
• 2 T. vinegar (I used rice vinegar because it was all I had)
• 2 T. sugar
• 2 T. hot chili oil (you could substitute just straight hot sauce or sriracha to taste if you don’t have this)

Just whisk it all together and pour it right over the hot noodles.

8. Toss noodles with sauce to coat. Then add the chicken and veggie mixture from before and mix it all together. Also, I had some leftover slivered almonds from something so I toasted those and added them to the pasta, which gave it a cool crunchy element. Totes a great extra if you’re feeling sassy.

9. Marvel at your (somewhat) cheap and tasty creation.

This recipe makes alot of food. Like enough for a whole family or a single hoss.

**Added bonus: this pasta tastes awesome cold, so its nice for snacking leftovers straight from the fridge.**

A Snarky Top Chef Recap: Episode 8

OK, so this episode was pretty tame. Mostly because children were involved so the drama was kept to a minimum, along with the use of Season 4’s favorite word: the F-bomb. The guest judge was also lame … Oprah’s personal chef, Art Smith. For their Quickfire Challenge they were to create a fabulous entree in 15 minutes using Uncle Ben’s microwaveable rice. I’ve had this 90-second rice before, and it sucks. You tear a hole in the top, nuke it for a minute and a half and magically you have gross tasting rice. In Uncle Ben’s defense, I’m sort of a rice snob, and my family has like 800 rice cookers of assorted colors and sizes. I hadn’t even heard of this microwavable rice until senior year of college when my roommate would make it all the time. Her diet consisted of cheese cubes, cereal, cold cuts and this microwavable rice so I’ve had limited exposure to White People’s rice.

The cheftestants got pretty creative with their microwavable rice and their 15 minutes. Stephanie made a seafood pancake, and Andrew even used the raw rice to coat his chicken. Art’s bottom three consisted of Mark, Lisa and Stephanie. His favorites were Dale (go Asians!), Richard and Antonia. Her rice salad with skirt steak looked really tasty, and Oprah’s Chef gave Antonia the coveted Quickfire immunity. He loved the hot and cold of the salad and the warm rice.

Rice + Salad = Surprisingly Tasty Goodness

For their Elimination Challenge, the cheftestants are asked to make cheap eats for a family of 4, with a budget of $10. Maybe food is cheaper in Chicago (I doubt it), but $10 in DC will get you a couple of Top Ramen and some chicken nuggets. They don’t even have either of those things at Whole Foods because it’s not fancy organic food. Ten dollars at Whole Foods will get you one apple and an Odwalla juice to wash it down. This challenge is bogus.

At the checkout, we see the chefs breaking off half of their produce to meet their budget constraints. I’m pretty sure once I went to Safeway and tried to buy half a ginger root (which I broke in half myself) and they wouldn’t let me. But that might be because it was crappy Safeway, home of rotting food and the occasional drive-by.

The chefs get to the Elimination Challenge kitchen and Padma announces they will be getting help from guest sous chefs! I’m hoping its bitter ex-contestants from seasons past, but instead its KIDS!! The Elimination Challenge is to cook a simple, healthy dish for the children in Art Smith’s foundation, Common Threads. It’s actually a really good cause, and they have the support of a ton of famous chefs. The kids were super psyched to get their hands dirty and start cooking for their pals.

You Were A Child …

Richard
Elimination Dish: roasted chicken with black beans, apple, avocado & beet salad
Aww Moment: When Richard was psyched because his sous chef’s blue shirt matched perfectly with his girly pink Crocs. An Aww Moment for Chef Tom when he asked her if she put the onions on a treadmill to get them to sweat.

Lisa
Elimination Dish: roasted chicken with edamame & black beans, pb & apple french toast
Aww Moment: When she said she loved to cook with her girlfriend’s kid. Like we didn’t all see that coming.

Dale
Elimination Dish: turkey bratwurst with potatoes, onions, red cabbage & apples
Aww Moment: Got the runty kid, and recounted his memories of growing up as a short Asian kid who waited desperately for puberty/his growth spurt. Is still waiting, but traded his Jordans for an apron in the meantime.

Spike
Elimination Dish: pasta puttanesca, carrot soup & semi-baked apples
Aww Moment: When his kid cut himself within .5 seconds of the challenge starting, then struggled to hold back tears so he didn’t cry on national television and get his ass kicked in school.

Nikki
Elimination Dish: roasted chicken with mixed vegetables, tomato & cucumber salad
Aww Moment: Was raised by a single parent, and confessed that she began cooking at the tender age of 8.

Mark
Elimination Dish: vegetable curry, cinnamon rice & cucumber salad
Aww Moment: Shared a moment with his sous chef after learning she was from Mexico and he was from New Zealand. What a small world!

Antonia
Elimination Dish: chicken and vegetable stir fry with whole wheat noodles
Aww Moment: Smellmop who? Also, my blackened little heart swelled when she cried upon seeing that the guest sous chefs were kids.

Andrew
Elimination Dish: chicken paillard with fennel, apples & orange salad
Aww Moment: Confessed to being a fattie when he was younger (he lost 200 lbs?!) and I thought he was cute for a second.

Stephanie
Elimination Dish: couscous with eggplant & zucchini, chicken in peanut & tomato sauce; apples with granola
Aww Moment: When her sous chef ended up being as tall as her.

Andrew, Nikki and Antonia received rave reviews from both the kids and the judges. They loved Nikki’s one-pot wonder, and she managed to sneak in brussel sprouts! Personally, I don’t mind brussel sprouts, but I’m a weirdo and my favorite veggie growing up was lima beans. Andrew’s dish was a hit for introducing an interesting new ingredient with his use of a fennel salad. But in the end, even though Antonia had immunity, the super-mom picked up the win. Everyone loved the mild, but sophisticated flavors of her veggie stir-fry that were delicious for all ages.

Knock, knock? Who’s there?

Not surprisingly, the least successful dishes in the challenge belonged to Stephanie, Mark and Lisa. The panel of judges was baffled by Stephanie’s tomato, lemon and peanut sauce. I eat alot of weird shit, and that sounded gross, even to me. Padma was def not a fan, and “detested” her overcooked couscous. I have to admit, I was a little worried that Stephanie would be packing her knives. I mean, we all knew as soon as they showed her bumbling around Whole Foods to carnival music that her dish would be a hot mess. Lisa’s dish was bland, and Mark’s curry was just barfariffic. It looked horrendous, and had the nutritional value of a bag of Cheetos and a slurpee. When Mark quipped that Chef Tom was “digging the shit out of his curry” I laughed my ass off considering it looked suspiciously like liquid dookie (I just learned this word yesterday). Mark whined about Chef Tom not liking him, which T-Colicchio unconvincingly denied. In the end, even if he had been Chef Tom’s BFF, it wouldn’t have saved him from the barfy curry that ultimately sent him packing. Rock on, rocker!

Open up, it’s Smell My Poo.