Cook Off

There are advantages and disadvantages to spending hours upon hours stuck to your sofa viewing multiple episodes on the Food Network channel. I ought to know because based on the sinking of my sofa and the well worn 1-1-0 on my remote control, I think it is safe to say that I have quite possibly surpassed the world record for the number of hours spent watching one channel.

The clear advantage to my obsession with Food Network is the number of fantastic meals my family gets to enjoy. Tom has often raved to people about my cooking and commented, “We have something new every night.” A clear disadvantage to my obsession with Food Network is the number of disgusting meals my family has to eat. Tom doesn’t rave about those so much.

A real danger is the increasing number of shows that are about cooking challenges. I watch these and I begin to get crazy ideas about entering, say the Pillsbury Bake-Off, Chili Challenge, or Wedding Cake challenge. I think the last one is most definitely never going to happen. The biggest cake I ever decorated was a sheet cake sporting the Lizzie Maguire cartoon. On the few occasions when I have made a regular two layer cake the top layer always appears to be leaning ever so slightly to one side. This could probably be passed off as “trendy” if I had half a clue how to even pull that off. So cake decorating may not be the way to go. I seriously get crazy ideas that I should come up with some bizarre yet fabulous recipe and enter it in a cooking contest and win the million dollar first prize, become debt free, take a vacation to Hawaii, and hire a maid to clean my bathrooms.

One day last summer, Megan marched into the kitchen and slapped a piece of paper on the counter and said, “Could you please pick these things up for me at the grocery store?” I asked her why and she informed me that she had “created” a recipe, and she was going to make it for the family for dinner that night. I looked over the recipe and must admit that I was a little freaked out at first. Chopped carrots, cinnamon, orange juice, Oriental 5 spice. Is it freaking you out a little? It should. Not one to dampen my daughter’s creativity, I picked up the ingredients at the store and watched as Megan carefully mixed her marinade and placed it over chicken. I convinced Megan that it would be a good idea to let the chicken marinade for 24 hours so the flavors would really have time to develop. The reality is that I was very hungry that night and not optimistic that dinner was going to turn out well. I suggested we go out to eat that night. The next day we grilled Megan’s chicken and to my shame I must admit that it was fantastic. Tom, Hailey, and I were completely shocked at how flavorful and delicious Megan’s chicken had turned out. I think Megan was even a little surprised. We have since made her chicken many times and it never ceases to amaze me how wonderful it is.

Since we have established that Tom does not cook and has no real knowledge of cooking, I assumed that Megan must have gotten her brilliance in the recipe creation department from none other than me. So when Hailey caught me after a Food Network Challenge show and stated she wanted to come up with a new recipe for dinner on Friday night, I thought myself totally capable of assisting in the creation of this new recipe. In hindsight, I should have either let Hailey come up with the recipe completely on her own, or I should have suggested that she talk with her sister about recipe ideas. Hindsight is 20/20.

Hailey said she wanted to make a Sloppy Joe. I saw an advertisement on the TV for contestants to send in their favorite peanut butter recipes. I suggested to Hailey that we try a peanut butter and jelly Sloppy Joe. Hailey looked at me with great skepticism. I guess my delusional confidence won her over because she agreed that we should give it a try. We decided that ground chicken would probably compliment the PB&J better then ground beef. Hailey went to work browning the ground chicken while I feverishly mixed equal parts peanut butter and jelly. When the meat was ready, Hailey stirred in the sauce. We made sure it was well incorporated and then we both sampled our creation. I’m not sure there are words to describe the look on our faces after we tasted the PB&J Sloppy Joe mix. I guess it was a cross between disgust and an unwillingness to admit defeat. We raced to the refrigerator and grabbed ketchup, Worcestershire Sauce, and then to the cupboard for brown sugar. A little of this, a little of that, a lot of that and we had something that was, well, something we could possibly eat for dinner.

We had an agreement that we were not going to tell Megan and Tom what was in the sauce. We wanted them to at least try it before they formed a negative impression. When we sat down to eat what we decided to call “Sticky Joes”, Tom took a big bite, chewed quickly, then very slowly, then very quickly again. “What is in this?” I anxiously spoke up and said that Hailey had helped to create the sauce. With this mention his face softened and he looked lovingly at his little daughter. “It’s very different.” Hailey beamed at the praise from her adoring father. Tom and I managed to get our Sticky Joes down, but Megan and Hailey claimed to be full and passed on dinner that night.

My lesson learned from this failed attempt at food creativity. First, next time Hailey wants to be creative in the kitchen, give her full rein. She can’t do any worse then I did. Second, maybe I’m not quite ready for a Food Network Cook Off. Although, I did have this interesting idea with horseradish and peanut butter....