Friday, July 17, 2009

CHOPPED!!

...for those of you who have never seen the Food Network show 'Chopped', the premise is as follows: four chefs compete during the hour, making first an appetizer, then an entree, then a dessert. For each dish, the chefs are presented each with a basket. They open the basket, and there are three or four items, sometimes a pretty weird combination, and they must use all of them to make the dish. For example, 'Make an appetizer using....asparagus, Fruit Loops, squash, and ketchup!' Well, it's never been QUITE that strange, but sometimes it comes close....
Last week, week 6 of our CSA, we were a little concerned, because we are now down to the very late summer veggies, and we do like to keep our members happy, but we also know they've seen plenty of hot peppers and eggplant. So, we decided to take the basket we gave them last week, and do our own version of 'Chopped!', just to see what WE would do presented with the same items.
Here is the basket, exactly as our CSA members received theirs last Saturday:
the basket contains:
okra
zucchini
parsley
eggplant
chilis
jalepenos
rosemary jelly
watermelon

We cheated a little bit
; we didn't make one dish, we made a complete dinner. By the way, chefs are allowed to use other stuff from the pantry, but other than spices and a 'protein', as they say, (and why can't they just say meat?) we didn't stray. Here is what we came up with:


the appetizer:
jalepenos, stuffed with cheese, battered and fried, served with rosemary jelly
the entree:
stuffed eggplant, with zucchini, shrimp, and chilis
served with fried okra
and dessert:
watermelon sorbet!

after this little experiment, we felt that the basket was actually filled with things very compatible with each other, and everybody was probably pretty happy with their weekly share.
On to Week 7!

4 comments:

  1. We are down to getting only about 8 eggs a day now. Some days it's just 2. I can email you with our inventory, but it probably won't be more than 10 dozen. We have about 70 birds that will begin laying soon though! With your CSA success, I think it's time to get some chickens! It's SO easy--and you have plenty of room! Just think about all of that free fertilizer! After our garden this year, we were wishing we had a hog!

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  2. well hey!

    I guess I'm asking at a bad time of the egg-laying season! We thought we'd like to supplement the last week's basket with eggs, but I think we're covered (although it would be a nice thing to do!). We've discussed chickens at length: of course, it's one more thing for Will to build! (chicken house etc) But he's given it enough thought to even know where he wants it. So that's hopeful! If we do move towards chicken-getting, I'll be visiting you to see how this is done! I'm sure it's not without it's pitfalls (predators). Thanks for getting back to me. Yes, the CSA has been successful...we had GREAT people.

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  3. Love your CHOPPED attempt! We have loved sitting down at the table on several occastions and realizing how "local/fresh" our dinners have been between your great baskets, our small garden, and the fishing we've done this year! Just makes you feel good!

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  4. Thais,

    You & Will ROCK! That beautiful meal beats the Chopped chefs into the ground. After all, you tilled it, planted it, tended it, harvested it, and blended it all together into a great summer garden meal. Well done.

    :)

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