New Headline Top Chef Challenge

For some crazy reason we drove for 5 months today to go to a bbq in Oxfordshire for all of 2 and a bit hours. But it was to see Andy’s old school mates, who he hadn’t seen in a very long time. By the time we were nearing London, traffic picked up in conjunction with hunger and dinner planning inevitably came up for discussion.

I created a Top Chef challenge – I would read the top 2 headlines on BBC news on my blackberry and we would each use our headline for inspiration for dinner.


Andy’s headline “BP makes new big to plug oil leak”
Andy’s interpretation started with green apple inspired by the BP green logo, wrapped in bacon and sautéed – on the plate the bacon apples formed a sort of conceptual oil leak. Then, the actual oil was green pumpkin seed oil mixed with cream cheese to ‘cap’ the nice sourdough loaf of bread.


Beth’s headline “Rosetta probe passes space rock”
I went for the great british classic – insta-mix Angel Delight in wonderfully artificial strawberry flavour for rosetta coloring, topped with a pink and white marshmallow biscuit and Saturn-Ringed in strawberry sauce, all sprinkled with watermelon pop rocks space dust to pass the space rock.

Andy may have won on taste, but my presentation was better.

World Cup Semi: Germany v Spain

The Davidson-Wayne household is split again across cultural lines. I’m more of Spanish rioja, and Andy is more of a Beck’s lager. I like the passionate, chaotic Spanish team, and Andy likes the orderly, tidy Germans. So dinner tonight had to be a fusion of the two – and thus Chorizo Spaetzle was born.

Growing up in Middlefield there was a local german butcher Noacks in the next town over and my first experience with Spaetzle was out of a box: a nice doughy pasta creating total comfort food. It would be nearly 25 years later before I had my first spaetzle, the ‘french fries’ to most authentic german meals – boiled pasta and that is then pan fried for a little crunch. So yummmmmmmmmmmmy.

Andy made ours from scratch tonight, using our last duck egg (will definitely be buying more of those at the farm shop) and pushing the batter through our pasta sieve (I hope he cleaned it better this time) into boiling water. He then pan fried it with olive oil and garlic, added some sautéed chorizo, cream and mozzarella and made a pasta bake of it in the oven.

To cut through the massive carb load I made a waldorf inspired salad. The dressing was cider vinegar and honey mustard with a dash of cream over maiche with apple, goat cheese and pine nuts playing the role of walnuts. No celery is welcome in my house.

I drank mine with my favourite white rioja – which, sadly was corked, just when I thought that this never happens – i’m hopeful that the rest of the case in the wine cellar is fine – we’ve had about 6 bottles so far and they have all been spectacular toffee wonderfulness.

Andy is still working on his giant Beck’s. He’s also still hopeful someone will score in this game – I gave up after the last spaetzle was gone from my plate.

Meat, starch, and 2 veg

I realise looking upon my past dinner posts that I tend to follow the traditional (and boring) meat and two veg approach to dinner, and often have a starch given our mutual love of carbs in the wayne-davidson house. I never heard the phrase “meat and 2 veg” until i moved to the UK, and quickly understood it to actually be meat (usually red), potatoes and 1 veg . Tell Andy that potatoes don’t really count as a veg and stand back to receive the screaming rant of a mad brit.

But tonight as i could find no better title for our somewhat boring dinner of grilled veal, carrots, left over strawberry risotto and fresh shelled pea soup, I thought it appropriate to do a little background research on ‘meat and 2 veg’. I beg you, dear reader, not to google this – apparently it means something else a la Joe Camel and Monty Python’s infamous Penis Song.

So, umm, dinner then.

Grilled veal escalopes – marinated in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and black pepper – thrown on a hot grill for just the briefest of time.

Fresh shucked garden pea soup – garden peas brought to a boil, add a head of lettuce to wilt, throw it in a blender with some salt – top with crème fraiche and fresh mint. Neither of us really cared for this one – a little too grainy i think. Maybe a bit too healthy.

Carrots in their usual maple syrup and chipotle.

And the leftover risotto from last night with the leftover strawberry salsa from the salmon – you might not think that salsa and risotto could work, but i guess you have rice and salsa in a burrito, and that most definitely works.

Grilled Back Bacon BLT and Chilled Andalucian Gazpacho

I have come to love the BLT. I know I am late to the party on this one, but I always hated lettuce on a sandwich – something about the texture, and never liked mayo. I used to think the BLT should be a BCT – where the lettuce is replaced by cheese. But Pret’s streaky bacon BLT changed that, and it wasn’t long before I was comparing BLT’s across town and attempting my own versions.

The BLT started in Victorian times (although they used cheese), and today’s name comes from the American diner’s use of shorthand when taking orders. I read that in America it’s the second most popular sandwich after the Ham Sandwich. I would have had my money on a pb&j or grilled cheese, but if it ever comes up in pub trivia, you owe me a beer.

My version, today, utilised Spoilt Pig’s back bacon. For the Americans, back bacon is closest to Canadian bacon, but has a little nip of streaky bacon on top. It has much less fat, and is actually pretty close to simple ham. As a lover of streaky bacon, and bizarrely a hater of ham, I shouldn’t like it, but I do. I thought it would be a bit healthier in the sandwich.

I grilled the back bacon on the weber (gas – who would ever bother to get charcoal going for something as small as bacon?) and toasted the multigrain bread there too. I applied a bit of hellmans extra light mayo and then a nice big layer of gem lettuce and fresh isle of white tomatoes. Yum.

For the gazpacho, i did my usual ‘dump a lot of stuff in the blender’ but also chopped up extra onion, red pepper and cucumber finely to add back to the blended bit for a little crunch.

A festival of strawberries (or Susan's worst nightmare)

I can’t believe a year has gone by since I made a posting here. But with the annual summer slow down at work I have some free time again to write, and after the top chef dinner party, some real motivation and inspiration to try new things.

Wimbledon just wrapped up, which means one thing to me (the folks at the annual Harrod’s sale would think otherwise) – strawberry season in the UK. If you knew me when I was a little girl, you would know that strawberry season really is my favourite time of year. I can eat fresh strawberries for breakfast, lunch and dinner and the three snacks in between. That great lake house I grew up in, where my mom and Randy still live, is in fact credited to my love of strawberries. We went to the nearby lyman orchards to do some pick your own, and on the way home passed a strange scene – a ‘For Sale’ sign – which never happens lakefront as they get snapped up too soon. We stopped at the corner payphone and my parents made an offer without seeing the inside. (There was some real caveat emptor when they finally did see those thick shag green carpets and painted shut windows)

But back to dinner. I wanted to make an entire meal celebrating the strawberry. We have all probably had a few berries tossed onto the spinach salad, but as part of the main course and the starch? That would be a bit tricky. La Famiglia does a strawberry risotto, so I decided to start there. I did a little research on the web and learned that a strawberry risotto need not be sweet – layer it with red chillies, balsamic, parmesan and fresh basil instead – and forego stock and white wine for simple water and a bit of rose wine. It worked beautifully taste wise, but the colour could have been richer in my opinion.

For the salmon I chopped the strawberries into a simple salsa – with coriander, lime, green spring onion, red chillies, and a dash of always faithful chipotle. I coated the salmon in Katy O’s hood strawberry jam, olive oil and chipotle before pan searing it.

The accompanying salad was a base of maiche with a dressing of strawberry jam, balsamic and honey, and then a coating of goat cheese and almond slices.

We ate it with a big glass of rosé – our token single glass of rosé on a hot summer day – we say we only thirst for rosé once a year and then we’re over it. I’m hoping that the next post won’t be so long to come.