This is not your ordinary 'food fight'. As a family, we battle it out 'iron chef style' in the kitchen!
This week Cassie modeled a fancy new t-shirt and invited one of her bffs to join us for one of our family food fights. It was fun having Megan join us, and just like Natalie Portman on Top Chef and Zoey Deschanel on Top Chef Masters, Megan’s vegetarianism presented a few challenges to the Our Family Foodfight team.
Ah, Halloween! One of our favorite holidays. Although Cass is getting older, she’s still not too old to go trick or treating. This year she had a record setting haul - after sorting out all the smarties and lollipops and other junk candy, she netted 4.5lbs of candy which was 178 pieces of delicious chocolate goodness.
Surprisingly, 178 pieces of chocolate is more than a 13yr old can eat in one sitting. So what did we do with the leftovers?
This past Saturday, we went to a Halloween/Oktoberfest beer tasting hosted by our friends Chalie and Michelle. Everyone was asked to bring a ‘sixer’ that related to one of the themes and be prepared to discuss why the beer fit into the categories. There were a couple of pumpkins, one or two devils, a few Oktoberfest, two Coney Island freak shows, a pirate, a chocolate and a hard cider rounded out the mix – in all, 15 beers teased our taste buds. In addition to our sixers, we were asked to bring an appropriate food pairing. This is where we had some fun.
This week the “our family food fight team” is taking Sunday off to enjoy “Sunday Supper” with chefs Jeremy Hanlon and Wayne Dever. These two chefs are preparing a one-night-only dining experience that combines each chef’s unique culinary perspective into a four-course tasting menu.
Therefore, instead of our traditional food fights, i offer you a little insight into our family and our Sunday dinners….
Our Family Foodfight’s Sunday Dinner
Growing up, Sundays were the day the whole family got together for dinner. Typically at my aunt & uncle’s house, my mom and I would join the family for the traditional spaghetti & meatballs with gravy. Yup, gravy! That’s what we and a generation of Italian-American New Yorkers called ‘spaghetti sauce’ that was slow-cooked all day with meatballs and sausage and sometimes with the addition pork and bracciole.
This past Sunday, we continued the tradition and invited my cousin and her family over for dinner – Sunday Dinner – complete with meatballs, sausage, ricotta and of course, my own slow-cooked gravy! Perhaps hard to tell, but that platter is HUGE. It is holding approximately 7 pounds of food! Two pounds of linguine, three pounds of sausage and at least 20 meatballs (which include a pound each of ground beef and ground pork as well as cheese and fresh bread crumbs).
As if that wasn’t enough food, for dessert I whipped up these tasty cannoli bites which were inspired by a recipe we found on Big Red Kitchen. We didn’t deviate much from their recipe, mainly slight adjustments for taste, and we used Siljans Crispy Cups we found at IKEA instead of the phyllo as suggested by Big Red Kitchen.
This week we battled it out “Chopped” style with mystery ingredients. We each were given a random category to shop for, with the only proviso being “keep it secret”.
For those of you new to the site, let’s introduce our chefs first:
Cassie- an 8th-grader currently enrolled in a pre-med program and enjoys fencing and listening to Metallica.
Nana – the matriarch of our family and self-proclaimed culinista, publishes – Foodalogue.com a blog about food & travel.
Jim - Lead Visioneer for a Fortune 100 company and publisher of Our Family Foodfight.
Julie - the newest member of Our Family Foodfight has previously appeared on TV with both Mr. T and Webster
The Mystery Ingredients…
Nana’s “Chicken Thigh Wellington”
Chickpea floured chicken thighs, quickly fried and then baked. Served on a toast round with paté and topped with soy-braised callaloo with pomegranite seeds.
Jim’s Callaloo-wrapped Chicken Dumplings
Chicken thighs minced with ginger, garlic and pom seeds, wrapped in callaloo leaves and steamed over the beef based, soy pomegranate broth.
Cassie’s Stuffed Chicken Thighs
Cassie stuffed the soy-marinated chicken thighs with callaloo cooked with bacon and mixed with breadcrumbs and cheese. This was roasted in the oven and served with a pomegranate sauce.
Julie’s Callaloo Wraps.
Lettuce-wrap inspired, these callaloo-wrapped bites were stuffed with garlic spiced, diced chicken, water chestnuts, and carrots and served with a rich pomegranate reduction.
Although the ingredients were a mystery, it was no mystery who won! Congrats go to Cassie for a perfectly executed and well-thought out dish, with great fall flavors. And a special congrats goes to Julie, who although new to the challenge, stepped it up this week with this inspired fresh bite.
