My Iron Chef Competition.

Imagine 15 teams with 2 - 3 people on each team battling head to head all the time cooking their hearts out to win bragging rights. Now imagine all of these people using the same limited ingredients. That's what I participated in, and this is my story.
If you follow the Facebook or the twitter account, you already know the outcome. So please ladies and gentlemen, don't ruin it for the others :)
The secret ingredient is revealed, we have pork tenderloin to cook with. Now we didn't get an unlimited amount like you see in the show. No my friend, we got 2 little pieces and had to make do; we also had to think of a recipe right there on the spot. Luckily for my team and I, we had a battle plan.

LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!

Here's what our presentation plate looks like:

Here's what you'll need:

Wild long grain rice

2 lbs of pork tenderloin

(bottled) Teriyaki sauce

Sugar

Oranges

1 egg

Balsamic vinegar

3 Garlic cloves

Thyme

Salt and pepper

Lemon and lime

Oil

Ginger

 These were what our limitations were: 1 hour and only 1 burner to cook all this. How did we pull off such a feat? Well continue reading to find out how!!

The time starts and we scatter to grab what we think we might need for this. The first thing we do is start a pot of water to get it boiling for the rice. The next thing we do is grab the pork and cut 1 of the pieces in half, then marinade the other pieces. The marinade consists of Salt, Pepper, Oil, the Juice of 1 Orange, Lime, and Lemon along with the zest of 1 Orange. We also added Thyme and a minced clove of Garlic. We let this sit in this concoction while we prepare everything else.

The orange strip on the plate was the next thing we moved to. After we added the rice and brought it to a boil again we removed it from the heat and put it on a counter covered. (We weren't sure if this would work but we were pressed for time and needed to get everything finished).

In another pan we heated diced oranges and the zests from those oranges. We added roughly 4 Tbls of Sugar, a clove of Garlic, and some Thyme. Our original plan was to cook this down until it was a thick sauce. We look at the time and notice 30 minutes have already passed.. That wasn't going to happen. We reach into the bag of equipment we brought with us for something that we can use. We find a blender! The entire hot mixture went straight into the blender and added vegetable oil to make 'an almost' sauce. We found it to be a bit bitter at first so we continued to add sugar until it was perfected.

Once we were content with the taste we needed to cool this immediately. So we found 2 bowls, each smaller than the other. We filled the bigger bowl with ice and the smaller bowl with the sauce and stirred until the sauce was ice cold.

Lady luck apparently smiled down on us that day because the rice finished amazingly fast without having constant heat. We only had 15 minutes remaining and we hadn't even gotten to the main dishes yet. I grab the cut piece of pork we had saved for the rice and cut it down into small cubes. Then in a hurry I grabbed the rice and heated up 2 Tbls of oil, 1 inch of ginger and 2 gloves of garlic in a large sauté pan. The pork went right into a hot pan to quickly infuse the flavors together. Right after I was content with how the pork was cooked, I threw in an egg and scrambled it up. The next thing I added was roughly 2 cups of cooked rice and the juice of 1 orange and mixed quickly to evenly spread the egg out. I went to grab the soy sauce on the table and that's when tragedy struck. It wasn't on the table. I had my 1 sous chef run around looking for it until we realized we weren't provided with soy sauce. What was I going to do?? My sous chef quickly suggested bottle teriyaki sauce, unsure how it would taste, I went along with it just to finish. 10 minutes remaining and pork hadn't been cooked yet. I throw in about 3 Tlbs of the bottled teriyaki sauce in and mix it all together and start plating.

In another pan, balsamic vinegar was added to a hot pan along with sugar to counter act the bitterness. The remaining pork was then cut into equal pieces. 5 minutes remaining. Once the pan was searing hot, the pork was then added to the pan and cooked on both sides.

Meanwhile I was packing the rice into cups to give them that nice appearance and trying my hardest to figure out how to do the orange strip that you see above. 4 plates were waiting for the pork and 1 minute remained. The pork (thankfully it was cut thin enough) was fully cooked and platted. With seconds to spare, scallions were added for decoration.

The Judging

The judging was announced at a dinner ceremony (go figure and not with our food) roughly half an hour later. There we are sitting at a table. The 3rd place winners were announced - wasn't us. We look at each other thinking 'okay maybe we got second'... 2nd place was announced - wasn't us..... Again we look at each other with a little defeat in our eyes. Surely we wouldn't win first place.

The place goes silent. You can actually hear a pin fall in a room filled with people.

"The First Place Winner of Iron Chef is......................"

US! We had won!! Cheers erupt from our table of friends and high fives all around. We were ecstatic, elated, and most of all... WINNERS!

So my foodie friends, I share to you my winning recipe. If this all could be done within 1 hour and using only 1 burner. Then yes my friends... You can do this too!!!

Freakin' Bacon Fried Rice!

You might be thinking...

 But I'm thinking...

This isn't really a 'man food' per se. Mostly because that's not my section and I'm incapable of writing like that nor do I care / want to try. However; the time has come for me to make something absolutely amazing.. Whats better than food itself? BACON. Whats better than white rice? Fried Rice. What happens when you put them together? Something that should be deemed illegal in seven states - Bacon Fried Rice. You say Disgusting? NAY! I say grow a pair! You say unhealthy? I say we all die sooner or later. You say fattening??? NAY!!! I say hit the gym Nancy!
Now listen up get into the freakin' kitchen and grab this crap:

• 2 cups of rice
• 3 THICK cuts of bacon
• A Carrot
• 4 Green Onions
• 1 sm Onion minced
• 1/4 tsp Ginger
• 2 Cloves minced Garlic
• 1 egg
• Soy Sauce
• Sugar

  Anything else you think would be awesome in this concoction.

Get the that rice on the stove and let it cook!

First things first, grab fire and place metal thing over fire. I prefer something meat won't stick to. Next grab them slabs of pig's gift and cut them into chunks of bite sized godliness. Sear those suckers up and let them cook. Once they're to your perfection; take out the bacon. BUT WAIT; use that liquid gold grease to pan sear those healthy things I call vegetables. Once those vegetables are seared and soft, crack an egg and began scrambling that up! Once the egg is FULLY cooked (don't need to die here). Throw in the freshly cooked rice and mix around to get that great bacon grease fully coating everything. Next throw in that soy sauce and continue to add to you see fit! Mix that all around until fully coated. Next? Whats healthier than bacon?? SUGAR! Add that stuff, mix around and serve that to those who think they can handle this.

Now when you're finished with this and about to eat it.. Just enjoy and say: 

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH

cooking, beef, bacon, eating, recipe, blog meat, chicken, rice, soy sauce, stir fry, man food meal food eating awesome

Lettuce Wraps

Crunchy and delicious. Super Simple. Fun and healthy.  Trifecta! : )

What you'll need:

• 1/2 Head Iceburg Lettuce
• 1lb 99% Fat Free Ground Turkey
• 1 Carrot
• 1/2 Cucumber
• 1 Handful Dry Roasted Peanuts
• 1/2 Green, Red, or Yellow Pepper
• 1 Clove Garlic
• 1/2 Jalepeno

Dipping Sauce:

• 2 tbls Hoisin Sauce
• 1 1/2 tbls Peanut Butter
• 1/4 cup Lite Soy Sauce
• 1/4 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
• 1 tsp Ginger
• 1 Clove Garlic
• Fresh Lemon
• 1 tbls Rice Wine Vinegar

Start this off with making the sauce. I like to make the sauce as a a little potent because ground turkey is very bland and flavorless and tends to soak up all the flavor of this sauce when it's cooked in. 

Very simply mince the 1 garlic clove and ginger as finely as you can. Add all the ingredients of the dipping sauce together in a mixing bowl and whisk until completely mixed or peanut butter blends completely.

Let this refrigerated while we work on everything else. Taste test...is the sauce a little salty for your taste? Add a little water and a teaspoon of sugar!

Julienne (cut into thin, long strips) the carrot, cucumber, jalepeno and peppers. In a small bowl add some Rice Wine Vinegar and let them soak. Chop up the jalepeno a little more if you're afraid of the heat.

Rise your 1/2 Head of Iceburg lettuce well and gently pull off the "cups" and arrange on a plate.

In a medium dry heated pan, add the ground turkey with the other minced garlic clove. As is begins to cook, start chopping the meat until it starts to look crumbled. Cook thoroughly for approximately 15 minutes.

Once the turkey is about 80% done, add the sauce and let it cook in. (*If you broke the rules and are using ground beef or chicken or turkey that is not 99% fat free, please drain the fat from your pan before adding the sauce we made.) Have extra sauce? Good! Put it in a small cup on the side for dipping! Continue to cook for another 5 minutes, or until the turkey is done cooking.

Then, drain the vegetables that were soaking in the Rice Wine Vinegar.

Arrange the veggie blend on a large serving plate next to a small pile of peanuts with the lettuce cups and a small cup of the dipping sauce in the center.

In a small bowl, serve the ground turkey on the side or on the plate for individual servings.

Let the fun begin by building your wraps with all your favorite pieces!


*Editors note:  I mentioned serving this with peanuts. They are supposed to be on the plate until I realized my lovely boyfriend ate them all. So, you get a dinosaur instead. Don't eat the dinosaur.

Easy Homemade Teriyaki Sauce!!

This is another one of grandmother's recipe cards (although I don't think I ever saw her make this once....)

Here's what you'll need:

• 1c Soy Sauce
• 1/4 c Brown Sugar, packed
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 2 Tbls Lemon Juice
• 1tsp Fresh Ginger

First start of by peeling the bark (?) off the ginger and mincing it as small as possible. Once you cut the ginger as small as you can, mix everything together. DONE! Its that simple. Allow to sit for a few hours so the flavors can get to know each other, then if needed use as a marinade or dipping sauce!