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Dinner Challenge #7 : P.W.’s Spicy Macaroni & Cheese / P.W.’s Homemade Ranch Dressing

FinnLover — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:44:11 -0700

OK girls! After a two week well deserved break, here's the next dinner challenge on Iron Chef SugarLand! This week's secret recipes are both from The Pioneer Woman (seriously, who doesn't love her?). We have two easy yet super yummy options: a spiced-up macaroni and cheese dish or a creamy homemade ranch dressing. If you were to choose to make the ranch dressing, it could be nice if you showed us how you used it or what you had it with. Just an idea. So here are the recipes - Iron Chefs, let the battle begin! À la cuisine! (Now imagine me biting into a green bell pepper! Get it? OK I'm just having fun with this whole Iron Chef thing.) Good luck, girls!
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Option #1:

Not Your Granny’s Mac & Cheese - P.W.’s Spicy Macaroni & Cheese (http://thepioneerwoman.com)

Look at all that cheesy goodness!

4 cups cooked macaroni or cavatappi
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 to 1/2 finely diced red onion
Equal amount diced red bell pepper
1 finely diced jalapeno
1 4 oz can chopped green chilies
1 cup frozen corn
2 to 3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup cream
1 generous cup grated Pepper Jack cheese
2 tablespoons butter
Salt
Pepper

Boil pasta until al dente. In a large skillet, add olive oil and saute garlic and vegetables over medium heat for a couple of minutes. Add in canned chilies and stir around, then turn off heat. Drain pasta and add it to skillet. Pour on cream, add cheese, then add salt and pepper to taste and stir gently. At the end, add 2 tablespoons butter and stir again. Check seasonings and serve.

Serve with juicy steak, with grilled shrimp, chicken, or on its own. It’ll change your life for the better.
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Option #2:

Pioneer Woman’s Homemade Ranch Dressing (http://thepioneerwoman.com)

Ranch dressing makes everything taste better!

1 to 2 cloves garlic
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (use less table salt)

1 cup mayonnaise (Hellman’s or Best Foods preferred)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 to 1/2 cup buttermilk or regular milk, to taste
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
1 to 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
1 to 2 teaspoons chopped fresh dill, more if desired

Optional ingredients:
white vinegar
worcestershire sauce
cayenne pepper
paprika
fresh oregano
black pepper
tabasco

Directions: With a fork, make a paste with garlic and salt. Mix all other ingredients, adding optional ingredients as you wish, tasting frequently and adjusting seasonings as needed. Chill for a couple of hours before serving, thin with milk or buttermilk if desired.

(Don’t overdo the garlic or you’ll be up all night, emailing me about your heartburn - The Pioneer Woman)

Priciest U.S. Restaurants

justingirl1989 — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:30:38 -0800

Top Five Priciest Restaurants
Masa, New York City
Alinea, Chicago
Canlis, Seattle
Joel Robuchon at the Mansion, Las Vegas
Urasawa, Los Angeles

As the restaurant critic for The Seattle Times, Nancy Leson knows her way around the coastal city's restaurant scene. When it was time to treat her husband on his birthday, she took him to Canlis the city's most expensive a la carte restaurant.
For once, the meal was entirely on her dime “and it was worth every penny of it,” she says.

meal at Canlis, which opened nearly 60 years ago and is often credited for defining if not “birthing” Pacific Northwest cuisine, will set you back about $75 a person--without any of that great Willamette Valley wine.

That's pocket change in New York City where taking your spouse to the most expensive restaurant in town-- Masa at the Time Warner Center--will set you back at least $1000 (it's $400 a person right off the bat for the 30-course Omakase menu. And that doesn't include tax, tip or one of their superior sakes.)

According to the most recent Zagat Survey of America's Top Restaurants, New York City continues to lead the way as the most costly U.S. city in which to dine out, with an average tab of $39.46. By comparison, Zagat's national average is $33.29, while New Orleans ($26.18) and Austin ($25.30) are the least expensive cities. Of course, U.S. restaurants cost roughly half of what their peers do in cities such as London ($79.46), Paris ($74.24) and Tokyo ($69.58).

Succulent Spots
To compile a list of the country's top tables, we selected what are commonly thought to be the 10 most expensive restaurants in 10 "foodie" cities across the United States. We narrowed our selection by calculating what the minimum "price of admission" would be to dine at each, that is: how much it would cost to dine there if you were to order the least expensive item on the menu. Those with the highest tabs made the list.

Obviously, most people don't go to a fancy restaurant and order the least expensive item on the menu (Why go to Canlis and order the $28 polenta entrée when you can enjoy the Pacific Ahi Tuna pan seared with furikake, Thai cucumber salad and chive oil for $37?), so guest tabs would most likely be much higher than our math suggests. Some restaurants, like Masa and French Laundry have set prix-fixe menus. They were included if their prix-fixe was higher than the guest check average would be at a la carte restaurants in their region--and league.

What we found is that many of the country's most expensive restaurants are also some of the oldest, such as Canlis or Antoine's in New Orleans, which first opened its doors an astonishing 160 years ago. And, many on our list turn out fine French cuisine, as in the case of L'Espalier in Boston.

But old--and French--don't necessarily combine to mean stuffy. In fact, 20 years after Chef Frank McClelland took over L'Espalier in an 1880 Back Bay townhouse, his French cuisine with a New England twist, remains as fresh and innovative as ever. Last May, McClelland was named Best Chef Northeast at the James Beard Awards. And, next summer, L'Espalier, the “go to” restaurant for wedding proposals in Boston (they average about one a month) will be moving to spacious new modern digs at the Mandarin Oriental on Boylston Street. No worries: McClelland is taking his cutting-edge foie gras preparations with him, as well as the restaurant's signature iron gate.

People seem to like their luxury laid back these days, so it's no surprise that only three restaurants on the list require jackets-- Joel Robuchon at the Mansion in Las Vegas, The French Laundry and The French Room at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas. At least two of them, Masa and Urasawa, recommend more comfortable clothing as meals can stretch on for hours.

Antoine's, which serves French Creole cuisine in the heart of the French Quarter has stopped requiring a jacket and tie in its 15 lavish dining rooms. (That makes eating their alligator soup a lot easier). As legendary as this place is, only one entrée has crept into the $40-and-up territory, and the signature Oysters Rockefeller, which were invented there are still only $13.

Tom Fitzmorris, who has been hosting a daily three-hour radio show all about food in New Orleans for 20 years, says as food-obsessed as the culture is, restaurants there remain surprisingly inexpensive compared to other parts of the country.
Part of it is that many ingredients in French-Creole cuisine--rice, beans and andouille sausage--are inherently affordable. And much of the seafood is readily and locally available. But Fitzmorris says entrée prices are starting to climb as more and more local ingredients like shrimp and soft-shelled crabs get shipped to other parts of the country (particularly the Northeast), driving up prices locally.

But diners appear ready to pay premium prices for worthy ingredients. In the aforementioned Zagat Survey, 55% of diners polled said they'd happily pay more for a meal that was, in fact, sustainable and/or organic.

At The Inn at Little Washington which continues to serve the most expensive meal in the Washington D.C. area, Chef/Proprietor Patrick O'Connell prides himself on his "cuisine de terroir," or regional cooking. Using local ingredients whenever possible is virtuous, and makes economic sense.

O'Connell says the low value of the dollar against the euro is driving up the price of imported products from truffles to balsamic vinegar, cheese and sea salt. Case in point: Last year, white truffles were selling for $2,000 a pound. This year his kitchen paid $3,500. A year ago, the restaurant spent $8.50 a pound for its imported parmesan. Today, they're paying $11 a pound--to the tune of 200 pounds a week.

Even locally, purveyors are tacking on surcharges of 3% to 7% to compensate for soaring gas prices, says O'Connell. Rising oil prices also affect all petroleum-based products--like trash bags--which have almost doubled in price.

All this helps explain how a meal at the cozy Inn can start at $148 mid-week and jump to $168 on a Saturday.

Of course, a meal can easily be five times that should you decide to sleep at the stunning Inn after your meal.

The ability to roll right into a sumptuously dressed bed right after a decadent dinner? No price tag on that.

source: yahoo.com

My fairly lame brushes with fame.

Whiplash — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 07:54:25 -0800

1. I went to high school with Kelly Ripa. She was a senior when I was a freshman. The last time I saw her in person was at the mall my sophomore year, when she was a freshman in college. She told me that she had an audition for "All My Children" the following week. A month or two later, she was on the show.

2. I worked at a modern rock radio station through much of the mid 90's so I met a lot of artists including Live, Fastball, Madness, Garbage, Travis, Oasis, Beck, Tori Amos, Alanis Morrissette, G-Love and Special Sauce, the Afghan Whigs, the Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Luscious Jackson, Cibo Matto, Soul Coughing, Cake, and a whole bunch more that I can't remember right now.

3. An old friend of mine is friends with some of the guys in Cheap Trick. He brought me to one of their shows and afterwards we went backstage and drank a lot of beer with them and their wives, who were half their age.

4. I saw Breckin Meyer (best known as Travis Birkinstock in "Clueless") eating sushi at Sushi Samba in New York City.

5. They shot "In Her Shoes" in my neighborhood in Philadelphia, and all the stars' trailers were parked literally ON MY BLOCK. I never got a glimpse of Cameron Diaz, although I could see her trailer from my front door, but I watched Toni Collette and Mark Feurstein film a scene in front of an office building around the corner.

6. I went to see Weezer a few years ago, and then went to the bar next door afterwards with my friends. The band showed up at the bar and ended up sitting at the table next to us. They were really nice.

7. Bruce Willis walked by me on the street in Philly one time. I can't remember if he was shooting "The Sixth Sense" or "Unbreakable" at the time.

8. I used to be obsessed with "Trading Spaces" and Doug Wilson was my favorite designer because he was so funny and b*tchy. My friend met him at a party and tried to call me but I was at band practice and didn't answer. So after practice, I checked my phone and I had a long, funny voice mail from Doug.

9. When I went to school in Boston, back in 1996, I walked into a very hip vintage shop and passed a couple who were on their way out. I didn't pay any attention to them, but when I got inside the store the girl behind the counter was freaking out. She was screaming, "DID YOU SEE WHO THOSE PEOPLE WERE WHO JUST LEFT?" I told her I didn't pay attention and she told me that it was Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale. I missed them, although I'd been standing less than a foot away from both of them.

10. I met Courtney Love at Lollapalooza 94, a few months after Kurt Cobain died. She was just wandering around, high as a kite (she didn't perform that year, but she was there to see Smashing Pumpkins). She was actually really, really sweet and friendly when my friends and I approached her.

11. I was in the audience at the Rachael Ray show (barf) when the guest was Jessica Simpson (double barf).

12. I was in the audience for the Isaac Mizrahi show when the guest was Iron Chef Cat Cora. I also appeared on the show - Isaac gave me fashion advice, I made fun of it, and he called me a smartass. I don't think the episode is going to air until January.

I have a lot of stories but they're all boring.