I love to cook, I cook a lot. I am also a pretty competitive person and figured it might be a bit of fun. What followed was a rather bizarre rollercoaster of an experience. I submitted an online application form which took about half an hour and expected to hear no more about it. However, the following evening I spent around 2 hours on the phone to a researcher for the programme answering all the same questions again but in much more detail. The following Monday I spent another hour going through the same again. Then they arranged to come to my house and film me for a 'screen test'.
Anyway, it all became rather scarily real and I was about to go on holiday to Italy. Work was particularly busy and stressful and I learned from scouring internet forums that being involved in CDWM as a contestant was rather taxing indeed. Apparently, due to the continuity and filming of such a show, the dinner parties which we see and which seem to last a normal length of time actually end up being mammoth affairs, often lasting into the early hours of the morning due to re-takes and editing. This is why they keep telling you as you go through the interview stages that they 'recommend' you take the entire week off although it is 'not compulsory'.
I reckon I might have actually had a nervous breakdown had I got on the show trying to juggle four incredibly long nights with very little sleep and a full working week where we had a project resubmission going on. It is definitely a blessing I think that I did not get to the final 4.
Anyway, in tribute to this, as we sat in Bologna one evening sharing a bottle of very tasty Chianti, my husband suggested that we should have our own version of the show. Sod the prize money and the incredibly long nights of tedium with strangers, we would recreate the competitive element and have some bloody good dinners without the stress. So, we decided to rope in my brother in law and cleared diaries for 3 Saturdays in a row.
I have been taking photos all the way through so I can now share with you what happened on 3 rather fun and sometimes challenging nights of food, wine and 'entertainment'. The prize, by the way, is dinner at a restaurant of the winners choice, paid for by the other two.The only rules were that it had to be 3 courses, all dishes you had not cooked for the others before and there must also be entertainment after dinner.
I went first and served blue cheese stuffed mushrooms, tuna steak on a bed of roasted salsa and pecan pie. Here are some pics of my dishes on the night:
Portobello mushroom stuffed with blue cheese, quorn pieces and breadcrumbs.
Pan seared tuna steak on a roasted vegetable salsa with courgette salad on top.
Pecan pie with vanilla ice cream.
My menu went surprisingly well in the preparation, I made the pastry for the pecan pie first, early on the Saturday, to make sure I had enough time to remake it if necessary. Thankfully I did not need to, I used a Jamie Oliver recipe for this pie, including the pastry base and it was pretty good (if I do say so myself) although weirdly the pecan mix did not set properly until the following day when it had been in the fridge. It tasted pretty good though.
One thing I did learn during this experience is that pecan nuts are VERY expensive. I needed 450g for my recipe and that was TEN WHOLE POUNDS. Shocking.
The roasted salsa which the tuna steak was sat on was also cooked in advance, it was tomatoes, peppers and red onions roasted until blackened and the skins pulled off then blitzed with chillis, garlic, coriander and lime juice. It was very zingy and tasty if a little overpowering. I really liked it though and despite this being chilled and the tuna steak being cooked it went really nicely together. This recipe was from Jamie's America along with the pecan pie.
I forgot to take any photos of my entertainment but I can assure you it was amazeballs. Well, I thought it was anyway. I went old school and bought a bingo machine from Argos for £6 and then bought a range of 'prizes' (haribo, hotel chocolat goodies) and we spent an hour or so pretending we were in Benidorm in a godawful resort hotel. It was fun. I think.
Anyway, the brother in law (we shall call him 'G') was next and I knew that being absolutely obsessed with quality and detail this was bound to be an incredibly over analysed clever menu. He did not disappoint and cooked peppers stuffed with fennel, a roasted butternut squash lasagne and a baked coffee liquor cheesecake.
Here are the photos of his dishes:
Roasted peppers stuffed with fennel.
Roasted butternut squash lasagne
Baked coffee liquor cheesecake with cocoa dusted almonds
I have to say that veggie lasagne was frickin awesome and is definitely one I will be making in the future. G had chosen to cook a vegetarian menu rather than catering for the awkward pairing of one pescatarian and one none fish eater (I do eat tuna steak because it does not taste like fish but it is the only thing I will eat that swims and I had already cooked that). The butternut squash having been pre-roasted it was very sweet and the whole dish was incredibly tasty. This was my favourite course from his menu.
Unfortunately I had a very nasty experience with pernod when I was about 18 which to this day means the smell of aniseed makes me want to vomit, I had never tried fennel before but it smells and tastes distinctly of this nemesis flavour and as a result I was not overly keen on this dish.
The cheesecake was utterly divine but incredibly heavy, as a result of which I did not finish my slice, I dread to think how many calories were in that. Top marks for effort though, it was hard to believe he had never made a cheesecake before.
Entertainment on this evening was rather amusing and unexpected. After dinner we were presented with a potters wheel and a lump of clay each. An hour of swearing and trying to shape a pot followed but it was quite messy, liberated fun. Following this the dining room table was converted into a table tennis table for a winner-stays-on tournament, needless to say this was a bit too much activity for me with a belly full of cheesecake but it was a good idea.
Finally, last night was Stu's night and he approached it in his usual devil may care attitude, completely chilled out, preparing most of it on the evening before and generally winging it with no recipes whatsoever. This was very foolish brave in my opinion and I watched with interest as he desecrated my kitchen. His menu was tomato soup with homemade bread, beef wellington (!!) and 'a mash up of tasty nice' was billed as the dessert....rightio then....
Tomato soup and homemade bread
This is the whole wellington when first sliced open.
Wellington, roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes and spinach.
A very unhinged dessert....
Having completely winged it, Stu did not really decide what his pudding was until he started to assemble it on the plate. This complete ignorance of any kind of convention is one of the reasons I love him. Unfortunately I did not love this dessert. We had on the plate, a layer of melted mars bar, a cookie cutter sized piece of cheesecake base, home flavoured pomegranate ice cream and a meringue nest. It was sort of like an eton mess. If Lady Gaga had made it.
His soup was delicious though and the wellington, despite some timing issues (again due to totally winging it) was very nice. Instead of pate he had wrapped the substantial piece of fillet steak (£27 worth) in a layer of finely chopped chestnut mushrooms cooked off in a white wine sauce and then wrapped the whole thing in prosciutto before adding the pastry. Mighty impressive. Unfortunately due to the timing issue it had to go back in the oven and that meant when we finally ate it the potatoes were cold.
Entertainment was Mario Kart on the wii, which had been bought specially for this evening. It was lots of fun, I am continually surprised at how much juvenile fun we get out of that console.
So, time for scoring, we had sealed our scores from the previous evenings in envelopes and so we had no idea how anyone had done until after the scoring last night.....results were as follows....
3rd with 13.5 points - Stu
2nd with 15 points - me
1st with 17 points - G.
And there you have it. We are going to do this again mid-winter so it will be interesting to see what approach we all take next time, in the meantime G will be deciding where we go for a meal, early signs are that it will be tapas in Shrewsbury.
This was a really enjoyable and interesting experience and I am so glad I did this with people I love rather than random strangers. Next time 1st place will be mine!
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