The Results Are In

I would like to be the first to congratulate Kim for winning our first Mr Vs Mrs culinary challenge.


The main ingredient was sage (salvia officinalis). The rest was up to us. Kim went with a delightful, and I I mean to say extremely delicious butterflied chicken breasts, stuffed with a spinach / sage/ cream cheese mixture. These were wrapped in bacon, and held together with toothpicks for baking. They came out perfectly in my opinion. Also on the menu was an interesting dish, I’m not sure what was in it, but it involved spaghetti noodles, eggs, sage and I don’t know what else. It was pretty good too. Once again, in my opinion the chicken is what won the competition. But I’m sure she will be along to explain more of what she did and how she did it.


My attempt was both impressive and extremely disappointing. I am the sort of guy who acts on impulses, within reason of course. In the days leading up to the cook off I was desperately trying to think up something to cook! Last minute I decide to go with lamb. Fast forward: Local HEB, actually it is a brand new one just built on the outskirts of town (for all you Non-Texas types, HEB is the local mega giant huge variety at a lot of them – depending on the location). So as I am walking around looking for some mutton, I spy Kim walking along another direction with a packet of fresh sage in her basket. I got directions to the sage, and proceeded to buy the rest of what they had on the shelf. Made me anxious to have my own sage growing at home. Buying it is just crazy expensive for what it is, a few leaves in a plastic pack, but I am getting off topic, suffice to say that 5 seconds worth of sage picking just cost me about 10 bucks. I am in the wrong business I guess. Now with an ample supply of sage in my cart I made my way to the dairy. Armed with some fancy imported butter, (why not I’m making lamb after all) I made my way to the frozen foods section.






About this time, I realize, I have never cooked lamb before.






Shit. OK. Think creatively. Scanning the racks of frozen vegetables in bags I am not seeing anything remotely appetizing. Inspiration strikes. I pluck a bag of a mixed variety of fruits. Blue berries raspberries blackberries perhaps even strawberries. Honestly I am not sure what all was in it. I am flying by the seat of my pants at this point and the picture looked delicious.






Stopped in at the meat place next. As the lady in white come up and is preparing to ask me what she can do for me, Kim walks up says hello we slyly check out each other’s baskets and she looks at the fresh chicken. Here comes Miss Meatcutter. “What can I do for you two?” to which Kim replies “Just kinda checkin’ it out” I look up from inspecting a price tag, to find the woman in white is nowhere to be found. Kim leaves, and I wait at the meat counter a few minutes before giving up and grabbing some shrink wrapped bone-in chops. Good enough. Near the cheese now, and I can smell the stinky goodness. I grabbed a couple chunks of some random good smelling cheeses. I am not a cheese nerd, I simply know I like cheese, and basically follow my nose. On my way out I pass a most exquisite looking piece of salmon for a good price. Impulse buy #4 complete.


Back home we hit the kitchen. I take out the fruit dump it in a bowl, and mash it into a paste with a plastic glass. This I smear all over the chops and warm on the stove while I preheat the oven to 250 degrees. I take leaf of sage and place above and below each chop. I let that go, while I did some more prep work. Mushrooms! I chopped ½ of a bundle of shrooms into quarters, and the rest I sliced. These were placed in a muffin pan (a little in each muffin hole) with some of the more fragrant cheese, a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and some coarsely chopped sage. This I threw in the oven.


The left over mushrooms were tossed in with the remainder of the fruit paste and a bunch of sage and set to simmer on the range. At this time I moved the chops into the oven as well, after tossing in some extra mushrooms, and a few slivers of that fancy European butter, and the rest of the cheese for good measure.


Next I started some sage tea. I threw in what I had left of my sage, coarsely chopped, but whole leaves work just as well along with some chopped fresh mint. Now you can add honey or sugar to this infusion if you find it a bit bitter, but take care not to add too much or you will lose a very pleasing aspect of this tea. It is relaxing, and the bitterness is not like coffee or cactus, but something much more comfortable. Hard to put my finger on, but it is nice; an acquired taste perhaps.


And quite literally as an afterthought I pulled out the salmon. About this time I realize I have never cooked salmon either.


I butchered this poor fillet. It was uneven; a great deal of it was torn. I honestly don’t know why I even served it at all. I shouldn’t have. This dish was a culinary abortion that somehow didn’t get flushed. I mean, I could have at least dumped the lemon sauce flavor packets in with it… The last of my sage was leftover from the mushroom prep, and had been sitting in Worcestershire. I tossed it in with some butter without a second thought. I don’t know what I was thinking. It literally turned an awful reddish grayish brown color immediately. To make a long story short, Zeke, the judge said, and this about sums up the dish “It looks as if a whale swam up to my plate, and vomited onto it. You then sprinkled some fucking sage on it and cooked it a little and served it to me…” Yeah… like I said, I think this is what really killed me. I think the tea was excellent, and the lamb came out extremely well.


I figure this is enough for now, check back for some more after action reviews from Kimberly, and Mr. Zeke!






Thanks for reading—


Hanz