Like @CJR suggested in the What’s Cooking Today thread, let’s spice up our menus with a weekly cooking challenge. The warm up round has already started! Don’t miss out on the fun
Rules:
There will be a weekly challenge (Sunday-Sunday), set by the previous week’s winner. It might be an ingredient, a theme, a colour, or anything that the winner might think of. Let’s get creative!
Post a picture of your dish
Like all the dishes you like
The winner is the one with the most likes
You can like posts and be a part of the jury without cooking
What could you win:
First and foremost: Honour and the title “Cook of the Week”
You may state the new challenge
Inspiration, fun and maybe some new ideas for food
Do you have to do them all?
Nah, you can join every week, you can join once in a while, just as you please. The more, the merrier though!
First Challenge:
Cook something with potatoes
Pat on the Back Bonus:
Cook Hasselback Potatoes
(Please let me know if you think there should be any changes to the rules etc)
Hasselback potatoes are a bit specific for this sort of challenge. I think if we’re going to have a cooking challenge, it should be a more general theme than specific dishes that not everyone can get the ingredients for or would know how to cook. Not that hasselback potatoes are hard to make, but I think we should set the precedent of making something within a broad category.
Hassleback potatoes are the “pat on the back” bonus. Some people, myself included, like a goal beyond “use potatoes”. After all, it’s just a bit of fun.
There’s no “pat on the back” bonus listed, though. I don’t think there’s a problem with having one, but it’s not obvious from the post that there is one.
Not sure if I’ll be able to participate - I’ve got no potatos in the house and I’m only going to the food bank for shopping until I build up my savings again, so it depends what they have - but if I do I’ll probably be making a potato salad, Mom’s way. Been craving that.
A very specific challenge is okay in my eyes. There’s a risk of it getting boring, because everyone makes the same, but it could also lead to new, creative ideas. I’ll use the hasselback as an example, it can be done in different variations, so one pretty basic dish can spawn several things.
Also a general theme like the potatoes can be interpreted in different creative ways. Got a potato allergy? Make potatofree mashed potatoes
As to not knowing how to cook things - the net is full of recipes, I would actually enjoy a challenge with something that’s new to me to expand my food horizon. That’s a part of the game.
I made both a roast chicken with smashed baked potatoes, goat cheese and a garlic mayo and also a chicken pot/shepherds pie hybrid using potatoes this week, but my pictures of the meals did not turn out well so I won’t actually be entering. The smashed potatoes were a little overdone because the chicken was taking longer than expected, but they were delicious and making mayo by hand is way more work than it’s worth, but it’s the only way mayo tastes ok so I had to do it. The pot pie needed more salt, but luckily that gets kept on the table and is easily added.
