Come Dine With Us!

This weekend we did Come Dine With Us again, and thoroughly enjoyed it again. I never posted about it, but two weeks ago I attempted to make Schaufele - a German version of roast pig shoulder, or schweinekamm. I probably didn't post about it, because well, it didn't turn out too well. I used a recipe that a German friend gave me, and never thought about roasting time vs. size of roast, etc - and it was a bit dry. For any of you who haven't had Schaufele before - the reason it is so good, is because it is so moist, and just falls apart in your mouth. So anyway, it was rather not worth commenting on! I think I scored myself a 6, and Bas concurred. I don't even remember what I made with it now - that's how memorable it was! I will try making it again though, because I'd like to figure out how to do it well. I'll just probably use the roasting guide in my Betty Crocker book to figure it out first!

This weekend I went first - while Bas was getting pulled over by the German fishing police... I made Cider Vinegar Chicken with Smashed Potatoes and a Rocket and Cucumber salad. It was a Rachel Ray recipe, from her 365 No Repeats book. It was quite easy to make and involved honey, caramelized onions and garlic in a cider vinegar sauce over the chicken, and a Dijon and cider vinegar dressing on the salad. It was quite simple to prepare, and left Bas a bit jealous in the prep-time department, but still scored an 8 (redemption!). It was comfort food style, but still worth the score! Next week I'm going to have to get a bit more sophisticated, or I'm going to lose my reputation around here!

On Sunday - and Mother's Day, Bas outdid himself. He started prepping around 3 in the afternoon I think. He might have just been trying to stay busy so he wouldn't think about not fishing with his new pole! He served Roasted Mushroom Caps with Garlic and Pine nuts, Roasted Tomatoes with Garlic and Shaved Parmesan, a Cucumber and Red Onion Relish, and Spicy Lemongrass Beef Satay with an Asian Peanut sauce. We did manage to find the lemongrass, and I'm not sure how, because we absolutely could not find cilantro or the flank steak that the recipes called for. We looked everywhere while we were in Erlangen on Saturday. But he pulled it off with what we had. It was really quite tasty, and everything complimented the other very well. He had a couple of execution issues, but did almost everything with absolutely no help from me - AND he managed to serve dinner with a clean kitchen and not one full of pots and pans, which is one of my personal acid tests... so this week, Bas also scored a big fat 8!

So it looks like next week I'm going to have to pull out all the stops, here. I need a winning week to catch up! Since I have so much more cooking experience than Bas, I have to make sure that I pick recipes that I've never cooked before, so it's at least a new one for me, too. Which is nice, because that puts some variety into our meals every week (we tend to eat the same 4 meals over and over again on week nights!) so I will have to crack the cook books this week and see what I can come up with!