Israeli couscous, broccoli, olives, beer

Challenge 1: Israeli couscous, fresh broccoli, canned olives, and Orangy Amber beer

Ingredients picked by: Tristan

Chef: Monica

Wow. Who would have thought the first challenge would be such a huge flop? Not us. When Tristan revealed the basket to me, I didn't expect to have too many problems. It seemed obvious to me, couscous cooked in beer and a fresh salad on top. Pssh. No prob.

Well I should have know it was going to be a bad experience when I opened the beer and it firework-ed all over me. I barely manage to save 1 and 1/4 of beer for the couscous.I would have been better off if I lost most of it. The beer over foamed in the pot making a huge mess in now TWO parts of the kitchen.

Meanwhile I blanched the fresh broccoli (for fear of bugs more than flavor) and frozen corn. I chopped fresh cucumber, mint and the smallest bit of jalapeno. For this chopped salad I made a mango, lime and honey dressing, with S & P.

I tasted the couscous while it was simmering and boy was that bitter. I scrambled to add more flavor. I used garlic, rosemary, thyme and S & P. Nope, still horrible. I added honey hoping it would mellow it out. Nope, still horrible.

I'll let Tristan take over the commentary about how horrible it tasted...

Somehow the couscous tasted burnt. There was none of the beer taste, it was just bitter and burnt. The first bite seemed like it was just an anomaly, but each bite after that was worse than the one before it. I just read the ingredients Monica added to save the couscous, none of them came through.

Dessert: Mango nectar, cottage cheese, wildberry honey and cinnamon.

Ingredients picked by Monica.

Chef: Tristan

After Monica’s horrific dinner I wanted something that would fill us up a bit. Decided a bread pudding would be the best bet. I consulted a cook book and determined we didn’t have any of the ingredients needed, but I would fudge it anyway. I threw the mango nectar, cottage cheese, honey and cinnamon in a pan and put that on the stove. Poured that and some eggs over our bread and put that in the oven. 

 

I made a mango honey sauce to drizzle over top, add a sprig of mint and some raspberries on top.

Verdict: It was okay. Not great, looked kind of gross with the chunks of cottage cheese, but had good flavor.