No more hypotheticals, it’s round-up and judgment time!

First of all a huge thank you to Owen for allowing us to do the whole shebang: hosting, selecting, and judging. Oy, was it work! Fun, but work. (Next time remind me not to do this in the same week I’ve scheduled 10,000 words of writing and a trip to the mainland. Kerthunk, indeed!)

So, first things first, a reminder of our intriguing set of ingredients. We opted for the grab-em-out-of-a-hat method and came up with a threesome of basil, oranges, and fish sauce. To that, being ever devious (and just to see what amazing concoctions we’d get), we added lamb. This intriguing foursome took our participants on a culinary trip around the globe with influences from the Mediterranean to South East Asia to right here on our home turf of the Pacific Northwest.

In addition, we had two first-time participants, four pseudo-participants (not including our own non-entry entry), and a nifty collection of discoveries along the way. So, follow along as we check out this month’s Paper Chef extravaganza. (And don’t forget to drop by all of these great blogs to see what other goodies they’ve got to offer!)

First up, Shauna of Gluten Free Girl, just a short jaunt from here in Seattle, brings us a twosome of Lamb Shank Braised with Orange and Basil, and Shauna’s Seafood Soup. A one-time vegetarian, Shauna had a lamb epiphany with this post. She cooked it for the first time, and she’s going to cook it again and again! The soup — with Shauna’s creative, gluten-free substitution of fish fumet for fish sauce — sounds just delicious and brings a Northwest flair to this month’s Paper Chef with fresh Dungeness crab. Yum! Shauna’s post also celebrates her return to the kitchen after far too long of being laid up with a miserable foot injury. As Shauna says: “Oh goodness, of all the good meals I’ve eaten in the last few months, this was one of the best. It was made with joy, It tasted of joy.” Welcome back, girl!

Next, another full and tasty meal from the Bay area’s B’gina at Stalking the Waiter. B’gina, who is still sadly sans photos this month (curse you, evil technical difficulties!), takes us to the Mediterranean with her Pastitsio (Greek lasagna) inspired Greek Lamb Trainwreck with Orange, Basil, and Onion Salad with Feta and Poppyseed Style Dressing. B’gina says, “What actually gave me the idea for this dish was a Greek pork sausage flavored with orange zest.” (Ah, orange zest. I can’t express how cool it is to see so many participants discover the joys of orange zest!) The match of “Trainwreck” and Greek salad sounds quite good, and I particularly liked B’gina’s addition of fennel to both dishes.

Sticking with the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern influence, we’ve got first time participant and brand new food blogger Tanja from Tanja Dahl with Couscous with Kebabs and Sweet Orange and Chili Sauce. Tanja is a Swedish blogger now based in the UK and has been at this for less than a month, so stop by and give her a hearty food blogger welcome. She told us, “Being new to the food blogging scene I was a tad apprehensive to begin with but I couldn’t stop thinking of the ingredients so I had to give it a go.” Hurray for enticing ingredients! Her kebobs look juicy and succulent and we appreciate the simple presentation and the nifty cheese cups for the couscous. Also, who can resist a good spicy sauce? I’d go drizzle-happy with this one.

Now we jump from the UK to Down Under and to An Electronic Restaurant where 2-minute Noodle Cook (a name that has nothing to do with the astonishing amount of time and dedication to his craft) brings us Bush Tucker Lamb Parfait with Orange Basil Seed Champagne Jelly and Whitebait Tapanade Sauce. Noodle Cook, who regularly wows us with unique Australian-influenced dishes, chose an extra challenge this time: a budget of $5.00 AU for all four ingredients. Now, I had to go check the exchange rate on this and was floored to see that $5.00 AU came to only $3.66 US, so… damn! Several things about Noodle Cook’s entry impressed us, including the home charcuterie of the lamb parfait, the home-made fish sauce, and the ingenious substitution of basil seeds for basil. Says Noodle Cook about the results: “The champagne jelly not only looks sensational, but the licorice, citrus and honey aromas can only be described as WOW!” Sigh. When is someone going to invent smell-o-vision for the home computer, huh?

Also working on a low budget and impressing us with his attention to detail, was Magic Tofu from Kitchen Blog based in Ottawa, Canada. At first he was concerned about combining fish sauce with lamb, then said “faced with such dilemma, the best option available to me was a South-East Asian inspired curry dish. After all, citrus fruits, herbs and fish sauce are great flavoring accents to curries.” Ah, curries. A chef after our own hearts. MagicTofu didn’t just make a curry dish, he made his own curry paste, and (as we know all too well) that’s not easy. His presentation with Napa cabbage, orange segments, puffed wild rice, basil chiffonade, and chopped pistachios turned his Lamb Medallions with Orange Curry Sauce into one hell of a feast for the eyes — and, we imagine, for the stomach as well!

Next up, Stephen, from Stephen Cooks, straight across the continent in Maine, brings us a traditional lamb chop with quite a twist: Shiso-Marinated Lamb Chops with Orange Curry Gastrique. Stephen’s revelation for this Paper Chef? “Fish sauce! Wow! It’s like liquid anchovies!” Stephen had a challenge tracking down fresh basil and came up with a clever substitution — shiso, a Japanese version of the herb — at his local Asian market. Armed with that and a memory of roasted curry-citrus flavored cashews, he set to marinating, juicing, and reducing and produced what sounds like a scrumptious meal with the orange curry gastrique as a perfect complement to the lamb. Stephen served this one to hungry and appreciative guests and promises details about his tasty side dishes in upcoming posts. We’re looking forward to it!

Heading south to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, we’ve got the Culinary Bookworm of Weekly Dish, and her impressive spread of Lamb Stuffed Acorn Squash with Spicy Marmalade Vinaigrette and Buttermilk Basil Biscuits. Undaunted by the (rather evil) addition of a cuddly lamb photo to our Paper Chef announcement, the Culinary Bookworm snagged some tasty lamb sausage from her local vendor and assembled acorn squash stuffing that included orange, pesto, garlic, and Fontina cheese. The vinaigrette turned out so well she drizzled it over the whole plate, and as for the stuffed squash? “The lamb sausage filling really worked well with the squash: the eating experience involved mouthfuls of creamy, savory filling and sweet, buttery squash flesh, with hints of the sweet heat from the vinaigrette.”

Another first timer for Paper Chef is Katherine from ToastPoint, based in Washington DC, where people are so culinarily in tune with the universe they can go to bed and dream an entire menu. How cool is that? Katherine almost skipped this one, but then she woke up with a breakfast of Chilled Caramelized Oranges with Yogurt and Tangy, Spicy Lamb Sausages in her head and had to make it! Good thing too, because this looks mighty delicious. We are especially fond of her unique take on oranges for this entry, and… breakfast! It’s always great to see a surprise breakfast entry. Says Katherine of her tasty dish: “The aromatic basil complimented the super-sweet oranges, the tang of the fish sauce made the sausages sing.”

Last, but certainly not least, our Paper Chef Founder Owen of Tomatilla, brings us South-East Asian Lamb Braise with Orange-Basil Rice. Since Owen’s got (go figure) tons of tomatillas on hand, he’s putting them into every dish, and this one is no exception. He added tomatillas to a marinade of fish sauce, garlic, orange juice and chiles, and while the lamb was doing its tasty thing for an hour or so, he made a lovely, sweet basmati rice dish by substituting a cup of coconut milk for water. But for Owen, the real revelation was the crispy orange zest he created as a garnish. “The crispy orange zest was totally brilliant,” Owen says, “I will be trying it again with many other dishes.”

Now, of course no Belly-Timber version of Paper Chef would be complete without a nod to our brilliant comic relief team of pseudo-entries.

Yesterday we posted Cookiecrumb’s Hypothetical Imperial Rolls, which, though hypothetical (there I go with that word again) sound awfully good and definitely worth a try.

Adding to that, we’ve got Lady X over at Experiment in Writing whose craving for sweets outdid her desire to participate and prompted her to post a Not Paper Chef #12 entry of Pink Lemonade Cupcakes, “which uses none of the ingredients suggested and was totally about me eating something pink and sugary.”

And lastly, Rachael of Fresh Approach Cooking cracked me up with her pseudo-entry from the Paper Chef Announcement comment thread: “A salad of Lambs Ear Lettuce and Purple Thai Basil, with a Taramosalata and Dried Orange Peel dressing (Get it? Fish egg sauce. I’m so darned clever.)”

Hee.

And now for the moment we’ve been waiting for.

Whose cuisine reigns supreme?

(dramatic pause)

This month’s winner of Paper Chef is…

Noodle Cook of An Electronic Restaurant! Remember when we said knock our socks off? Well, consider us officially sockless. Noodle’s combo of Lamb Parfait and Orange Basil Seed Champagne Jelly is nothing short of stunning both visually and in the description of flavors — flavors so uniquely combined we can only begin to imagine how sublime this dish tastes. Well done!

We’d also like to give special nods of recognition to three other entries that especially impressed us: Magic Tofu at Kitchen Blog for adventuring into the labor-intensive land of homemade curry paste, Culinary Bookworm at Weekly Dish for great utilization of what Chopper likes to call “nature’s edible servingware,” and Katherine at ToastPoint for dreaming up a breakfast treat for the morning after all our tasty dinners.

Many thanks to everyone for participating. This was a fine group of entries and a challenge all around. Next month, I swear we’re making something simple. Really simple so we can sit on the sidelines and cheer all of our fellow crazy food bloggers on.

Good show, everyone!

Oh, and…

Kerthunk.

Mrs D & Chopper out.

Tagged with: Paper Chef

Today, I am not an angry cat. Nor am I a frivolous cat, dressed in Kaga finery. Nor even a hungry cat, fending off my kibble from the evils of Platelicker.

No, today I am a sad cat.

My dear kitty friend Kiri’s owner Clare has been injured due to an attack by an evil canine creature and some people think it’s Kiri’s fault! Poor Kiri, doing only what us cats do best: freaking out in the face of imminent danger. I know he didn’t mean it. He’s a good cat and a sweet cat and, I imagine right now, a very sad cat as well.

And so, for Kiri and for Clare, since I can’t get to the chocolate (as it’s being heavily guarded by humans with cravings), I offer this small token of my appreciation…

…a fall color explosion!

(For more special get well soon Weekend Cat Blogging, visit Boo the cat over at masak-masak!)

How to spend your gloomy Sunday afternoon:

1) Stare out the windows at the rain and think wistful thoughts about summer and puppy excursions to the beach.

2) Promise the puppy a walk. Soon. When it stops raining.

3) Take a nice big yellow onion (the one you’ve been saving for spaghetti sauce) and slice it into rings.

4) Mix up some batter:

       2 cups of AP flour or tempura batter mix
       2 cups of beer. (Damn, now you’ve broken the symmetry of the six pack. Guess it’s time to drink the rest.)
       2 Tbl lemon pepper
       1 1/2 tsp sea salt

5) Heat up a wok full of vegetable oil to about 350 to 375 F and have a wire rack on a cookie sheet and a warm oven standing by.

6) Pour some flour into a bowl.

7) Dredge a ring of onion in the flour, shake off the excess, then dunk it in batter. Drop the battered ring into the hot oil and let it fry up nice and golden. Remove and place on the wire rack. Repeat until you’ve got a good assemblage of rings, then stick them in the oven to keep them warm till you’re done with the frying and ready to chow.

8) Serve with ketchup or barbecue sauce or whatever other condiments you have in your fridge, and — of course — with any left over beer.

9) Turn on the TV and watch the Seahawks stomp the Rams.

10) Notice the fading daylight and make it up to the puppy by playing chase around the living room furniture. Be sure you’ve consumed all the onion rings and all of the beer so that nothing is wasted, even though the puppy would really like her share.

What does one do after a crazy/busy week full of deadlines and dilemmas? Why one jaunts off to Seattle for the day!

We’re off bright and early tomorrow morning, and our goal is to cram in as much great food-related shopping as possible in our tiny window of time. (I say tiny because we’ll also be meeting up with friends, prepping for an evening party, and hauling the infamous poochie around with us everywhere we go.)

So, if any of Seattle’s denizens have food shopping recommendations… speak up! On the list so far, Uwajimaya and World Spice Merchants — but that’s only because we know about those places. Tell us about all those cool and super cheap places no one knows about.

Oh, wait. Then everyone would know.

It’s okay. Whisper a name or two in my ear. Mum’s the word.

Meanwhile, here’s a simple Irish style stew for another rainy weekend.

…or, busy, busy, are we done yet?

Saturday:

1. Note to self: When traveling to Seattle with a dog, one should bring an extra coat, and not leave it in the back seat of the car where the dog can puke on it. Such things can lead to Seattle in November in a T-shirt, which is not terribly pleasant and not at all conducive to much hoofing about.

2. Loft apartments above Uwajimaya? I tell ya, we would never leave home.

3. Big John’s PFI: A cheese counter with many goat and sheep cheeses. And there was much rejoicing.

4. Pike Place Market? How many blocks of walking? In a T-shirt? Curse you, pukey puppy!

5. Damn. Ran out of time for the rest of the list. Next trip…

Sunday:

1. Note to self: When one goes out of town, one ought to get more sleep.

2. An equation:
      Ferry engine trouble
    + Fog bank
    = Chopper arriving at home five minutes before he has to leave for work.

3. Note to self: When one has not gotten enough sleep on trip out of town, one should really not be talked into attending a 9:30pm showing of Goblet of Fire (Even if one is hopelessly devoted to the big screen appearances of Alan Rickman).

Monday:

1. Strange but true: purple mashed potatoes turn blue in the fridge overnight and then turn purple again when reheated in the microwave. See:

2. That, believe it or not, was the most photogenic food we ate all week.

3. Note to self: Ahem. When one has fallen behind in one’s word count for one’s novel because one has taken on another creative project with a deadline… and then one wants to catch up with one’s novel, one is not particularly inclined to write food blog posts. (Not that this would have anything to do with me. No sir.)

Tuesday:

1. Chopper’s cornbread chestnut stuffing is most excellent but not terribly photogenic.

2. Chopper’s persimmon chutney is even more excellent and even less photogenic.

3. Someday soon when Chopper has time again, he will post recipes for the above mentioned highly unphotogenic foods. Mrs. D will resist posting hideous pictures.

Wednesday:

1. Chopper spends a full day at work baking pies and pumpkin cheesecake. Mrs. D weeps uncontrollably at the pumpkin cheesecake she cannot eat and attempts to catch up on her word count. The blog glares at her from a distance.

Thursday:

1. Chopper works a 13 hour day serving a special prix-fixe Thanksgiving Dinner to over eighty hungry patrons.

2. Mrs. D has dinner with friends and is thankful. Look ma! No dishes!

Friday:

1. Chopper wows patrons and staff alike by being king of the kitchen for the night when the executive chef heads home with the flu. Mrs. D visits Chopper’s work and is offered a slice of pumpkin cheesecake while she waits. She weeps uncontrollably.

2. Note to self: When one mucks around with another creative project and falls behind in one’s blogging, one contemplates possible reasons for the falling behind, and considers that perhaps one’s blog needs mucking with as well. (Much creative note-taking ensues.)

Saturday:

1. It is cat blogging weekend. The Cat will not be participating. She is in the doghouse, as it were, for certain behaviors that are best kept restricted to flowerbeds and boxes of kitty litter.

2. It is, however, not Chopper’s weekend. Chopper is working yet another ten hour day at the restaurant. At home, much cooking from cans ensues.

Sunday:

1. It is dog blogging day. It is also a special day in the life of the puppy. Though she may not act it, being prone to much wagging and jumping, she has turned a terrible two. Here, a day late, are then and now pictures of the pooch:

2. Once again, Chopper works a full day at the restaurant. At home, all notions of cooking go out the window when Chopper returns mid-evening with take-out.

Monday:

1. At long last, Chopper has a partial day off. Mrs. D considers posting to the blog, but her novel draft snarls at her and makes threatening gestures. Chopper considers cooking, does so, but curiously refrains from anything that would involve photographs or transcribed recipes.

2. Note to self: When one has just a few words left to complete one’s monthly assignment, one should simply buckle down and do it.

3.

50,848 / 50,000 (101.7%)

(This Nanowrimo word meter brought to you by copious amounts of Ghirardelli’s bittersweet chocolate, cheap port, nag champa incense, and the soundtrack to Gladiator played repeatedly at full volume on Mrs. D’s cheap headphones.)