Mom the MasterChef!

Yesterday Tige told me he wouldn't be home from work until around 7:00, so I wasn't planning on making anything for dinner (just corndogs for the kids or sandwiches or something easy).  He ended up having his last case cancel, so he came home and grabbed the kids and said "let's go to Harmon's at pick up some groceries for dinner!  Mom will have to use the ingredients we buy to make our dinner!"

Do you watch MasterChef or Chopped on TV?  If you don't, you should.  They ROCK!  Anyway, Tige apparently thinks I'm a better cook than I really am.  He comes home from the store, and puts his "mystery box" ingredients under a towel.  He brings me over to the kitchen and unveils the ingredients I'm supposed to magically make a dinner out of!  He had:

The most beautiful, stunning chicken breasts (said with Gordon Ramsey's English accent)
crumbled bleu cheese
parsnip
chayote squash
cactus pear
a loaf of bleu cheese walnut bread
asian pear
greek yogurt
shallot
shitake mushrooms

Huh?  What the heck?  A cactus pear?  Parsnip?  Chayote squash?  I thought he was insane.  But I put my brainstorming to work, and came up with an AWESOME dinner if I do say so myself.

I pulled some bacon & spinach out of the fridge, cooked and crumbled the bacon, chopped up the spinach, and mixed them together with the bleu cheese crumbles, and folded them inside the chicken breasts (sealed with a toothpick).  Then I took the bread and pulsed a few pieces in my blender to make bread crumbs.  I dipped the chicken breasts in egg, then dredged them in the bread crumbs, browned them in a pan and finished them in the oven. 

I got some carrots from the fridge and put them in a roasting pan.  Then I chopped up and added the parsnip, chayote squash, and shallot.  Drizzled with olive oil, salt, green peppercorn & some nutmeg and popped them in the oven.  At the end I sauteed the shitake mushrooms and added them to the veggies.  They were SOOOO good.  I have never eaten parsnip or chayote squash before, but we ate the whole pan of veggies.  Kason was an especially good veggie eater this time.  I was amazed.

As for the 2 weird pears, I cut them up and put them in a dish along with a peach and mango I had.  I coated them with the greek yogurt and then made a "crumb" topping out of flour, sugar, brown sugar, butter and a few spices.  Then we cooked it for about 20 minutes or so.  Turned out like a cobbler and was actually quite good.

My kids loved this adventure.  Kason said it was my best dinner ever.  I love when he says that!  My kids are good eaters.  Anyway, Tige is funny.  I don't know where he comes up with these ideas.  He was my sous chef and did whatever I told him to and cleaned up after me.  I was proud of my spontaneous dinner using weird stuff.