Chopped

For some reason (and I really don't "get" cooking shows myself, at least not for more than 15 minutes or so) it's the family's new favorite show. So much that I'll now be watching it instead of Law and Order on Friday nights, which I really don't understand.

But, part of their fun is to ask me how I'd make the dishes. I don't think I could come up with it as fast as the contestants, but here's from Tuesday's episode.

Appetizer - Ingredients = mortadella, peppers, soft-shelled crabs

I'd make some crostini as I roast the peppers (brushed with olive oil). Probably steam the crabs while that's happening. Take the toasted french bread and lay slices of mortadella across it. Shred the crab, pile it on the mortadella, and pour a hollandaise sauce over it. Red pepper slices on top of that.

Entree - Ingredients = baby bananas, black-eyed peas, poblano peppers and ostrich steaks

At first I was gonna fry the bananas, but maybe I'd go for broke on this one. I'd broil the steaks (and now I know to make them really rare when I do). Roast the peppers with them. Boil the peas. Okay, then the peas and peppers go over a bed of mixed greens. The steaks are sliced into thin strips that go on top of that. Finely chopped bananas go into a creamy sauce (maybe with bleu cheese, definitely with something spicy or pungent to offset the sweetness) that's poured over the whole thing.

Dessert - Ingredients = lychees, phyllo, canadian bacon, candy canes

Bake layers of phyllo with ricotta and the ham (I don't know what the ham's adding to it really, so I'd try to get away with as little as possible). I'd cook the lychees with something red - cherries I thought at first, but I'm thinking if they had a can of cranberry sauce, that might work really good. I'd try to carmelize the candy canes and fold that into the lychee mix, but if that didn't work, I'd just have to crumble them on top (as did both the finalists on the show).