Paper Chef #22 – Slow Edition Roundup

It was a quiet month for the Paper Chef event. Probably because it was a particularly challenging combination of ingredients. This time around, however, we did give everyone a week to come up with and cook their recipe and post about it. In a weird way that may have hurt entries as well – part of the essence of the challenge is the time constraint. But it wouldn’t be fun if we didn’t change things around all the time.

This time around our randomly selected ingredients were:

1.Barberries
2.Pumpkin
3.Spinach
4.Slow – anything slow including slow cooking, the slow food movement or even sloes.

Plus we allowed substitutions even more freely than normal for Barberries and spinach since barberries are hard to get and some people are currently afraid of spinach.

We ended up with five wonderful entries, highlighted by the Noodle Cook, who by now qualifies as the person who has entered the most Paper Chef events ever. But we also had some newcomers.

Noodle Cook of entered ‘Charred vegetables with balsamic butter sauce, served with lemon myrtle couscous‘ which qualifies as a simple dish for him, so I am designating at as in the ‘home’ category. (I am in awe of the extraordinary culinary confections Noodle Cook usually makes.)

Bron Marshall entered ‘Spinach and Cheese filled Pumpkin Tortelloni with a Blueberry, Orange and Pinot Noir Sauce‘ along with some stunning photos full of vibrant color and yummy food. And in consideration of a slightly higher degree of difficulty, this is a deserved antrant in the ‘haute’ category.

Jonskifarms (who has entered once before) entered ‘Oven-baked Rice with Barberries and Butternut Squash,’ and did so despite an immobilized arm. The dish is designated as being in the ‘home’ category but we’ll have to wait on whether or not the ‘tah dig‘ was good enough. And to find out what that means you’d better go read the entry…

Emma (aka the laughing gastronome) entered ‘Chicken Barberryani,’ along with a ‘Warm Pumpkin and Silverbeet Salad’ another Middle Eastern inspired dish. The name is a great play on words and the recipe looks fantastic for a family dinner so I’m going to call it in the ‘home’ category.

Anita entered a ‘Parsee Dhansak‘ that looks absolutely delicious and she accompanied it with a great exposition on the Dhansak and on the ingredients. Although I suspect that this is originally a very much home dish for the Parsee community, it is complex enough that I am going to go ahead and suggest it be considered ‘haute.’

First-time entrant Columbus Foodie entered a clever ‘Blueberry, Balsamic, Goat Cheese and Pumpkin Seed Salad‘ based around a recipe from a favorite restaurant.It is a little hard to decide whether it counts as ‘haute’ or ‘home’ so maybe I’ll let Carolyn decide during her judging.