The Frenchman and Daughter #2 made up the team that drew the side dishes.  They decided to work independently on two separate little plates.

Both dishes included Le Grand Garden pesto.  D #2 assembled a silky cream of potato and butter nut squash soup.  She creatively initialed each bowl for every member of the family.

The Frenchman opted to use the same gorgeous green Garden pesto and blended it with chopped poached shrimp and feta and stuffed it into a mushroom cap.  Parmesan shards were melted on top.  He also grilled marinated artichokes to accompany the caps.

Both members of this team are very proficient in the kitchen and very confident in their skills.  This can create high drama just like the reality shows that we were recreating.

The third team made up of the Son and his wife (J1 & J2) drew the entree and the Le Grand Sundried Tomato pesto.  They worked somewhat independently as well but more harmoniously (they’ve known each other since they were 12, after all).

J2 fired up the barbie and stood in the snow flipping her grilled zucchini and eggplant disks.  She crumbled feta upon the circles when they had finished grilling.  She then stacked them Inukshuk style to accompany the chicken.

J1took a family favourite and modified it to incorporate the “hero” product.  First he pasted the inside of the breast with the bright, colourful and tasty pesto, then added cheese and fresh spinach that J2 had steamed for him.  After the ingredients were sealed inside he bathed it in a mixture of Dijon mustard and white wine.  This provided adherence for fresh bread crumb coating.  While these were baking, they created a spicy cream sauce from the pesto that was kicked up with some chili powder and tabasco.

Once the chicken was cooked and sliced, smudges of the sauce were placed atop in addition to dollops which graced the plate.  J1 loves hot sauces while he is aware that others in the family prefer more subtle tastes.

Before the end of the evening, we were declaring that we would all be anxious to purchase the Le Grand pestos on a regular basis because of the ease of handling, gorgeous bright colours and startlingly fresh tastes.    We also knew that these family cooking challenges would be a regular occurrence perhaps even involving extended family up at the cottage.

As I provided the live tweets and was the videographer and photographer, I did not do any of the cooking.  The rule in our family therefore, is that I did the dishes.  This was accomplished in two dishwasher loads that evening as well as (I’m guessing) 4 sink fulls of pots.  Hmm, next time, which cooking team, shall I try to get on?

Kath’s quote: “Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.”-Shirley Conran

The stage was set.  Teams were formed, courses were drawn, the three Le Grand Pestos were revealed as the secret ingredients, and oh yea, the wine was poured.

D had made a bread dough in the afternoon to bake a loaf to have with supper.  But when he and Daughter #1 picked the appetizer course, they quickly modified their plans to use the dough for pizza.

We were calling it pizza because they used our round pizza screens to bake it but it really tasted more like a flatbread.  No matter how you describe it-call it absolutely delicious.

The team made a couple of very strategic decisions.  At one time, they were contemplating the inclusion of corn meal crusted back bacon but decided instead to make the flatbread a true vegetarian recipe.

They started with huge smears of the gorgeous green pesto and then began layering on the roasted vegetables: yellow and red peppers, eggplant, mushrooms and butternut squash.

They went very easy on the cheese so that the complex and varied tastes of the roasted vegetables would shine through.  There was mozzarella, Parmesan and a light sprinkling of Bothwell’s red wine and sharp cheddar as well.

In addition, in order to offset the nuttiness of the pesto, they included roasted pine nuts to add some crunch.

The resulting appetizer course could have been our entire meal, but we kept warning each other to stop eating so we would have room for the other dishes that were still ahead.

I was looking for a flat bread quotation, when I came across this one regarding flatulence (with apologies to my vegetarian readers and friends).  Kath’s quote: “Vegetarianism is harmless enough, though it is apt to fill a man with wind and self-righteousness.”-Sir Robert Hutchinson

There was an unexpected knock on our front door and a delivery person handed me a box with my name on it.  I eagerly looked inside as I often shop on line but knew that there were no books that were due on my doorstep.  Carefully packed in a styrofoam box was a freezer bag stuffed with ice packs and three colourful bags of pesto.  I put them in the fridge with a note on them saying Do Not Use as I was on my way out of town that evening.

A couple of days later when I arrived back home, D informed me that there was a lot of interest in sampling the pesto products and so I proposed the idea of our first family Iron Chef competition in lieu of our mandatory Sunday dinner.

Our larder had been needing restocking, so D headed out for supplies.  Teams were decided and first we drew courses from a hat and then one of three pestos: Garden, 4  nuts & Cheese and Sun-dried tomato.  Of yes … and wine was poured.

The teams were D & Daughter #1, The Frenchman and Daughter #2 and the Son and his wife.  They were apparently taking this all very seriously.

First up were D and Daughter #1 as they were assigned the appetizer course and the 4 nuts & cheese pesto.  Stay tuned to see the results.

Kath’s quote: “Avoid fruits and nuts. You are what you eat.”-Jim Davis, ‘Garfield’

As you may know Daughter #3 is not really my daughter-she is married to our son and I love her as if she was my daughter.  Last night she was over for mandatory Sunday dinner and we were discussing what might be a good moniker when she is mentioned here-suggestions?

She is an inventive cook and this is no surprize as she comes from a family of artists.  Her Mom and Dad (who we are happy to say are our best friends) are amazing singers and her Mom V is also a dancer.  If you count tennis as art (which we do in our family) her Dad DJ is also gifted on the court.  Their eldest son is a talented song-writer and musician.  The younger son is a former dancer with the RWB and is now study to be a Physician.  The youngest daughter (our God-daughter) is also an exquisite dancer (think Evelyn Hart’s arms), artist, crafter and singer.  Suffice it to say, Daughter #3 comes by her many talents by birthright.

One recent Saturday, we had a “house” meeting as we are partners in the communal house where they live.  She whipped this lunch together.

Lunch started with her her exquisite Asparagus soup.  The rainbow of colours that appear in the bowl are from the prismed windows in their dining room.  The soup itself tastes like “summer” to quote the Frenchman of the family.  She has sent me the recipe which I can’t put my hands on at the moment.  I can post it in the future, if you drop me a line.

She served the soup with a baquette stuffed with smoked turkey, cheese, tomato and sundried tomato.  Yumo.

Kath’s quote:  “Pray how does your asparagus perform?”-John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail

I have just begun a fairly lengthy stay in a northern Manitoba community.  Earlier this week, when our son and his wife realized that we might not see each other for a while, they called to invite me to join them for lunch.  He went onto Urbanspoon to do some research to see what new and fun little places might be worthy of investigating.  To his dismay, I had already posted comments about many of his choices so he had to dig a little deeper to find a lunch destination for us.

His choice was perfect as I have wanted to visit Carbone ever since it opened last fall.  We soon discovered their sangrias were on special so we promptly ordered both red and white.  The latter mixing (if I remember correctly) apricot brandy, orange juice, soda and pinot grigio-refreshing and delicious.

In anticipation of dining on the road, I ordered something a little lighter.  The authentic ingredients of the salad, that is the tomatoes and buffalo cheese were exactly as desired with sweet and fresh tomatoes and creamy, chilled cheese.  Unauthentic though was the pile of arugula on the plate.  Even though I quite like a smattering of the peppery taste, we had already chosen a pizza that was topped with it.

Entitled the Isabella, it was covered with artichokes, roasted onions and goat cheese, in addition to the arugula.  The taste result was a combination of sweetness, creaminess and sharpness along with the pepperiness (pretty sure that’s not actually a word).

Artichokes were also found on the Capo along with red pepper, gorgonzola and capocollo.  I’m not partial to blue cheese but the other tastes were strong enough to de-emphasize the stinkiness.

I had to look up anthracite coal to find a number of positive qualities but the most important aspect is that it burns at 850 degrees which means that our pizzas were completely cooked in three minutes.

I have always known that good things are worth waiting for and this is certainly the case with my visit to Carbone.

Kath’s quote: “Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke.” Bette Davis as Margo Channing in ‘All About Eve’