Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Really good question! We love cooking brussels sprouts at home but the smell does seem to linger. When it's just the two of us, who cares, but I feel your anxiousness about the school/work microwave situation. I am going to try lighting a match and/or burning a candle next time to see if it helps.

Steak au poivre - who wouldn't swoon over a perfectly cooked filet with a cognac cream sauce?

Well, the chicken turned out last night with no ill effects. It was pretty much the same as my usual roast chicken and, in fact, I probably could have seasoned it a bit more, so my unscientific opinion would be that the added broth solution does little, if anything, to the flavor. It was, I think, a little moister than my usual, which could be due to the enhancements OR my ever-improving culinary skills ;)

Since I have three more in my freezer it's comforting to have completed a test run! By the way, these were purchased at about $3.50 per 4-lb bird so you can understand my desire that these taste as good as they are a value.

I agree, Gordon Ramsay is totally different on the BBC version. We don't even watch Kitchen Nightmares on Fox anymore because it is such a huge contrast to the tough but ultimately loveable personality on BBC. And I never liked Hell's Kitchen, in the past it seemd like Fox would cast a cartoonish, circus-like group of characters who can't cook just so Gordon can get frustrated with them and yell at them. It made me sad.

I thought Zoi should have packed her knives and left. The texture of the corndogs may not have survived the holding and transport process, but other than the sogginess it was never said by the judges that they didn't have overall good flavor. Not so, it seems, for the pasta salad. Whether she wanted to do it or not, pasta salad is pretty simple AND is also a classic dish that normally can hold and be transported for picnics, block parties, etc. How do you screw that up? In my mind, a chef that failed to anticipate the challenges of adapting a dish he knows well to how it would hold up making it hours in advance is not nearly as bad as a chef who can't make something as simple as a pasta salad taste decent.

In comparison with last week, isn't that what Valerie went home for? Stephanie dressed her salad too far in advance and it got soggy (poor planning), but Valerie's dish simply didn't taste good, so she got the boot. The judging is often inconsistent in this regard; I think poor taste should always be the deciding factor over poor planning, poor texture, poor presentation, etc. If a chef can't taste how bad his/her own dish is when it's made, why would we ever want to eat their food?

Chocolate covered blueberries.

Ooohh...that's easy.... Godiva's rasberry filled chocolates, glass of champagne (okay, two glasses) and a long hot bath. Heaven.

Strawberry & chocolate or cheese!

Spicy food.

cheese plate with fruit and good french bread