Day 1: Pictures Lie

For some reason, I had the notion in my head that this week I would magically turn out to be Bobbly Flay and immediately be able to cook spectacular looking food. I thought my hours of watching Chopped would have prepared me for this week.

I was very wrong.

For starters, it is actually really hard to make food that looks exactly like the picture found with the recipe. For example, for lunch I made a Strawberry and Brie Salad (recipe found here). Now the picture looked like this:

Looks great right? Everything seems so vibrant and happy and mouth-watering. The cheese and strawberries are in perfect rectangles and triangles, respectively, and the lettuce is crisp.

Here is what mine looked like:

Granted this is after I had already eaten most of the salad, but it certainly does not compare aesthetically to the photo. The brie looks more like yellow globs (it was hard to cut), and I added too much dressing to the salad.

But besides the aesthetic component, the salad did actually end up tasting good. I add salted pistachios to the salad instead of almonds which helped balance out the sweetness of the dressing and the strawberries. I felt accomplished afterwards that I was able to create a lunch that went beyond a simple sandwich.

One thing that I never realized before about cooking was how much time it takes to make a meal. For dinner I had a roasted chicken breast and yellow rice and black beans. It sounds so simple, but it took probably 40 minutes to make. I think that the time listed for recipes reflects the time it takes after all of the preparations have already been completed. Also, once everything is in a pot or an oven, there is so much waiting patiently around for the food to be done, cool, and finally be ready to eat. I don't understand how people on Chopped do everything in such little time.

On the positive side, I learned today that a chicken breast is done if it has reached a temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit on the inside.