What I Had for Linner: Mystery Meal, FN Mag-Style

Hey there! So, I got word that Food Network Magazine wanted me to participate in one of it's features in the magazine, 'He Made, She Made'. Have you seen this in the mag? Well, basically two people are given the same subject and are asked to create their own ultimate recipe for it. I love the feature and a good challenge, so of course I agreed to participate. Now, I can't tell you what it is and I can't even tell you who the He is, but I can tell you some of the process. I immediately went into brainstorm mode. I made a mental list of ideas, recipe titles and ingredients then for a day tossed the ideas around. I was familiar with the subject, but wanted to make sure my definitive recipe reflected what I like most. Thing is, I change my mind from week to week as to my favorite thing sometimes, so I hope this recipe rings true longer than that.

Ok, after thinking and writing a couple of rough drafts of the recipe in my notebook, I made a list yesterday and checked it twice. Then I looked in my pantry to get an inventory and headed out to shop. That was about 9AM. Shopping is pretty fun in my 'hood because not one store has everything. I usually have to make a few stops and I like this because I get to look at new set ups and ingredients at each stop. Really keeps your mind open when you are constantly bombarded by new stuff. So, after a few stops my total for groceries was $60.47. This is pretty low considering I had enough for six or eight runs of the recipe and then some. I never feel like any recipe is complete though, they are all works in progress I continue to think about forever. Anyway, around 11AM yesterday I got to work in my kitchen and around 5:30PM I stepped out of the kitchen with the last and final run of the recipe. It was as good as it could get, as far as taste and ingredients. It only took me a few different variations before I was happy. This was something I make often, so really the trick was picking something unique to my point of view. Next, I recorded the changes in my starter recipes and typed up the final and sent it around 6ish via email to my peeps at Food Network Magazine. Since I ate this basically for lunch while I was working the recipe and I had plenty of ingredients left over, I remixed it and had it for dinner as well. Linner never tasted so good, work done and tummy full. Want to see pics of a few of the ingredients? I can't tell you what they turn into, but you can guess ... you have until April 2010 though, because that's the projected issue. I know ... long time, eh? That's how it works in mag-world. Here are the hints ...

Any guesses?