1st Ever Slice-Off!

Ok, I've told you about The Games We Play in the Food Network kitchens when I'm in recipe testing mode. First, it was the 1st ever Sear-Off! Two bacon-wrapped turkey breasts were put on the ticket and Culinary Gangsta of all Things Cuisine, aka Santos, challenged me to have a more perfectly seared protein than him. I love a challenge, so if you click the link above you can see how that went. BTW, that turkey was my Bacon-Wrapped Turkey Breast stuffed with Pear Hash.

Fast forward to our current round of recipe testing and a challenge was thrown at me out of the blue again ... and this time, Santos was the judge and Jenna, an assistant culinary producer was pit against me in the 1st ever (and probably the last lol) ...

SLICE-OFF!!

Ok, here were the rules. Santos cut two equal-in-size pieces of yellow bell pepper and challenged Jenna and I to see who could make the most thin slices out of our piece of pepper ... and it wasn't pickled :-). I chose my trusty 10-inch wide knife and Jenna put her Yan Can Cook Cleaver to work. Now, I have to tell you, I always admire Jenna's chop, sometimes even saying things in conversation with them like "Ok, for this recipe I'm gonna Jenna Chop the garlic then saute ..." or "I think I'll add some onions all Jenna-chopped up". So she truly has a rep for a great slice game in my book. The piece of pepper was smaller than a business card, but in hindsight I don't know why we didn't measure it. We just made sure both pieces were equal in size from the start. I got to work on my piece with Jenna to my left and to my surprise finished before she did, but that doesn't matter. The goal was quantity of slices not who got to the finish line fastest. Santos told us early on that he wouldn't have any half slices, they needed to be the full length of the piece and even throughout. Tough judge eh? Not so much, I mean no one would try to sell off a bad slice to the Culinary Gangsta would they???

Here he is inspecting my pieces while Jenna intently focuses on her slivers of yellow bell pepper in the background ..
I was so nervous while he was counting!!! I just wanted a good showing. He counted and I had 37 slices that were regulation. I had a few that just didn't make the cut, but I knew it early on and pushed them to the side with an audible ugh of defeat. All I could think was I why didn't I take my time??? ... look at Jenna over there intense and deep in concentration ... will I win??

He counted up from the 30s and my stomach was excited as he counted ... 33, 34, thirrrrrteeee-fiii-eeeveee, thirty-siiiiiiiiiiiiiix ... and to both my and Jenna's surprise he stopped at the magic number 37! A tie! Here we are happy with our results!
What fun! After that teeny break we got back to work testing recipes, but with a tie maybe we should have another go at it huh? Ok, just wanted to send you off with a smile for the weekend. Enjoy your Superbowl and check the Food Network Big Game page for last minute party ideas ... btw GOOOOOOOO SAINTS and COLTS!!! (fyi, I'm not pandering to everyone, I'm actually a "when in Rome-er" lol, I've lived both places so I support them just like the Cowboys, Lions, Jets and Giants)