On the Next Food Network Challenge...

I'm a bit of a Food Network Challenge junkie, especially if its a contest involving the decorating of cakes. I'm not one for the highfalutin sugar arts ones, and I occasionally go for a non-cakie competition. (Did anyone else see the Italian family feast episode a few weeks ago? Sheer madness. I'd have killed me some relatives after that one, methinks.)

Anywho, I have a brilliant idea for an episode of FNC: Bland food. Yeah, that's right--prepare an appealing meal that's bland that might be suitable for a recuperating person. The network could hire a nutritionist or two to establish the competitions rules for what ingredients can and can't be included and what kind of nutritional values the meal must meet. Now that would be a challenge.

Plus I could use some inspiration. The husband started eating some solid foods again, but he can't do spices yet. And I just don't know how to prepare food without spices. Take away my chile powders, my garlic, my cumin, my crushed red pepper and all the other wonderful flavors I've discovered over the past few years, and I'm absolutely, incomprehensible bereft. And if I'm bereft, so too is the husband.

This evening, I made him some very tender cubed chicken breast, which I browned and then let stew in some Central Market-brand low-sodium chicken broth. To help up the blandness factor, I made him and the boy some potato cakes. Sure, you're supposed to use leftover mashed potatoes from, say, a Thanksgiving feast. But I had none, so I whipped up some instant mashed potatoes from a box we've had since...well, only the FSM would know when. All I can say is ugh, how bland.

And I guess that's the point.

The boy ate one cake, but the husband ate three, and I still have enough potatoes left over for another four or five cakes. Will I make them? Dunno. I'm not going to feel guilty if I have to dump that stuff down the drain.

FYI, I did modify that potato cake recipe. I used only egg whites (I have no whole eggs once again) and fat-free cheese, which I mixed in with everything else before putting the goop in the frying pan. Since I didn't have quite two cups of mushed spuds, I only used a third of a cup of flour, and I substituted the garlic (which I'm guessing the recipe calls for freshly minced) for a bit of garlic powder. And there's no way in the FSM's bountiful fettuccine bowl that I'm ever going to melt butter to fry something in. I instead sprayed a little nonstick cooking spray into my old nonstick frying pan and went from there.

I have no pictures of the potato cakes to share because, well, they were bland and boring and visually unappealing--and that was the whole damn point. But what a challenge to come up with something I could attempt to make that would fit the bill!