Our first day

Posted by Deanna:  Sharyl's comments in PINK.  Tisha's comments in ORANGE.
It's our first day of cooking and we've decided to start with recipes found on Ben's website.

Up first is Cheesy Potato soup.  This is a fairly straight forward recipe, calling for, well potatoes and cheese.  Velveeta to be exact.  It also calls for bacon.  How can you go wrong with a soup that has cheese, potatoes and bacon?  You can't. If only the screen allowed for a scratch-n-sniff.  Nothin' smells better than bacon.

The soup was quite good.  It's a thinner soup, not typical of potato cheese soups I've had in the past.  It has a rich flavor and the bits of bacon were a really nice addition.  We doubled the recipe so that we could each take some home.

Excuse the bread in that picture, the cornbread was still in the oven. (and we couldn't wait for the corn bread to be done to taste the wonderful smelling soup)

Speaking of cornbread, that was the second recipe of the day.  This is the Green Chili Cornbread that Ben made on MasterChef, to go with his Pork Butt Chili. (teehee, you said butt) Pork Butt must be said with a redneck accent, btw, as in "Gimme sum of that porkbutt JimBob". This recipe is a little more labor intensive with the roasting of the chilis and corn but still not an overly complicated recipe.  This was new for me.  Queen Spatula aka Deanna, put them in the oven roaster like she knew what she was doing. Wait. She does know what she's doing.  The flavor of both the corn and chilis was sooo good. 

The chilis roasting in the oven smelled so good!  We subbed Anaheim chilis as the grocery store near mom's house did not have Poblanos.   I've never roasted corn this way, it took a little longer than the chilis but it was definitely worth it.

Once everything was mixed together, it was a very thick batter.  The color was beautiful.  We used feta because mom couldn't find the queso fresco crumbles. 

We didn't have a cast iron skillet (I know, shame on us) so we had to use a 9 X 13 glass pan.  It took about 33 minutes to cook and came out perfectly.

Yum!  It's a very savory cornbread which is not what most people are used to when it comes to cornbread.  You could taste the roasted corn and chilis.  None of us could taste the feta at all, even though we could see it.  We all agree that chunks of pepper jack cheese would be a great addition. 

So, our first foray into the world of cooking like Ben.  Total spent was $37.37 for the ingredients.  Keep in mind though, this included things that we didn't have in the pantry and only used a little bit of in the recipes, like the dry mustard and peppercorns.  There is now a dedicated stash of items that will be used in this endeavor, so the cost of the recipes will most likely go down as that stash grows.

Leftover report:   The soup did not hold up well to being microwaved however, it was just fine when heated in a saucepan slowly on the stove.  I did not notice any change in the consistency and the flavor was the same.  The cornbread is actually better the next day.  The chili taste is stronger however, it does dry out fast.  
This was fun!  I know Sharyl noted it took one hour from start to finish with the soup.  All hands on deck made both recipes easier.  Something new for me, in addition to the roasting of corn and chilis, was sauteing (sp?) the onions in bacon grease.  Have mercy---did that smell good or what? 

Next up:  Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas that will make your mouth wattah.