Who will be the Next Food Network Star???

I loved Sunday night's episode of TNFNS. The challenge of the day for the final contestants was to do a 3 minute cooking demo for a Miami morning program. The challenge was that the kitchen was rigged for disaster, and the contestants had to overcome the sabotage and keep their cool.

I am still working at the soup kitchen on Mondays. Look forward to it every week. Especially when Gus asks me to cook something! Usually I am doing prep work and sometimes serving and other support type jobs.

How does this tie in with TNFNS? Whenever Gus asks me to cook, something is missing or goes wrong. A few months ago, he asked me to make beef stroganoff. Thankfully, it is something I am familiar with so I got to it. Once I got the saucy beef mixture going, the water was boiling and ready for noodles, and lo and behold, the noodles were missing. So, I made it with potatoes. I think I got a little flustered at the absence of noodles and overdid it with tarragon. LOL, I still haven't lived that down!

Last week, Gus made calabasas con carne de puerco (zucchini with pork) - it was delicious, but we when Gus asked me to get the bread out of the freezer, we found none. I thought a handful of tortilla chips would have been good, too, but alas, there were none. I found a stack of frozen corn tortillas that were bound and determined to stay frozen, even after a nice long jaunt in a very hot oven. So I pried each one off the stack and grilled it and they came out fine, albeit a little torn.

Yesterday, I walked in and Gus asked me to make bread pudding - this is something I am pretty good at and love to do. He have me the bread that I needed (cinnamon raisin swirl and croissants) and I got to work - a layer of raisin bread, a layer of torn croissants, then a layer of raisin bread. It was sure pretty! I went to the fridge to get the eggs and found NONE! I asked Gus and he said there was a flat of eggs that someone donated and were there yesterday. Well, it appears that someone decided they needed the eggs more than the soup kitchen did! We were about to wrap it up and stick it into the freezer for when we got more eggs. but I saw a couple half gallons of ice cream hanging out in the freezer. I asked Gus if I could use them, and he said yes. I took 1/2 gallon of Blue Bell homemade vanilla and 1/2 gallon of vanilla bean, melted them together, added some cinnamon and nutmeg and some milk, and poured the whole thing over the bread layers. We stuck it in the oven for close to an hour, then topped with a glaze of powdered sugar, milk, and a dash of cinnamon and vanilla.
We all decided that this will be the new way to make bread pudding! I wish I had my camera handy, but didn't. It was so delicious, creamy and perfectly textured! Can you imagine how pecan pralines and cream would taste with it? Or buttered pecan? YUM-O!!