the bare minimum 004: cadbury mini egg cookies

Life outside the kitchen, but also in it

Last week’s challenge was to reimagine and elevate childhood classics. Team Blais won the previous round (duh), so we were up on the top level. Also worth noting: everyone on our team is a dad. So this felt like our Super Bowl. I called ourselves Daddy Daycare but apparently the producers didn’t think that was as funny as I did.

When the platform dropped, I grabbed New York strip, cheddar, broccoli, and corn… and what I thought was pizza dough. Turns out it was pasta dough. So now I’m making pizza dough from scratch with 30 minutes on the clock.

Not a problem — except a good dough usually takes me two days minimum. I wasn’t bothered though; I cook for the kids every day. Felt like this one was in my wheelhouse.

Then, halfway through, they hit us with a twist — we also had to make a potato side. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate. Pizza and fries? Weird but ok.

I ended up serving a steak, broccoli, and corn pizza with a brown butter mornay, plus sweet potato fries on the side. I knew the flavor of the pizza was gas, even if it was a bit upscale. Gordon said the steak was beautifully cooked and the fries were great, so I was feeling pretty good… and then came the dough feedback.

Too dense. On the verge of undercooked. Not enough time to ferment. At that point, I knew I was cooked.

I ended up in the elimination round against Amber, where we had to take an ingredient kids usually avoid and turn it into something they’d actually want to eat. We both had to cook squab, aka pigeon, which I’d never heard of.

Naturally, I went full Texan and made chicken fried squab and served it with a sweet pea hummus. The judges said they liked the breading, but thought it overpowered the squab, which, ironically, ended up tasting too much like chicken. Kind of thought that was the whole point here but I wasn’t about to argue with them. I still feel like I didn’t deserve to go home there but that’s showbiz baby.

That’s a wrap for me; I cried on TV. Not exactly how I thought things would go, especially on a challenge that’s basically what I do every day. But getting to talk about my kids and my life as a bit of a stay-at-home dad on that stage meant a lot. I definitely got a little choked up when they said I’d be going home.

All in, still the coolest experience of my life. I met some really incredible people and it made me an even better cook. Here are some behind the scenes photos from my trip to Ireland to film the show.