Blueberries, Dijon Mustard, and Graham Crackers
The 2020 Brenner food challenge began as a funny idea; a chance comment on boredom in the pandemic. It evolved into something great.
Morgan's choice of ingredients was challenging but not impossible. Kristina quickly chose to modify one of her family favorites for dessert. Chris initially decided on pulled pork.
Then the evening before, Chris decided to up the anty and make the entire meal of dishes that included the challenge ingredients.
“Babe, I hope you don't mind if I go apeshit on this meal.” — Chris, 12 hours prior
Menu:
Pulled pork with blueberry-dijon bbq sauce, served on graham crackers squares as sliders
Cornbread with fresh blueberries and graham cracker meal (incorporated with the cornmeal)
Green beans with a dijon gravy, dried blueberries, and graham cracker breadcrumbs
Mac n cheese with a blueberry-jalapeño-red wine reduction, baked with graham cracker breadcrumbs
Dijon Carrot cake with dried blueberries, cream cheese frosting with Honey MadeTM dust
Kristina's submission would be a modified carrot cake. Incorporating dijon mustard, adding dried blueberries, and dusting the frosting with graham cracker would fulfill the requirements. She was just not sure what it would taste like. But hey, cream cheese frosting on anything would be a winner.
Kristina started early to stay out of Chris's way. The only hitch being sacrificing a half stick of butter, paper and all, to Bella.
The main dish of the meal would be the aforementioned pulled pork with a dijon and spice rub and a blueberry dijon barbecue sauce.
Where Chris struggled was with incorporating the graham cracker. After some deliberation, he chose to serve the pulled pork as sliders on graham crackers.
For the complete barbecue you have to have several side dishes. Baked mac and cheese is an obvious choice, green bean casserole (of sorts) too, and cornbread can't hurt.
After a short break to meet Mother's Day obligations, Chris began work on the essential sauces.
In order to fulfill the blueberry requirement for the baked mac and cheese, Chris decided to make a spicy jalapeño, blueberry, red wine reduction. This turned out to be more time consuming and more difficult than first anticipated.
The BBQ sauce for the pulled pork consisted of blueberries, dijon, chipotle peppers, and a bunch of other yumminess.
While Chris slaved away at the stove, Kristina made a mess of the frosting.
With twice as much butter and a little less powdered sugar, however, it still turned out great.
Look at the deft inclusion of the graham cracker into the cornbread mix. A tablespoon of dijon gave it some extra depth and the fresh blueberries were gooey and delicious.
This was one of the easier dishes as it all just gets mixed together.
The solution for fulfilling the dijon and graham cracker requirements for the green beans and baked mac and cheese was the same. The dijon was incorporated into the roux for the cheese sauce for the mac and cheese and the gravy for the green beans. Both dishes were topped with graham cracker bread crumbs.
Finally, the green beans had dried blueberries in the gravy to complete the meal.
Much labor later...
“Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.” — Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet
Thank you for reading! We had a great time and are looking forward to doing it again. We hope you all enjoyed your meals as much as we did.