We should feel elated. We made it 30 days, with only a few exceptions, on home cooked food. The fatigue has set in, however. As we bustle around the kitchen preparing dinner we bicker and gripe. We are always in one another's way. Our excitement over our last meal of the challenge is meager compared to our relief that tomorrow we can order a pizza.
As the dinner hour draws near, however, we begin to perk up. Our friends, Grant, Tish, and their son Cruz, are coming over for dinner. We are going to surprise them with a real treat: cooking our dinner on our Himalayan Salt Slab. This big hunk of salt was Mike's Christmas gift from my dad several years ago.
First, we turned the oven up to 550 degrees. We put the salt in and let it get nice and hot for about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, we prepared the food.
Mike thinly sliced some beef tenderloin. I chopped up some zucchini and a portobello mushroom. We also had some shrimp, tuna, and lamb chops.
We arranged all this on two plates: one for each side of the table. We were almost ready!
Once we were all sitting down, Mike ran into the kitchen and hustled back with the hot salt. He slid the salt onto our contraption in the middle of the table. It was time to dig in!
This was all very primitive. Pick a piece of raw meat. Put it on the hot stone. Wait. Turn it over. Wait. Pick it up. Eat.
It was thrilling to watch the meat sizzle and brown before your eyes. You felt powerful when you decided what to select, when to flip, and when to remove. Everything took on a slight salty flavor, which we all agreed we liked.
Grant noted that it was nice that this gave you something to do while you ate dinner. We all agreed, greedily watching our selections sizzle and pop. On the other hand, we were often caught slacking. We would get caught up in conversation and forget to turn or take off our meat. Mike cooked two pieces of tuna until they looked like chicken this way. I found it safest to take things off the stone early. If they weren't quite done, I would just spear it with my fork, press it onto the stone for a minute or so, and pop it into my mouth. This gave it a particularly salty flavor and worked really well with the shrimp.
We had some definite winners and losers tonight. The shrimp, tuna, and beef tenderloin were amazing. The zuchini, portobello, and lamb were terrible. You win some, you lose some!
Jack and Cruz didn't partake of our hot salt cooking. For the first time in this 30 day challenge Jack sat politely in his chair for the whole meal. He mainly ate peas and croutons. Cruz wasn't having any of it, and spent dinnertime pushing Jack's toy lawnmower around the house.
This dinner was the perfect finale. It was fun, it was delicious, and it brought us together around the table.
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We have a lot of reflecting to do. Did Home Cook Challenge bring us closer as a family? Did we save money? Did we become more creative, flexible, and talented? Did we lose weight? DID WE ENJOY IT????
We will share all our reflections tomorrow, from the comfort of the couch, surrounded by take-out.
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