That’s right!  This week is a free for all at Help Peter Cook.Com!  What that means for you is limits!  Wait, no, what I mean is, you’re free, buuuuutttt within certain bounds.  This all stems from the fact that I really need to do some grocery shopping and don’t have a likely four ingredients to present this week.

This week’s Free For All (and yes, I now have the Ted Nugent song stuck in my head too) is pretty easy.  You can now pick SIX items of your choice, plus the normal items found under Spices & Herbs to form a unique recipe that this amateur chef and Dad can handle.  It should be something a 7 year old would also like to eat (light on the onions and she loves noodle dishes) and the ingredients should be fairly easy to acquire in a smaller grocery store on an island, meaning I don’t have access to a lot of specialty groceries (like Korean and Mexican markets).

The deadline for entries is this Thursday the 30th, at noon Pacific Time.  Think semi-exotic, think Spring time flavors, think something other than Mac N Cheese. 

Drooling with anticipation of your suggestions….

This week’s challenge is a tough one! Things are a bit bare in the kitchen at the moment and while a shopping trip is on the horizon, I’m making due with what I have.  If you need help with how this challenge works, you can find it here.  It’s pretty simple, just take the four ingredients listed below and add in two of your own if you like.  Then post your recipe here or reference your own site.  I’ll then cook up, video tape it and share with the world my and my daughter’s thoughts.

This week’s ingredients are:

• Ground Lamb from Thundering Hooves (raised on organic feed with no hormones)
• Onion! (organic too)
• Rice (yup, also organic)
• Trader Joe’s Organic Baked Bean (which is organically organic)
• Two ingredients of your own choice (or just one, or none!)

Now I can see this one coming a mile away, at least with the beans.  Yes, you can use ingredients in side dishes as this isn’t meant to be a one pot wonder meal. 

So show me what you would do to make a scrumptious meal fit for a 7 year old and her Dad!

Even before the video for week #6 comes out, it’s time for the next weekly recipe challenge!  A recent trip to the grocery store brought home some more simple ingredients so this should be an easy one.  If there is more than one recipe offered up, I’ll pick one at random.  Unless I’m bribed with organic chocolate.

The ingredients this week are:

• Free Range Chicken breasts
• Yukon Gold Potatoes
• Fettuccine (yes, I’m in a pasta kick after last week’s recipe)
• Carrots

For those new to the site the idea is simple; take those ingredients and up to two of your own and post a recipe in the comments section of this post (or link to your own site).  You can use any of the Spices & Herbs listed here.  It’s just that simple!  You have until 10am on Friday, that means a whole extra day!

Good luck and good cooking!

This week I’ll be on the road, heading to San Francisco so I’m changing up this week’s challenge a bit.  I’ll be staying with friends and have asked them to pick the four ingredients and, since I’ll be cooking for them, to also pick the recipe.  The time frame got kinda crunched with time on the road.

I’ll still have a video and recipe to post from this week, fear not!  And the kitchen will look all different!  But next week it’ll be back to my white, white kitchen and with my daughter hopefully handling the camera again (I’ll get her to be a bit more stable this time ).

I know I said I’d announce the ingredients on Wednesday but I just went shopping and am sooooo excited.  Yes, I’m actually excited about food.  Especially after my daughter commented that I have a lot of processed food in the house (ignoring the fact that I showed her how to chop mushrooms last night when we had salads!).  So without further such and such!:

This week’s ingredients are:

• Wild Alaskan King Salmon Steaks – you know, that part just back from the head that isn’t fillets? Yeah, that part.
• Asparagus
• Red, Yellow and Green Peppers
• Brown Rice
• Up To Two Of Your Own Ingredients

I’m thinking this list should be pretty easy, but see how creative you can get!  Don’t forget to check the Spices & Herbs page for other ingredients you can use for free!  

To enter, just drop a link or your entire recipe in the comment section below!  All entries must be recieved by 10am PT on Thursday the 19th.  Good luck!

I was contacted yesterday by the fine folks at The Mushroom Channel about this week’s recipe challenge, which includes Portobella Mushrooms.  If the recipe goes well they will be featuring it as next week’s Recipe Of The Week!

On top of that, they informed me on Twitter today of a contest from Taste Of Home with a chance to win $2000!  I will enter your mushroom recipe for you if you like and you keep all the cash.  After all, it’s your recipe.

If you’re ready for mushroom fame and fortune, here is this week’s challenge, but you better hurry, you have until 5PM PDT today (March 10th,2009) to enter!

Hello!   This week’s cooking challenge is all vegetarian!  While I am not normally a vegetarian, it never seems to hurt to slack off chicken and fish for a bit.  Plus it’s often more challenging.  So this week, along with the normal rules, I’m throwing in the challenge of keeping the recipe vegetarian.  This means no dairy or meat.  I realize there are about a hundred ways to interpret ‘vegetarian’ but for me, this works for the time being.

If you need a refresher on the rule, check out the How It Works tab above.  I don’t have the other kitchen staples listed yet, but olive oil is definitely on there.  And flour.  And red wine.

This week’s ingredients are:

• Portabello Mushrooms
• Red Potatoes
• White Onions
• Italian Squash

You have 24 hours to come up with a recipe that I will attempt to cook and make delicious.  Feel free to use any of the Spices & Herbs available in the kitchen.  Submit your recipe by 5pm, PDT on Tuesday.  By the way “salad” doesn’t count for this one.

Thanks! And Good Luck!

Hello and welcome to the second weekly challenge at Help Peter Cook.com.  If you need a refresher in how this ball of fun works, check out How This Works in the menu above.  Also, I’ve updated the Spices & Herbs list to include what I bought this week (I also now have butter!  Wahoo!)

This week’s challenge should be fairly easy, so you may need to get a bit creative!

The four ingredients you have to work with are:

• Ground Turkey – 1lb
• Brussels Sprouts – lots
• Red Bell Pepper – 1
• Green Beans

You may add up to two ingredients of your own liking.  Then please either post your recipe in the comments below, or post a link to your own website with a recipe any average guy could make!  You have 24 hours, or until 10am Pacific Time (UTC-8) on Tuesday the 24th.  The winning recipe will then be cooked up by me and video taped for the whole world to see, with you getting all the credit. Good luck!

First off, thank you to all who responded to the first two calls for suggestions (The Kitchen and Spices&Herbs)!  The comments, Twitter answers and email responses have me pretty well set for Monday’s first challenge.  And the number of people who have subscribed to this blog has been impressive this first week!  If you have a friend who is into cooking, send them to this link where they can sign up by feed reader or for email delivery of updates.

Now then, the hint!  As explained in the How It Works section, I’ll have a post up here on the site before 10am Pacific Time (UTC-8).  It’ll be both video and good old fashioned words explaining how the first challenge will work and what the ingredients are.  As it is the first challenge, it’ll be fairly easy for you to be creative with the two ingredients you may choose to add (or not).  And just to build anticipation, one of the ingredients will be………..halibut.

Check back on Monday for the other three ingredients and then you will have 24 hours to post a recipe.  And feel free to link back to your own site in the comment section when you post your idea!