so I played iron chef at my parents house when I visited them on the other side of massachusetts recently, and the theme ingredient was cantaloupe
main course: cantaloupe chicken
1/4 of a cantaloupe
1/2 of an onion (white onion, medium to large, the sweet kind)
2 plums
4 apricots
6 pound bird, whole, giblets removed
2 cloves carlic
beer
tabasco
oil (olive-cooking)
roasting rack (a rack that fits in a broiler pan which keeps the bird from resting in liquid or against flat metal)
directions:
coarsley chop ingredients and stuff into bird after washing bird.
put bird on roasting rack and rub with oil, tilt opening slightly downward.
put tabasco both in the bird and on the leftover stuffing
you will have leftover stuffing. keep it aside.
roast on low heat (bake-350) for about an hour and a half
beer broth asparagus:
as soon as you put the chicken in, start washing a bunch of thin asparagus spears. hold one by the midle and the end that does not look like a tree top and gently bend until it breaks naturally. then cut the rest to the same length. put these in the bottom of the pan after roasting the chicken for 30 minutes, and tilt the chicken up a little bit so that the juice pours out onto the bottom of the pan. add half a bottle of hopsy beer (ipa is best for this) and the rest of your stuffing so that there will be cantaloupe in it.
cantaloupe relish:
juice from 1 lime
1 tablespoon finely diced ginger or ginger powder.
other half of the onion
1 fourth of a cantaloupe
1 small jalepeno pepper with seeds removed
1 clove garlic
fresh thyme and basil
dice all ingredients other than liquids and canteloupe, which should be cubed into ~3/4 inch cubes or chunks. mix everything in a bowl.
serve a hefty scoop on the side of each plate
cantaloupe desert:
1/2 cantaloupe
vanilla ice cream
cream cheese
tabasco
peel the remaining half of the cantaloupe so that you have a dome of cantaloupe (flat side down). now cut the whole thing into thin slices so that you have several ultra thin thin moon shaped cantaloupe slices. separate the good ones, and spread a thin layer of cream cheese on half of the good ones, placing another over it to make a sandwich after sprinkling the cream cheese with tabasco. now put these sandwiches into ramakins, forming little flower petals if you can shape them that way (usually by folding so that the ends of the cantaloupe moon touch eachother) but leave space in the center of tha ramakin. bake on high heat until the edges singe (should be about 10 minutes on 475 if you cut it thin enough. then put a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a sprinkling from the little bits of leftover cantaloupe in the center of each ramakin. serve to awed and impatient guests.