The Ready Steady Cook Challenge | Just Add Ginger

About a month ago, Boyfriend had an idea for date night.

"We should do Ready Steady Cook."

Growing up in the 90s, Ready Steady Cook was the show I really looked forward to when I came home from school (aside from the children's programmes of course.) Whenever she came over to dinner, Saunders and I would  pretend we were chefs on the show, and make up methods for how we created our bowls of half-melted ice cream and chocolate sauce. So when Boyfriend suggested we have a proper Ready Steady Cook Challenge, my excitement filter went in to overdrive.

We set the budget for £7.50 (the show's 'gourmet bag' budget) simply for the fact that £5.0 doesn't really get you anywhere any more in terms of ingredients.

The prize? A highly sought after selection of wooden utensils purchased from the budget line of my local supermarket!

Our  Ready Steady Cook Challenge only had only a few guidelines:

• Herbs/Spices do not count in the £7.50 budget 
• There is no time limit for cooking. 
• Anything found in cupboards/the fridge may be used in addition to purchased goods. 
• The other contender may be used as Sous Chef

Naturally, with it being his idea, Boyfriend (the Red Tomato) went first.

Picking the ingredients was definitely tricky. I wasn't sure whether to go for a random selection, or pick things that I could create a dish with myself. In the end, I went for items that I knew we both liked, and sounded like a good combination. These included: black pudding, potatoes and a pear

And this is what he created!!

When the food was plated up, it sparked a really excitable conversation about the dish, and what each of us would have done a bit differently. As an avid recipe-following cook, I was so impressed with his creation, but at the same time, my heart sank....how was I going to beat this? I have the cooking creativity of beans on toast. This was going to be tough. 

We left a gap of a few weekends until it was my turn. And when the time came, I'm not afraid to admit that I was pooping myself about it. Especially when I saw what ingredients he had chosen for me; pork belly (which I had never cooked before,) smoked cheese, peppers, mushrooms.....

But I bit the bullet and opened up my imagination, and I was actually really proud of my invention.

In order to judge who was the champion, we decided that the best way would be to write our scores out of 10 for each other on a piece of paper, hidden from the other contender, and then on the count of "three," display our scorecards. No scores were allowed to be changed. It all went on that one scoring decision.

There was .5 of a point in it for us....I WON!!!

Doing something a little bit different for date night was really special, especially when it combined something Boyfriend and I love. For any other Foodie couples - or even friends - out there, The Ready Steady Cook Challenge should definitely be tried. 

What are your date night ideas?