In the second battle of the Daily's Battle of the Sexes competition, two teams - consisting of a pair of females and a pair of males - whipped up a delicious dinner and allowed the Daily's Sydne Summer to have a taste.
Team Boys
Seniors Michael Sparandara and Dave Crawley headed up Team Boys, deciding to keep it simple with a dinner for two. Though the boys have held dinner parties in the past - they used to rotate cooking with the girls next door on their "Italian O.C." nights - cooking a dinner at home reflected a standard routine.
"This dish is not an everyday dinner, but also not a rare occasion dinner," Sparandara said. "On average, we will cook one large dinner like this once a week."
The dish prepared was London Broil in a balsamic vinegar reduction served with saut?©ed onions, onion-baked potatoes and Caesar salad.
Though the dish might sound complex, the boys did not use an overabundance of ingredients. The list simply included:
Crawley started preparing the food - cutting, washing and seasoning - and then Sparandara got to work on the stove. The steak was saut?©ed, then baked with goat cheese. The reduction sauce was created in a pan. For the salad, although they used a pre-packaged kit, the boys added their own flair with freshly grated parmesan cheese.
When the cooking was done, Crawley arranged the dishes, drizzling the reduction sauce on the succulent meat.
The total cost for the meal was about $16 for two to three servings. "It was prepared on a medium-sized budget," Sparandara said.
The rest of the week, the boys usually eat what they call "modest" meals.
"Staples in our apartment include my homemade hot pasta sauce - Arrabbiata sauce - served with penne; saut?©ed chicken cutlets in olive oil; red bell peppers and sausage; chicken fajitas and steak sandwiches," Sparandara said.
"We certainly don't have time to cook every night, though," Crawley added. "And we probably order at least twice a week."
Rebecca Dince contributed to this article.
Team Boys' ingredients
1.25 lbs. London Broil 16 oz. Balsamic vinegar 1 Onion (chopped)6 Potatoes 1 Caesar salad kit1 Lipton onion soup mix 4 oz. goat cheese 2 tbsp. butter 2 tbsp. sugar1/4 cup Olive oil
Team Girls
As part of a weekly tradition, seniors Jessica Powers and Ariel Samuelson devoted their Sunday night dinner to cook up a masterpiece. The girls were in charge of the preparations this week, though they were aided by 10 of their friends.
Every Sunday, 12 girls gather at the same off-campus house to make dinner and watch television. Switching off, two different girls cook each week while the others help.
"There are dues. Someone has to bring a 12-pack of Fresca, all types of snacks, any trashy magazines and liquor," senior Emily Kolovson said. "Some people look forward to Sunday more than Saturday night."
"We all bring out laptops to look up people from the night before on Facebook," senior Alison Savery added of the festivities.
The night of the competition, the pair in charge cooked Three Cheese Chicken Penne Florentine - made of fresh spinach, chicken and a combination of cheese. (See recipe card)
"First we boiled the pasta and chopped up all the vegetables," Powers said.
"Jess was the saut?© specialist, and [she] saut?©ed all the mushrooms, peppers and spinach," Samuelson added. "We bought already-cooked roast chicken. We mixed and food-processed the cheese and cut up chicken and mixed it all together."
The estimated cost of the dinner was $100 for 12 girls. Past meals have included Whole Wheat pizza, apricot chicken and Ritz cracker-crusted-salmon.
Sunday dinners are usually inventive and tasty. The dishes, however, are not the norm for the rest of week.
"Sunday dinners is the only home cooked meal of the week that I eat," Savery said.
Fellow senior Rebecca Holden agreed. "Usually, I hate to cook. It's so hard for me to get motivated to cook for one, so usually I will just have a bowl of cereal or something. Sunday dinner is definitely the most extensive meal of my week. It's more fun to cook for a bunch of people."
Team Girls' ingredients
1 tbsp. of olive oil3 cups thinly sliced mushrooms1 cup chopped onion1 cup chopped red pepper3 cups chopped fresh spinach1 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano1/4 tbsp. ground pepper1 carton low fat cottage cheese4 cups hot cooked penne2 cups shredded roasted skinless chicken breast1 cup shredded reduced fat sharp cheddar cheese1/2 cup grated fresh parmesan cheese1/2 cup reduced fat milk1 can condensed reduced fat cream of chicken soup
