The rules are simple.
You will find yourself in the kitchen of the middle of the road mama with school (and possibly pre-school aged children) the day before shopping day. Your job is to make a family meal that will suit offspring, 2-3 of various ages and 1-2 adults.
You will have half an hour to complete the meal. Your time starts at 4.30pm exactly and your meal must be served by 5pm. If you miss this deadline several of the judges may refuse to eat and throw a tantrum, and your food. One of the key judges, and only people likely to appreciate your meal, may arrive after this time - half an hour to an hour later in fact - so you better hope your meal tastes good lukewarm, cold or sadly reheated in a microwave.
You will have full access to a partially stoked cupboard and fridge/freezer. Don't forget to use the veges quietly dying in the bottom draw of the fridge. That slimy thing on the third self is not a squid it is a mixure concocted by the 3 year old and must not be touched for fear of demerit points.
Please dig into the back of the cupboards where you are likely to find some interesting opened packets of ingredients like lentils and quinoa that are probably pass their use-by, as the main cook was going through a short-lived 'natural' stage before they realised no one would eat any of it - by all means though do prove us wrong.
During your half hour cooking time you must also listen to 2 children read very slowly and ask for help on several words. You will have to make them read to you, they will not offer and this is an imperative part of the challenge if you want to move on to the next round. You must provide this task equal concentration to your cooking. Don't forget to sign the homework books as evidence you have done it.
The table must also be cleared of school notices, cereal from the morning's breakfast, playdough and a collection of things that have no special home. After this you must coerce, without violence, one of the children to set the table.
You may use any recipe that you can find in the kitchen provided the book pages aren't so stuck together that you have to tear them apart. It may be more successful just to make it up as you go along, this is an invention test after all.
Presentation will not help. All food must be disintegrated to such a size that it can be eaten with a teaspoon anything crunchy or slimy may cause one judge to gag in such a way that all other judges will no longer want to eat theirs either.
Each judge requires their own plate, although many will eat off each others plates during the tasting too. You may have to do some washing while you are preparing in order to have enough plates to serve up your meal. One judge may refuse to eat their dinner if it is not presented on the correct plate - the correct plate is currently unknown.
If the kitchen is a mess when you have finished don't worry, you have a hour at about 8.30pm to clean that up yourself.
Don't forget to season your meal, however you must not use salt as it is bad for the children, anything spicy as they will refuse to eat it and fresh herbs as they will cause suspicion.
The rules are simple:
- get the meal done and feed all the judges. Any contestant who manages to do all of the above and have everyone finished what is served to them will receive an immunity pin and be interviewed by woman's weekly for $10,000.
- any contestant failing to complete this task will be given the same task every night for the next 10-18 years
Good luck your 30 minutes starts NOW!
