The Law School Transplant - If you don't find me helpful, hopefully you'll find me at least mildly entertaining.

My sweet friend Jenny is a foodie and blogger, and most recently, a writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s food and dining section. A couple weeks ago, one of Jenny’s frustrated friends vented to her about a Rachael Ray 30-minute meal recipe taking two hours to prepare. Jenny then took to Facebook to see if anyone would be interested in doing a 30MM experiment to see whether any of Rachael’s recipes can actually be completed in a 30 minute timeframe, give or take. I’ve been a fan of RR for many years now (as a sidenote, I actually met her at a book signing for her Big Orange Book a few years ago, and was so nervous I didn’t say a single word!), so I agreed to participate, hoping I could vindicate Rach.

A rare speechless occasion for me, while meeting RR at a book signing in 2008.

The cooking challenge starts at 6:00 p.m. tonight. There are five of us participating, and we’re all preparing the same recipe: Parmigiano-Reggiano-Crusted Chicken Picata. In keeping with the concept of completing an entire meal from start to finish within 30 minutes, we’re allowed to have our ingredients on the counter at 6, but can’t start prep work (chopping, etc.) before then.

I hit my local Trader Joe’s yesterday and got all the ingredients. When I prepare 30MM’s normally, I often substitute ingredients for things I have on-hand, but I’m following this one pretty faithfully with the following minor exceptions:

• Pounding chicken gives me the heebie-jeebies, so I’ll probably slice the chicken butterfly-style to get thin cutlets.
• I bought shredded parmesan cheese, so I’ll give it a spin in the chopper to make it finer and more like grated cheese.
• I am using brown rice spaghetti instead of angel hair pasta; hopefully this won’t increase my cooking time by too much.

During the challenge, we’ll all be updating via Facebook, which will give me an opportunity to give my iPad (thanks, Dave!) a test drive in the kitchen. We’ll be posting pictures when we’re done; I’m going to try to post pictures during the meal prep, and I’ll definitely post a follow-up here.

Wish me luck! YUM-O!