Mario's Grab bag challenge to Create Meal in 3 Minutes

[Amaranth]

On the show, they periodically give Mario a Grab Bag of seasonal food. With it, he creates a meal in 3 minutes.

September/October Grab Bag

Artisan Bread
Pasta, Orzo

Cauliflower
Squash, Butternut
Sweet Potatoes

Apple, green

Sausage, beef

Mushrooms

Oil, olive
Vinegar, red wine
Mustard, Whole grain
Molasses

He also gets from the pantry:
Oil, olive
Chicken broth and stock
Salt, pepper
and also water I think.

This clip shows what he made and some techniques for getting a meal to the table quickly.
http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/the-chew/recipes/Mario-Batali-Grab-Bag-September-27

What would you make from the September/October Grab Bag and his pantry ingredients? In 3 minutes? In a longer period of time?

[herbgeek]

If I only get 3 minutes, that means I'm either eating raw or using the microwave only to cook. I would need longer than that. But in 1/2 an hour, I could do the following:

a "risotto", made with orzo and butternut squash
cauliflower puree (made like mashed potatoes)
stuffed mushrooms, using the sausage and bread
sweet potato salad, served room temp, with a vinaigreet using the oil, mustard and vinegar
baked apple for dessert
baked stuffed sweet potatoes, using the sausage and sauteed mushrooms
soup of apple and butternut squash
crostini with the bread toasted and sauteed mushrooms

[peggy]

yeah, 3 minutes seems like a impossible challenge, which may be their goal. 3 minutes? Really? Why 3? Why not 20 or 30? Or some other somewhat reasonable goal? In 3 minutes, you couldn't even cut up raw fruits and veggies to serve without slicing your fingers off! Why not just throw everything into a vita-mix, blend it up and drink? I'm thinking with 3 minutes, they aren't really looking for recipes, or even real meals, they are just throwing out there some impossible time limit to see what ridiculous outcome can be put forth that plays well on reality TV.
Maybe I'm being too harsh, but challenges like this just rub me wrong. Theses aren't really challenges, anymore than those TV shows where the
'challenge' is to eat a 20 pound hamburger in 10 minutes. It's just for show and we don't really come away with anything but a freak show. Same with the 20 cent challenge or whatever. How about a real challenge, that really makes us stretch and think, but is attainable. Now there we can come away with something.

[try2bfrugal]

I think the quickest meal I can make in terms of prep time is rice in the rice cooker, chicken in the steamer, a simple salad and some fruit. It takes about 20 minutes for the chicken and rice to cook but the prep time for everything is probably 5 - 10 minutes total.

[try2bfrugal]

Duplicate post.

[Miss Cellane]

Watching the clip, I think it took a bit longer than three minutes. The key factors were that he had several pans already hot on the stove, a grill pan, a couple of regular saucepans and a big pot of boiling water. Then he cut up the veggies using a mandoline and cut them very small so that they would cook very quickly. You'll notice that in the clip, no one actually tastes the meal.

Given the same food and more time to cook it, I'd do baked sweet potatoes, grilled sausage and apples (I'd have to adapt this recipe--no onions and swap molasses for the brown sugar, but it would also use the red wine vinegar), and just steam the cauliflower. Serve with slices of the bread with olive oil and fresh ground pepper for dipping.

The rest of the food would be saved for another meal, except the mushrooms which I don't like.

[try2bfrugal]

With the ingredients given I would chop up everything and make a soup with most of it. I would swirl olive oil and vinegar on a side dish with the bread for dipping. Apples slices for dessert.