- Hi. Hi. Hi.
OK, hey, I'm Lee Kalpakis, segment chef at Thrillist,
and this is "$30 Dinner Party."
Whoo!
Thrillist is sending me all over New York City
to help people just like you throw
killer dinner parties for very little money.
None of this, only this.
We're gonna plan, we're gonna shop,
we're gonna cook, and we're gonna serve
your people incredible food without breaking the bank.
Plan, shop, cook.
It's not hard, it's totally easy.
Do you like exercise? Me neither.
And I'm gonna show you how it's done.
Today we're in Ridgewood, and we're about
to meet up with Brigette. She is a junk food lover
at heart, but due to quite a few dietary restrictions,
she's turned into a certified health nut.
She wants to throw a dinner party
that's decadent and delicious,
so she can prove to her friends
that healthy tastes good, too.
Let's go meet her.
Hi.
- Hi.
- It's me.
Your diet is kinda paleo, but kind of not.
Walk me through what exactly are your restrictions.
Where did it come from?
- I went to 17 different countries
in a span of three months, and I had never
traveled before, and then a few months
after I returned from the trip,
my entire digestion was shot. And so,
no sugar, no wheat, no dairy, no caffeine.
I love junk food, especially chips.
I can't go a few days without eating a bag of chips.
- So why do you want to throw this $30 dinner party?
- I want to show myself and my friends
that we can have a delicious meal
that doesn't feel like anything has been left out
and that we can do it for cheap.
- So I'm thinking barbecue.
We can do some BBQ chicken, with gluten-free cornbread,
that would go awesome with it.
We can make some collard greens
to make it a little bit lighter,
banana pudding for dessert.
- Yes, I love it.
- I think we have a pretty solid menu --
are you ready to go shopping?
- Let's go shopping.
- All right.
- Wait, Brigette, do you have 50 cents?
- I only have Bitcoin.
- What's Bitcoin?
- Want a chip?
- And we're back in the Thrillist kitchen,
here with Brigette, about to help
her prove to her friends that her
insane diet is actually super-tasty and affordable.
So we're gonna start with
our barbecue sauce for our chicken.
- I'm so excited to have a barbecue sauce
that I can eat because I've literally
never had one in my entire life.
- Wherever you go, the barbecue sauce
is gonna be a little bit different.
We're making our own version today;
we're gonna do like a Ridgewood-style, right?
- How about Bridgewood?
- A Bridgewood-style, it's perfect.
One 6 ounce can of tomato paste, some honey.
- How much?
- Three tablespoons if you want to get technical.
Apple cider vinegar, about a half a cup.
Smoked paprika, or as my Canadian
parents would say, "pap-ricka."
- Really?
- Yeah, weird.
Garlic powder.
- How would they say that one?
- Garlic powder.
Kosher salt, black pepper -- I'm gonna stir in those spices.
Let me grab my grill pan.
We have to make a dry rub. We're gonna
put that all over our chicken before
we use the barbecue sauce, because if we put our sauce
on when we start grilling, we're going to burn it all.
So we're gonna put it on later.
- Hot tip.
- That's a hot tip.
- More smoked paprika, and salt, pepper,
garlic powder, and cayenne, and that's it.
Just whisk away.
Grab our legs and thighs over there.
Dump the dry rub all over, now rub 'em all,
the tops the bottoms -- you wanna just coat the whole thing.
We're gonna grill 'em up.
- Because you can't put the barbecue sauce on first?
- You're learning, Brigette.
- It will burn.
- I feel like everyone always goes
for the chicken breast, but the thighs
have way more flavor.
These have been cooking for 15 minutes
on both sides, so we're gonna add the barbecue sauce.
So you can really start to smell the sauce:
it's really tangy.
Whoo, look at that nice char.
Now that these are beautifully charred
on both sides, they're ready.
Scallions for garnish.
Are you ready to taste our chicken?
- Yes, I'm ready.
Oh my God, that's so good.
- Thighs and legs: always really juicy.
- And there's no sugar in this, I can't believe it.
- My favorite part is the crispy skin.
The char on either side is so good.
For our gluten-free cornbread,
we're gonna start with our dry ingredients.
Cornmeal -- 100% gluten-free I assure you --
kosher salt, and baking soda, so give that a whisk.
For our wet ingredients, one can coconut milk,
one egg, a little apple cider vinegar,
some butter, and then we're gonna give this a whisk, too,
and you want to pour that into our dry mixture.
Brigette, are you a professional baker?
You look like it.
- Thanks.
What about me looks like a professional baker?
- This.
I have a cast-iron pan heating in the oven right now.
When we put the batter in an already heated
cast-iron, it makes for a really crunchy crispy crust.
We're gonna add some butter,
and we want to do this kind of fast,
because we want the pan to stay super-hot.
The hotter the pan, the crispier the edges.
And back into the oven for 20 to 25 minutes.
We gotta make some collard greens.
A quarter cup of oil, and we're gonna
warm that a little bit, and then we're gonna add
our onion, give that a heavy pinch of kosher salt,
and we're gonna add some pepper.
We're gonna move on to our collard greens.
We're just gonna trim off the super-tough stems.
We're just gonna slice it into ribbons.
We're just gonna dump this right in there
with our onion, and we're gonna let it wilt.
Apple cider vinegar, give it a heavy pinch of
salt, and I'll give it a heavy pinch of pepper.
We're gonna finish it with lemon juice,
some red pepper flakes -- make it a little spicy --
and that's it: Our collards are done.
Let's take a look at our cornbread:
nice golden brown edges. That is ready to go.
Final stage, which is dessert.
We're going to make a banana chocolate pudding.
Four eggs. You've got those super-ripe
bananas over there -- just throw them
right in the blender when they're ready.
We have cocoa powder, a little bit of cinnamon,
some salt, coconut milk, some honey,
a dash of vanilla, and now we're gonna blend it up.
Blend that shake! (blender whirring)
Sick.
We're gonna pour it straight into our pot.
OK, so that's super-thick and creamy:
it looks ready to go.
Let's transfer it over to our bowl.
We are going to refrigerate this for like an hour,
but you could also refrigerate it overnight.
So now we're gonna take this pudding,
and we're gonna turn it into some parfaits.
Pudding is gonna be our first layer.
I'm gonna slice up some bananas to make our second layer.
We have some Mason jars. As long as we get a layer
of banana, layer of chocolate, layer of banana,
that's what we're going for.
OK, our parfaits look amazing.
We created this amazing barbecue meal,
that just happens to fit all of your eating restrictions.
- I almost don't even want to tell them
that we made this according to my restrictions,
and I might just be like, "I know I have a lot
of restrictions, but today, because I love you guys,
I don't care about that."
- And then you're gonna eat everything.
- And then you say, "Just kidding, it's all healthy"
and then they're going to start throwing up.
I'm gonna go get the chicken.
- Smells so hot.
What is all of this?
- Collard greens, barbecue chicken,
savory cornbread, and pudding.
- I came into this thinking it was gonna be complete trash.
- Can I eat all of this?
There's not enough for them.
- You?
- Me, me personally.
Because "I don't eat gluten."
- You can eat this.
- Any experience I've had with gluten-free bread,
I'm just not about it.
- It's like buttered cardboard -- like, I feel you.
- Yeah yeah yeah.
- I can even agree with that, I can agree with that,
but that looks good.
- Let's just start eating,
and then I'll tell you about all of it.
- What I love about spicy food is
that it brings you to a place almost like it's a drug.
Part of the process of barbecue
is that deliciousness on the front,
and then the existential dread at the back.
I know because it's healthy that I'm removing the dread,
and I'm probably not gonna like the taste of it as much.
You know what I mean?
- You have to be gorged at the end
of your barbecue to really complete the cycle.
- So you're saying barbecue is not legitimate
unless you question your life?
- Let's just cheers to the fact that we're all here,
and we're all gonna eat it whether
we're feeling great or we're
feeling terrible, because we feel great.
- Cheers.
- What's in this chicken?
It's so bomb.
- Is it a dry rub?
- Oh yeah.
Most barbecue sauce has sugar in it.
This is a honey base, no ketchup.
- Chicken was delicious without the ketchup.
- You're sweating, you're trippin'.
- I thought that cornbread was absolutely delicious.
- I don't quite like it quite there,
but I like to kinda dance with the edge of that.
- There's apple cider vinegar in it.
There's apple cider vinegar in every
single one of these dishes,
and it's amazing because there's so many health benefits.
- Hell of a meal.
- Chicken got me pretty close to the edge.
Collard greens for me were like super-heavy, right?
Like pork, butter, and with this,
there's like pickled onions, which I really like,
and then there's something -- is it lemon?
- It's lemon.
- Mmm, OK.
- Let's have these banana puddings.
- Sweet and savory, that's a good combo.
- Cheers!
- How did everyone know we were gonna cheers.
- What are we cheer-sing to?
What are we cheer-sing to?
- Johnny?
- I was the biggest naysayer of this whole thing.
I love my gluten but I gotta say after tonight's experience,
and the explanation, I'm happy to say that I believe.
- The real question is: Are you
experiencing existential dread?
- I'm experiencing existential well-fed.
- Whoa, all right, we got a poet at the table.
Yeah, that is pretty bangin'.
Somebody said "interesting."
That's never good, interesting is never good.
And look, I don't wanna say that I didn't
think Brigette would do a good job,
but like I certainly didn't think it would be this good.
- Today was a little bit of a humbling moment.
- Well that was a smashing success,
Brigette proved to all of her friends
that she knows a thing or two about barbecue
and knows a thing or two about cooking healthy food.
I have a feeling she's going to be doing
a lot more cooking in the future.
So, cheers to Brigette,
and on to the next one.
Hope you enjoyed that episode. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share.
And be sure to check out the recipes on Thrillist.com.