Cookoff Smackdown Oh-Ten
Tags: Misc
Recently some of my close friends held a competitive cooking event at The Stuffed Olive (Thanks, Andrea!). The food was all excellent, the competition stayed friendly and the judging really came down to the wire. Read more for the teams, the menu, pictures and details on the big winners.
Recently some of my close friends held a competitive cooking event at The Stuffed Olive (Thanks, Andrea!). The food was all excellent, the competition stayed friendly and the judging really came down to the wire. For the impatient, you can jump to the full gallery of photos from the event.
Scoring Method
Everyone that attended got a ballot and got to vote for their favorite dish from each course - appetizer, soup/salad, entree , and dessert. Most of the ballots indicated a winner in each category, and some included notes and compliments (Ba-boom!). Each ballot also had room for each team to receive an overall score from 1-5. To calculate the scores the accounting firm of Paul Burke and Self awarded 1 point for each course win, and then doubled the overall score. So a "straight ticket" ballot with an overall score of 5 points would be worth 14 points to the winning team, and then 8, 6, 4, or 2 points to the other team depending on their overall score.
The Teams and Food
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Jennifer Rowe Walters Dana Nixon Moffer Tvlwv Moffer |
Tanner Johnson Spencer Stanley Rachel Turnham Green |
Appetizer |
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| Prosciutto wrapped crostini topped with diced melon, herbs & red onion tossed in champagne vinegar. We paired that with a pineapple Flirtini. | Coconut shrimp with a spicy asian sauce. |
Soup/Salad |
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| I completely whiffed it on this and managed not to get a single picture of the salad. Sorry about that. (If it makes you feel any better I only ended up with 3 pics of the soup.) If anybody has a pic of the salad I'll be happy to post it here. |
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| Mixed spring greens with diced salami & pepperoni, tossed in a sweet balsamic-herb vinaigrette. | Tomato basil and red pepper soup with a bruschetta. |
Entree |
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| Chicken tenderloins sauteed in garlic & onions and then simmered in a white wine reduction. Topped with fresh spinach & basil pesto and served with sauteed sweet red peppers over linguine tossed with the leftover white wine reduction. | Chicken Spedini wtih prosciutto and topped with a roasted red pepper marinara sauce. Served with a mushroom risotto and fresh asparagus. |
Dessert |
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| Warm lemon & blackberry custard baked over a homemade lemon shortbread. | A raspberry and lemon cream Napoleon. Very light, crunchy pastry in between the raspberry and lemon cream layers. |
And the winners are...
The Rowe Walters - Nixon Moffer - Moffer team. They just edged out the competetion with only 6 points. I think the final score was 139 to 133. (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on that.)
The whole thing was a lot of fun (and delicious), and big thanks go to Andrea Durow, owner of The Stuffed Olive, for hosting the event.
Visit the full photo gallery to see more. (Including a special guest appearance by Kevin Spacey?)