Iron Chef Cookoff

We've been plotting this activity for months now, but there were too many holidays and business trips in December and January, but we finally got pulled together our first Iron Chef battle. We got together with 3 other couples, the Dows, the Nearys, and the Wildes, and had ourselves a culinary competition. There were some special stipulations on our event. First, you could use whatever you already had in your house, but buying new ingredients was limited to $20. (Two were able to do it, two went over by a little bit.) Second, no use of the internet. Cookbooks you already owned were legal, but no searching for something online last minute.Third, you must produce both an entree and a dessert containing the secret ingredient. So the day before, we sent out a list of about 10 possible ingredients for people to consider. Then at 3:30, we picked an ingredient at random and texted it to everyone in the group. Food had to be to our place by 6 pm. The missionaries were invited to dinner to be the final judges. The secret ingredient: Ginger.

The spread. Everything was good. Some were just more good than others.

The array of food that arrived at our house was incredible. From the Nearys we had sushi and a cranberry pear upside down cake. From the Wildes, mashed butternut squash/potatoes surprise, and a dessert they invented and called "ginger lovin from the oven." The Dows produced sea bass with five chili ginger sauce and apricot ginger scones. Lastly, we presented kabobs with a citrus ginger marinade and a pear raspberry ginger crisp. Hands down, the Dows whooped us all with the sea bass. It was phenomenal. As far as desserts go, the winner was actually given to the Wildes. It was really good, though I thought our crisp was pretty delicious myself. Everyone had a great time and I would love to do it again with some of the other ingredients on our long list of possibilities.