#95 1/2: The Food Network Challenge (or How I finally got to be a judge on a cooking contest)

My dudes can COOK!

The last challenge of our FIRST ANNUAL BADASS CHALLENGE was suggested by no less than 6 of you judges -- get those kids into the kitchen and see if they can take the heat.

Here's how it went:

Chopped Challenge:

They each were given three mystery ingredients and free range of the kitchen, utensils, etc.

The mystery ingredients were submitted by our esteemed panel of judges. I then placed their recommendations into a random number generator which drew out these three picks:

Spam

Corn

Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips

They were given 30 minutes to see what they could do.

It was both of their first time tasting Spam, let alone cooking it. As Oliver said when opening the can, "Well, it looks like dog food. I guess I better know what I am dealing with. [takes bite]. Sh*t. It tastes like dogfood too".

Maybe so, but these two created absolutely delicious dishes. And I'm not just saying that because I'm their mama.

Chef Oliver's Dish:

My appetizer is a Mexican Style Spam Fry, which has been marinated in Chile and lime juice, then coated in a crushed salt and vinegar chip dust and then fried to golden brown. The side sauce is a Elote sauce with pickled red onions, corn and many spices. On the side, i have made a fresh black bean and roasted corn salsa, and everything is topped with lime juice and cilantro.

Chef Emily's Dish:

Today's apetizer is an Asian Street Wonton Taco. The spam was marinated in a blend of GF soy sauce, hoison sauce, rice vinegar, and ginger, before being seared over heat. A blend of corn and onions were incorporated into each taco. The GF tortilla was crusted and breaded with egg and crushed salt&vinegar chips, before being air fried to perfection and drizzled with lime and hoisin sauce

I could have eaten both of these dishes ALL DAY LONG.

But sadly, I had to turn my attention to the judging. I was responsible for judging for best use of ingredients and best flavor profile and our esteemed panel of judges voted for which was plated the best.

The appetizer that has been chopped is....

Sorry Chef Emily. Your dish was fantastic, flavorful, and used all the ingredients well. But Chef Oliver's Spam Fries were melt-in-your-mouth delicious and he made three components to his appetizer. And he won the judge's vote for plating.

GUYS GROCERY GAMES

For this challenge, each kid was given $20 and the pick of 5 ingredients from my kitchen. They used the $20 to buy whatever specialty ingredients they needed at Aldi. Oliver swaggered in saying, "I only need three ingredients. This will be easy".

Don't know how he did it, but with those three ingredients and with the five he picked from the kitchen, he made Marinated seared steak with Bacon-Cheddar Mashed Potatos, Roasted Asparagus, and Creamy Mushrooms.

O. M. G. Delicious!!

But Emily took the prize with her homemade (and gluten-free) version of Crab Rangoon -- an old family favorite but one I haven't been able to have since I had to go gluten free. She made homemade dough for the ragoons, which had the insides that tasted just like what I remembered they did. She accompanied the ragoons with Coconut Infused Basmati Rice with Roasted Pineapple drizzled with balsamic glaze and goat cheese.

So freaking good!!!

I promised them I would never cook for them again.

They happily accepted.

So what does that mean for the Badass Challenge and the winners/prizes?

Even with Emily's Guy's Grocery Game Challenge, she was no match for Oliver this time around who squeaked by with a few extra points to spare.

So what prize did Emily lose out on? This is what she wanted as her prize: for Oliver and for me to write her one postcard a week for an entire year. (She's got a collection, yo.). Even though Oliver looked quite relieved at not having to do that, I told Emily that for her birthday, I will send her a postcard a week for an entire year. Get ready for lots of mail, Weenie!!!!

And what did Oliver win?

His chosen prize was to use the prize money of $200 to take the love of his life Julie out on a fancy date night when they come down to visit me again in a few weeks.

But before he settled on the Date Night Extravaganza, he was seriously considering a different prize. This prize would require Emily, who is a very strong anti-Trump person, to have to write a 100 page paper about why Trump should run for re-election (12 point font, no double space, at least 15 references).

Oliver pretended for a minute that was the prize. Emily had the hugest look of horror on her face, turned to me, and said, "Not a chance. I'm defaulting to rubbing your feet instead".

Dagnammit. Julie, you better enjoy that date night. It better be worth me missing a two hour foot massage! (JK. To make up for it, just convince Oliver he needs to give me a foot massage when you come visit. Ok? Then we'll be even-steven.).

Emmy and Ollie, I love you both so much. Thanks for being so much fun and playing along on all these schenanigans. I am the luckiest mom in the entire world. DON'T EVER FORGET HOW FREAKING AWESOME YOU ARE!!!!!!