Saturday, August 10, 2013

Battle Chickpea

After a long break, on July 27th, Iron Chef returned with Battle Chickpea!  Pinch-hosted by Steve with guest judges Sam and Guille, who are leaving us forever.  The ingredient was chosen in honor of Jeff leaving for Palestine, but turns out he's a liar and will not be leaving just yet (glad he's home and safe, though).  I knew we should have done Battle Guinea Pig!

Great turnout this round with old and new faces and (an always) surprising balance of dishes

Buffalo Chickpea Balls
For starters, veterans Elizabeth and Max's, umm, I wanna say... Bull Penguin Zipper Balls

Rachel and Jeff's Lemony Couscous with Chickpeas

Lucero's delicious Garbanzo with Dry Fruit & Sweet Pepper Sauce

Actual newcomers Emily and Dan made a strong showing with their Cabbage Chickpea Curry

Bryan's Chicken Chickpea Creole warmed our insides

Rounding out the night's meal was John and Caitlin's decadent  (the flash drowned out the name so I'm going to say) Chocolate Chip Garbanzo Bonanza


It was a hard fight and a hard choice for our judges.  In the end, there can be only one, and Jeff and Rachel (I guess that's two) are this month's champions!

Look how excited Rachel is!


And then BLURRY DANCE PARTY!









Sunday, February 3, 2013

Battle (Superbowl) Chips

A great showing at Iron Chef XX*, hosted by Sam and Guille (with guest judge Jeanne), with Superbowl Sunday struggling to compete with the attention paid to the deliciousness laid out.



There were too many amazing dishes to go into detail about all of them but the Honorable Mentions were:

Best Use of Chip:

Steve's Shrimp Chips, took a week to make and were excellently produced.

Best Presentation: 

Both Jason's Field of Chipped Dreams (blue corn chips for the Ravens and golden chips for the 49ers) and


Brian's Mexican Chip Casserole nailed the spirit of the event.

Most Creative: 
Both John and Caitlin's Frito Pie Consomme (which tasted disturbingly like Frito Pie) and 

Carmin and Will's That's Nacho Dessert! were totally innovative uses of the secret ingredient and totally impressed the judges.

But the overall win went to the newcomer's Rodrigo and Sarah (and Matteo) for their exceptionally balanced Camarones a la Diabla! Congratulations to the New Tucson Iron Chef (of the month ...).


---
* I actually I have no idea how many Iron Chef Battles we have had, but XX is a nice round Roman numeral.