Iron Chef Extravaganza

So much has happened in the past 8 weeks. My head is sort of swimming with all the things I want to record and all the stories I want to tell.

Since I have to start somewhere I guess I’ll start way back in August with this awesome triple date that we planned.

We called it Iron Chef Extravaganza because whenever you add the word "extravaganza" it means that it is not to be taken seriously. So one couple got to be the judges/ babysitters/ hosts and they had the honor of choosing the secret ingredient. We all met at their house to discover the secret ingredient and drop off the kids. We immediately went to the store for our ingredients and then to our respective houses to cook within the 1 1/2 hour time limit and return to the hosts house ready to present the food. We were pretty confident going in that we would be able to put together a pretty respectable presentation. The real trick was that we couldn't use any recipes, internet searches or phone calls. Everything had to be right from our own heads and experience. It was really fun to work as a team with Paul to come up with an appetizer, main dish and desert. We came back surprised that the challenge was more difficult than we had expected it to be, but still pretty confident. We plated our food and were ready to go when we saw that our exceptional opponents had made homemade ice cream! What! We knew at that point that they had trashed us. We had nothing on them. The secret ingredient was Peanut Butter! We made peanut and coconut encrusted shrimp with a marmalade peanut sauce. Our main dish was a Thai chicken peanut sauce dish with cilantro and the desert was Hagan Daas Dolche de Leche ice cream with a homemade chocolate sauce with peanuts and toasted coconut. (Katherine's recipe from memory)

The Miner's made this amazing pork appatizer plate with a peanut sauce and raisins- so good!
The main dish was a spicy curry dish that I still have to get thier recipe for and the desert was homemade peanut butter ice cream with a peanut butter cereal (like rice crispie) treat bar.
They toasted us top to bottom but it was SO fun and all the food was good and we all enjoyed eating after the judges creamed us. :) Thanks you guys! It was so fun.



After we ate the kids did an impromptu talent show for us. We had some real hams. It was so fun and led to some adult singing as well. Not too shabby!
I highly recommend this date idea! I can't wait for Iron Chef II. I'm getting some new ideas up my sleeve!