6/21/2007: Tood & Allison Have Completed "Iron Chef"

Allison's Post:

For my food I decided to make:

Appetizer: Corn Dip with Corn Chips
Entree 1: Corn and Avacado Salad
Entree 2: Corn and Turkey Casserole
Dessert: Corn Cake

I got three of these recipes from allrecipes.com and another from a coworker. If anyone wants one of the recipes, feel free to leave me a comment.

To see all of my pictures, go here.

Cooking Process:





Plated Food:

Here you can see the casserole, the salad, and the corn dip with corn chips.

More Plated Food:



And The Cake:


For my evaluaters I used my neighbor Carmen, her husband Jon, and their two friends Tommy and Griffin. And also myself. I don't have pictures of them or the evaluation process because at that point I was so hungry I wanted to knaw my fingers off. But here are their evals:

Tommy:
Corn Dip: Thumbs Up.
Casserole: Thumbs up, but next time add some chopped onions or italian seasoning.
Corn Salad: Next time leave out the avacados.
Corn Cake: Awesome.

Griffin:
Corn Dip: Good, but might be better cold.
Casserole: Love it.
Corn Salad: Next time use better or no avacados.
Corn Cake: Delicious.

Carmen:
Corn Dip: Good consistency. Next time add more jalapenos.
Casserole: Add sour cream next time.
Corn Salad: Needed more dressing.
Corn Cake: The best thing so far!

Jon:
Corn Dip: MMmmmm.
Casserole: This is good.
Corn Salad: Pretty Effin Good.
Corn Cake: Corntastic.

On a personal note, I would like to say that I put forth a lot of effort and a lot of money into this task. I had a great time and everything here except the corn chips, was made from scratch, and with love. I feel I deserve to win because everthing here was so good it was corny. Wait, that doesn't make sense. Let's just say it was Corneriffic!

Todd's Post:

This task was a blast! The reactions to my concoctions was the best part!
I started out the morning by cooking everything before work and then brought the food in and set it out around 11:00 for everyone to dig in. The overall consensus was much better than I thought it would be since it's pretty hard to come up with dishes that include corn that are actually palatable.

The biggest surprise to me was the corn cheesecake. I took a box of quick cheesecake mix and added sweet creamed corn and it was actually not too bad.

So, here are the pics of my preparation and below is the video of the "Corn panel discussion". FIESTA!

The ingredients


Cornbread casserole in the making


Mexican Hamburger Corn "Surprise"


Corn Cheesecake


The spread before the vultures gathered


An actual plate of the goodies


After the vultures... They picked it clean!


And last but not least, here is the video of what we dubbed the "Corn Panel Discussion"
Here it is!

6/20/2007: Allison and Todd Accept "Iron Chef"

At least, I think Todd accepts. I know Allison does. Allison feels happy to cook but is not so sure how much like "Iron Chef" it will be. She has never seen the show and is too lazy to watch one. : )

5/30/2007: Stephen Has Completed "Penny For Your Food"

Ok, this was a pretty crazy task. I put what I thought was $5.50 of pennies in a ziploc bag.


Then I went to New China restaurant in Morganton. Tyson met me there to help out. I ordered the Chicken Chow Mein. It came to $5.30


The cashier girl was as nice as she could be about it. Tyson and I started stacking pennies on the counter, while customers came and went. Somehow I badly miscounted when putting the pennies in my bag, as I was 14 cents short, so I pulled the classic run out to the car and grab more pennies. The pennies can be seen on the right side of the counter in this pic.


I don't know what she did with the pennies afterwards, cause she did not start picking them up before we left. Here's a better closeup shot of most of them.


Here's a shot of Tyson and I afterwards, as I held the empty ziploc bag and my take out order.


I also had a first. My fortune cookie was empty. What does that mean? :(


But that's not all. I have, for you, the uncut audio from the entire transaction. It is around 15 minutes long, so load it up and listen along while you are surfing the net.
Pennies For Your Food (6.7 MB)

5/29/2007: Stephen Accepts "Penny For Your Food"

Wow, that's a mean task! I will give it a shot though. Forgive me for not being more timely or eloquent, as I just spent the last 7 hours dancing with photoshop.