Food Challenge - APPLES!

After a beautiful morning of apple picking with an internet-turned-real-life friend recently, the girls started planning for their next food challenge. Marina was working on baking cookies for some friends on challenge day so she bowed out of this one. Here's what the others came up with:

(Note to self: Remember to get the camera out BEFORE the challenge foods are consumed! Sorry folks, I was so distracted by the beauty and yummy-ness of these treats that I plum forgot to pull out the camera before all of Olivia's creations were gone!)

Juliette's entry (shown above): Spiced Apple Spirals with Cinnamon Cream - Apples peeled and spiral cut then sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon sugar and baked. Served with a whipped cream/cinnamon sauce.

Olivia's and Eliza's entry (consumed before photo shoot!): Apple Pockets - Sliced apples tossed with brown and white sugars and cinnamon, then wrapped in dough to make individual servings. (Sort of like an apple turnover.)

As of this posting, I don't have permission from all of the participants to share with you which entry won. I'll just say both were tasty and we all enjoyed the judging.

Until the next challenge............(which they're already plotting)

Food Challenge - PEACHES!

This summer, during the long hot afternoons when it was too hot to be outside or at the pool with the baby, the girls came up with the idea of doing "food challenges" - as they like to call them. It started after a morning of peach picking and we had 2 full trays of ripe, juicy peaches on our kitchen counter.

The challenge rules~

• The "challenge ingredient" must be incorporated into the recipe - in this first case it was peaches.
• You may not follow a recipe exactly as written but must tweak it to make it uniquely your own
• Dishes are judged for taste, presentation, and creativity.

Mom's Rules~

• They could use any appliance in the kitchen as long as they cleaned it and put it away.

• The kitchen had to look like no challenge had taken place there when they were done.
  

They divided into 3 "teams" - Marina on one, Juliette on another, and Olivia with Eliza apparently serving as her sous-chef. August and I would serve as judges. And yes, we really did judge them.

Here's what they came up with for the first challenge.

Left: Juliette's Peach Crumble
Center: Marina's Peach Tart with Shortbread Crust
Right: Olivia's Lattice Top Peach Cobbler

With this first Challenge, our system of judging was pretty rudimentary. It pretty much came down to "Which one do you like best?" With subsequent challenges, which I'll post about another time, we (really it was August) came up with a more detailed points system.

I have to admit I was quite impressed watching them in the kitchen - not only as they planned and prepared the food but as they navigated the space with all four of them in there at once. We've had 2 more challenges since this one and we're going apple picking this week so I smell another one coming.

I won't say who won this first challenge - mostly because I can't remember anymore - but I will tell you they were all delicious.

All I can say is "Move over, Iron Chef!"