Cook off......

2010 Mid Winter Cook Off.......

The kids had their own fire going...

Rach & her upside down trifle cake...
The apron says it all.....

Koo, Anita & Dad....

Well our mid winter, full moon, lunar eclipse (added bonus!) cook off was a great success!. There was so much food it was shameful. We could have fed another 10 people at least. I didn't get to take many photos as it was pretty busy, getting everything organised, so much so, I forgot to even taste my dish before serving it!, so no surprises that I wasn't in the running!. My lamb & tomato masala wasn't the best and actually it's not really a dish that I would add to my repertoire either. But hey, I gave it a go!. The list of dishes on offer were........

Entrees-

French onion dip - Summer

Pumpkin Soup - Eliza

Wood Oven style Bread - Greeny

Mains-

Ox tail stew - Shane

Pig Platter - Adam - this consisted of the head & american style ribs ( a secret recipe!)

Lamb & tomato Masala - Brooke

Braised Honey Chicken - Koo

Beef Stroganoff & Sweet plain potato bake - Brodie

Desserts-

Lemon tart - Laine

Double nut chocolate torte - Brooke

Upside down trifle cake - Rachel

So we had a taste of each dish and slowly made our way through each taste, and got full pretty quickly...... and after we had to give a score between 1 & 5 to each dish and then we tallied it up and the unanimous winner of the 2010 Mid winter cook off was............KOO & her Honey Braised Chicken!!. It was absolutely delicious, a real standout & I will post the recipe here soon......try it, guaranteed the kids will love it too. And in second place was Rachels Upside down trifle cake. This dessert was a work of art and if you like sweet then this is a real treat!. And in third place was our very own up & coming master chef Eliza with her Pumpkin Soup. I am not a fan of Pumpkin Soup but this was absolutely delicious and had us all wanting more.......I will see if I can get her to share that recipe too. My chocolate torte was super rich..... a bit too much really & I was a bit dissapointed because it looked a treat, but it was actually better the next day, and the day after (!), as it mellowed and took on a whole new flavour, which Laine actually said would happen, it's kind of like spaghetti & lasagne - always better the next day!. Oh, and did I mention that Dad ate the pigs eye................