Iron Chef America Chairman

That’s me…at least for today. I’m acting as the Chairman for Heidi’s Blogstyle Iron Chef Competition at Sacred and Profane.

(OK. Maybe I did give myself “the Chairman” title, but whatev. Go big or go home, people.)

Each month Heidi posts three recipes in her sidebar for her readers to try. For the month of June, Heidi focused on BBQ/Picnic Salads. Although I do not make salads very often, I do eat them. In my humble opinion, this makes me an excellent judge.

The three recipes entered into this month's competition included: Spinach and Strawberry Salad, Ramen Noodle Salad, and Pepperoni Pasta Salad.

Let’s meet our contestants, shall we? (I hope you are all noticing how much I even sound like a judge.)

Here's Vivienne from The V Spot. For this month's cook-off, she submitted a recipe for Strawberry and Spinach Salad. In preparing for my judge-ly duties, I read through all of the competitor's sites. One of my favorite lines that I came across on Vivienne's blog was in her profile: "I am discovering the fun to be had in sharing the things that make me happy: family, art projects, cooking and a big healthy dose of smart-assery." Anyone who can use the word "smart-assery" in a sentence is just plain cool.


Shelby, from Schweri Stories, submitted Pepperoni Pasta Salad. Yum! Life is just better when it is accompanied by a side of meat, no? I like to think that Shelby appreciates this.


Finally, Stephanie, from Life is a Miracle, submitted a recipe for Ramen Noodle Salad. I didn't have to read much on Stephanie's site to know that she understands my people. She wrote that she made a big bowl of this salad for herself and ate it all week. Hello new friend!

The second part of my judgmental task was for me to make each of these recipes and decide which I like best. Not a problem, unless you forget your commitment to the lovely Heidi and end up having to perform this small miracle in your kitchen on the day that you are hosting a playdate to three toddler boys, in addition to the two kids you call your own.

To say that the scene at my house yesterday was chaotic would be more than a bit of an understatement. I naively built up my confidence in my parenting abilities, telling myself that it would be a good idea to have all of the kids help with the cooking. I'd be the host of my very own cooking class for kids and prepare for a blog post at the same time. It would be multi-tasking at its finest.

In my mind, I saw something like this:


In reality, my end result was something more along the lines of this:


Mental note to self: Three year old boys would much rather be playing in the sandbox in the backyard than inside cooking on a sunny day.

So what have we learned? Let's recap:

1. Boys with high levels of energy should be outdoors in order to wear off said energy.
2. I am not the Giada to a cooking class of children that I envisioned.
3. If I had to pick my favorite recipe, I would go with Vivienne's Strawberry and Spinach Salad. In addition to being super easy, the strawberries were a hit with my posse of kids both on and off the salad.

Oh, and I almost forgot the most important point of all. I could so totally rock the Chairman's job.


Especially if it would get me my own Wii game...


I'd just need to do something about my "man hands" before I got really famous.

-Francesca

Thank you to Heidi for letting me play along. This was fun!