Master Chef Competition

Last week was customer service appreciation week at work. Our department provided us with a free breakfast on Monday, a house of cards building competition Tuesday, a cooking competition Wednesday, trivia day Thursday, and a carnival Friday afternoon (hence my awesome balloon penguin headband!).

Obviously, I was all over the cooking competition.

Every year for this, they pick a theme (last year was honey), they provide your team with a $25 gift card to go shop for ingredients, then on Wednesday, we had 30 minutes of prep time and 30 minutes to cook. This year's theme was food on a stick! One of my coworkers on my team found a banana fritters recipe and we went with it. Thank goodness one of my coworkers owns his own deep-fryer. :)

Banana Fritters on a Stick with Bacon Chocolate Dipping Sauce

(adapted from Food Network)

6 bananas, cut into halves

2 eggs

1/2 c milk

2 c Panko bread crumbs

Peanut oil for frying

Powdered sugar

Dipping sauce of your choice (we made our own chocolate bacon sauce)

Skewer the bananas with craft or popsicle sticks. Whisk the egg and then whisk in the milk. Dip each banana in the egg mixture then toss in the bread crumbs to coat. Repeat the process to create a second coating. Heat oil to 365 degrees and drop in the bananas, moving them around to brown evenly on all sides. Place on paper towels to drain.

Doesn't that look tasty?



The recipe called for a chocolate/peanut butter dipping sauce; however, we wanted to make it extra-gourmet. What's more gourmet than bacon?

I bought a chocolate bacon bar, and we crushed that up and mixed it with some semi-sweet morsels and milk before melting in the microwave (for future reference, I would have left out the semi-sweet morsels so you can taste the bacon better). We also made a peanut butter chocolate dipping sauce for the not-so-adventerous palates.

The final product was judged by 3 men from another department, based on originality, taste, and presentation.

So, did we win?

HECK YES WE DID!

I may have been a little too excited and jumped up and screamed and gotten funny looks, but I was really excited! One of the judges said it was the bacon chocolate that won him over. And I guess since the other two teams we competed against BOTH served Italian food and BOTH picked the same team name (we opted for Vicious and Delicious for ours), we stood out. 

Our prize is dinner on the company, and you should know by now that I'm ALWAYS pumped for free food!

Have you ever entered a cooking competition?