Who knew the bell pepper could be so versatile?

I participated in my first 'Iron Chef' competition today. Organized by the EAT club, teams of four, two hours to cook, four dishes to prepare (drink, appetizer, main, dessert), six judges total (one of which was one of my professors!)

My team and I tried to guess the secret ingredient and categorized into one of four possible categories: (1) Fruit, (2) Nut (unlikely due to allergies), (3) Vegetable (probably carrot or tomato most versatile with dessert), (4) Root vegetable (sweet potato?)

Who knew it would be Sweet Bell Peppers? (small and large ... red, orange, and yellow). The whole event was incredibly fun ... from grocery shopping, walking down the aisles picking fun ingredients that we thought we *may* use (e.g. candied ginger) to tasting all the wonderful foods the following teams cooked after us. We didn't win (got beat out by the Exec Ed students!) but had fabulous time. Next year I want to be a judge. :)

Our menu below (no pictures, since we were in a mad dash to finish cooking)

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Four takes on Pepper

Puree
Bloody Red-Pepper Refresher

Deep-fry
Boursin, goat cheese, and bacon stuffed mini pepper
Paired with a gorgonzola sauce

Roast
Cous cous stuffed orange pepper bowl topped with a poached quail egg
Paired with slices of cumin-spiced ribeye with a spicy tomato, basil, red-pepper compote

Bake
Phyllo cups filled with sweet cream and yellow-pepper jelly
Topped with raspberries and dusted with powdered sugar

Chefs: The one-and-only Shake&Bake Team :)

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