Yesterday we had Iron Chef at my fellowship. It was really fun! The main ingredient was pineapples, which is sort of odd since you can't really make much with pineapples other than fruit cups or things related with bacon/ham. But anyway, we were pretty creative. Our team split into 3 groups, one doing appetizers, one for main course, and one for dessert.

I was in the appetizer group. We made a pineapple smoothie, which wasn't smooth at all. When I looked over the recipe, there weren't any ingredients mentioned that would make this drink smooth. Pineapples, pineapple juice, ice. What about cream? Ah well.. The other thing we made was a hawaiin dip, it was a creamy dip with pineapples in it. We used this dip for the pineapple sushi we prepared. These did not taste good in my opinion, but the judges seemed to like it. We had sushi with rice on the outside and on the inside. The rice we used was still hot when we applied it, so the seaweed got all soggy. I've made sushi a couple of times and imo, last night's sushi was a total disaster =). I was fun making it though! We added a toothpick/skewer 'raft' above the dip bowl and a carrot carved in a shape of a man sat on top of this raft.

The main course group made pork wrapped pineapple bits, which were really good, plus they also made a salad, and a pineapple fried rice. I'll try to post up a picture when I get them. People in our small group have some crazy artistic talent. The food looked delicious! The food was arranged in such a way that it looked like an oasis. There were the trees in the back (salad), then a pineapple bowl of the fried rice, with the pork stuff in front of it. Then the rest of the plate had a blue goo simulating the water around the oasis. Again there was carrot man sitting on top of the rice.

The dessert group made a 'boat' out of pineapple shell, and filled it with balled melons and grapes. Since it was a boat, they made pineapple/melon shishkebobs that looked like oars for the boat. Then to top if off, they had blue jello surrounding the boat to simulate water! It was a really creative and beautiful arrangement! And of course the carrot man was on the boat.

For the presentation, one of the small group leaders presented the story of this carrot dude and how he came to an island on the raft, and then eventually was rescued by the giant fruit boat. We all wore colorful bandana's like they do on Survivor. I guess the judges liked how we had a theme and made the food depict the story, so we won!! Woohoo!! Check out a picture of the Noodleman Trophy (i'll post it when i get one).