Last night, I went to the the Dunbarton Culinary Chef Challenge. It was a fantastic event. Run by our local high school, the idea was to see if local chefs could compete using local ingredients, getting everyone to be more aware of local farmers/food producers and the people who put it on the table (the restaurants).

Wonderful idea! It was a big, big success. They held the event in the high school gym, which was packed. The chefs served (and plated for the judges). There were 11 chefs competing and they were all winners.

I tried almost everything and now must do an extra couple million miles on my stationary bike to pay for this.

Chef Tristan D’Souza – The Winner!

The winner was Chef Tristan D’Souza from the Toronto Hunt Club – his Roasted Chestnut Soup with Cipolini Onions, Candied Ginger, Celery Hearts & Amaranth topped with a Foie Gras Foam was to die for, just unbelievable. I want this recipe!

He also served Roasted Orangeville Wild Boar Stuffed with Smoked Bacon & Black Infernato Olives, Purée of Cauliflower & Parsnip and Mustard Greens & Pickled Beets finished with a duo of Black Garlic, Raisin & Prince Edward County Merlot Jus (Orangeville is a local town). This was wonderful, too.

And for dessert, he made Coconut Brioche Bread Pudding, Holland Marsh Carrot & White Chocolate Mousse Topped with Algoma Orchard Russet Apple Compote, Carrot Coulis & Maple Tuille (I did not have this or any of the desserts, but I wish I had!)

Second and third were Chef Bruno Elsier, the Executive Chef of Higher Education at  Aramark Canada and Chef John Harcourt of the Port Restaurant in Pickering. Unfortunately, I am not positive who came second and who came third.

I didn’t try Chef Bruno Elsier’s Cream of Cremini Mushroom, Filled French Crepe with Ricotta Cheese, Fresh Basil, Baby Arugula and Spinach, but it looked very nice and others around me raved about it. I loved his Stuffed and Oven Roasted Savoy Cabbage with Emu and Chicken Filet, Braised Belgian Endive, Shi-Take, Oyster and White Button Mushrooms and Duchesse Potatoes, although I did find the endive to be a bit watery, but this was probably due to the venue and the way they had to keep things hot.

For dessert, Chef Elsier served Suisse Meringue Mushrooms on Lavender Infused Crème Anglaise with Fresh Berries and Belgian Dark Chocolate – as I had vowed to stay away from the desserts, I didn’t try this, but did it ever look incredible!

Chef Harcourt (of Port Restaurant) served Durham Butternut Squash Puree Finished Leg of Rabbit, Pear Salsa and Scallion Herb Foam and Duck Two Ways, Pan Seared Duck Breast Top with Sour Cherry Preserve, Confit of Duck Leg and Stewed with Duck Stock Reduction served over Mushroom Savory Pudding  and Poached Salsify Puree. This was absolutely wonderful, a real winner.

For dessert, Chef Harcourt made Archibald’s Estate Winery Black Cherry Fruit Wine Poach Pear with Vanilla and Infused Mascarpone Cheese, Pistachio and Almond, Crème Anglaise finished with Crisp Sugar.

I tried many other dishes that were also winners in their own right, Chef Andrew Selvador from Kobo Sushi did a wonderful stuffed quail, but there was no information at their table as to the exact ingredients so I will just leave you with this picture.

Kobo Sushi is a Japanese gourmet restaurant just down the street from us; I go there whenever we decide to order takeout.

There were many other dishes, and most of the ones I sampled were very good. I did have a French onion soup that tasted like it came out of a can, so I didn’t finish that one, but I had two bowls of the Roasted Chestnut Soup from Chef Tristan D’Souza.

Some of the dishes were bland, but you have to remember that these chefs were all working away in a high school gym, preparing their dishes on single burners rather then in their usual, professional kitchens. I thought they were all amazing.

Belle says I have to learn to cook off a burner if I want to compete (I have, though – whenever we have Shabu Shabu) but most of their work was done before and brought in warming boxes first. Still, it was quite a feat. The place was packed and they kept on serving and also plated for the judges.

They are going to do this again in the spring, I will be first in line – if I am not competing!

Belle’s note: Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go to the Culinary Chef Challenge; I wasn’t feeling well, so I stayed home with Dylan and his friend Matthew (we were originally going to take them both with us – I’m not sure what Dylan would have said, with no macaroni and cheese in sight!) It worked out well, though, because at least one of us got to sample a lot of the delicious dishes; I doubt very much if we would have had the chance to do so if we had brought the boys with us as we had originally intended. Can’t you see Ward having fun participating in a culinary challenge? I can!

But we decided to continue with our taste test anyway – there are a lot of interesting looking recipes in this book, including ones from restaurants we’ve only heard of but have never dined at before.

The Taste Test involves making a recipe from the book, as well as eating that same recipe from the actual restaurant itself. We’re in Canada, so unfortunately our choices were somewhat limited. Ward made three recipes from the book, two of which we were able to compare to the “real thing”, and one for which we had to rely on our memories of sampling.

Our choices?

KFC’s original fried chicken, as well as the biscuits to go with them, and The Outback’s Walkabout Soup.

There’s a KFC nearby, but unfortunately The Outback Restaurant near us closed down a while back so we had to rely on our memories of the soup (or rather, Ward had to rely on his memories of the soup – it’s one of his favorite things on The Outback menu).

The Ingredients

As always, Ward prepped all the ingredients first:

Yes, that is a very big container of Crisco you see in the top picture: the KFC recipe requires deep frying in either lard or Crisco. We opted for the slightly healthier choice.

And the bag of white stuff next to it? That’s MSG (monosodium glutamate). The recipe also calls for “Accent”, which Ward couldn’t find at our grocery store, so he Googled it and it turns out Accent is MSG!

The Results

First up, the chicken and biscuits. We both thought the biscuits were very similar to KFC’s biscuits. KFC doesn’t have the best biscuits in the world; they’re good but not great, as were the ones we made.

The fried chicken was delicious, but we thought it didn’t have quite the same flavour as KFC’s original fried chicken. Our pieces were juicy and tender, too, which impressed us, as we both find KFC’s breast pieces to be on the dry side. We actually liked the chicken Ward made better than KFC’s, even though the taste wasn’t exactly the same.

America’s Most Wanted Recipes’ version of The Outback’s Walkabout Soup, on the other hand, was both a big hit with everyone and a twin to the one served at the restaurant, in Ward’s opinion. Since this is what he always used to order when we’d go out to The Outback, I’ll take his word for it.

I don’t normally care for cream-based soups, but I found this soup to be lighter tasting than most cream soups, and the flavour was wonderful. Ward’s even happier, since we no longer have a branch of The Outback close enough for him to get his fill of the Walkabout Soup; now he can make it whenever he feels like it!

So our experience with America’s Most Wanted Recipes has been good so far. Another thing we really like is the opportunity to prepare and sample some signature dishes from restaurants we’ve heard about but don’t have here in our part of Canada!

Here are the full details, from Martha and Me:

Martha Mondays is a group of bloggers, Martha fans, home cooks, crafters, and people who want to cook or craft more who have joined together to cook or craft the same Martha dish or project. To get things started, I’ll choose a Martha recipe or craft (which must be from a current issue of Living or Everyday Food, The Martha Stewart Show or available on her site) and post a link (or page number in the mag if it’s not up on her site yet — if you don’t have the recipe or instructions for that week, just email me and I’ll send them to you – posting them on the web is a violation of Martha’s copyright). Everyone will then make the the dish or craft on the next Monday and post photos, comments or blog it within the following week. The idea is we will all be doing one project together on the same day, so there will be a kind of solidarity in this – plus we’ll get to see how everyone’s dish or craft turned out.

This week’s assignment is Grilled Vanilla Peaches – I can taste them already!

Ward and I didn’t get very many of the things on our list done. We both have our excuses, of course. We gave Ward the new iPhone as an early Father’s Day gift on Friday, and since then he has been really, really busy in gadget heaven. We also got new furniture delivered this morning, so he spent most of yesterday cleaning out various rooms in the house to make space for the new stuff (he didn’t even have time to cook! We had take-out, Thai and Japanese.)

As for me? Same old story. Deadlines. My book blog. And my writing. But now I have a very good idea where we’ll be taking Muse in the Kitchen, and the motivation to simply start on our to-do list was one of the best things ever – we’ll be working through our list (and adding more as we go) for the rest of this week (at the very least!).

So here’s the original list, with what we’ve accomplished crossed off:

• brainstorm a new feature that will make full use of our very large cookbook library Our new feature will be called The Cookbook Shelf
• brainstorm a new feature that will highlight all new cookbook additions to our library Not very original, but it does the job: New Cookbook Arrival
• search out fun food-related blog memes and events. I crossed off half, because I found some, but I’d like to find more.
• update out-of-date plugins
• upload and activate new plugins
• add newsletter subscribe code to sidebar
• create new food blogs links page
• create new tags archive page
• tidy up Twitter account and start Twittering more at @museinkitchen
• organize and catalog pictures on hard drive so I can easily find the right picture to match different recipes
• brainstorm new features that will help me to blog here more regularly New feature: Muse Archives. I’ll be blogging posts from our archives, which we didn’t move when we moved to this new account on our server.
• various template tweaks Cleaned up the sidebar and added gravatars and threaded comments to the comments section.
• add more food blogs to feed reader

We only completed one mini-challenge, too, unfortunately: The Book Lady’s Blog: Clean up your feedreader.

But it was fun, and hopefully the next time we’ll be able to clear off time on our calendar to really roll up our sleeves and party with everyone!

DONE:The Clean up your feedreader challenge at The Book Lady’s Blog. I have a separate Google Reader account for Muse in the Kitchen, and it’s a real mess. I’m going to go with alpha folders and see if that helps things a little. I’ve organized my feed reader! (1) Unsubbed from inactive feeds and (2) sorted all feeds into Alpha sort order.

The Write a post and save it for a rainy day challenge at Beth Fish Reads. This has to be an opinion or a list post, and just reading about the challenge, I came up with an idea – one that will come in handy for our upcoming trip, too!

The Go forth and comment challenge at Fizzy Thoughts. However, I want to stay within the niche of this blog, so I’ll be commenting at ten new food blogs that I find (the list of participants for Bloggiesta is made up mostly of book bloggers).

The Google Alert challenge Emily’s Reading Room. I haven’t done this one yet, and it’s about time, I think!

The Anchor Text challenge at GalleySmith.

The Blogging Tips and Tutorials challenge at Book Blather. This one will be fun, I think – the list of blogging tips and tutorials at Problogger looks very interesting, and I’m sure I’ll find at least one tip to implement here.

So that’s my list. I’m hoping I’ll be able to have the time to meet most of these challenges!

I say “we”, but the truth is that Ward has continued to cook up a storm, find tons of recipes and has been preparing a LOT for our upcoming trip to Nova Scotia and all the wonderful seafood we plan to eat while there. It’s me who needs jumpstarting! I would love to be in a routine of regular posting here before we leave, because we’ll have Internet access during the entire two weeks of our holidays at the beach house we’ve rented.

The point of the Bloggiesta?

The Bloggiesta will focus on blog content, improving/cleaning up your blog or working on your social network profiles.

So without further ado, here’s what’s I plan to work on over the next 48 hours of the Bloggiesta:

• brainstorm a new feature that will make full use of our very large cookbook library
• brainstorm a new feature that will highlight all new cookbook additions to our library
• search out fun food-related blog memes
• update out-of-date plugins
• upload and activate new plugins
• add newsletter subscribe code to sidebar
• create new food blogs links page
• create new tags archive page
• tidy up Twitter account and start Twittering more at @museinkitchen
• organize and catalog pictures on hard drive so I can easily find the right picture to match different recipes
• brainstorm new features that will help me to blog here more regularly
• various template tweaks
• Update: add more food blogs to feed reader

I may also do some of the mini-challenges, as well. Since I am celebrating the Bloggiesta at my writing and book blog, too, I may not have time to do as much as I’d like (not to mention I have two deadlines I’d like to finish up by Monday so I’ll have time to prep for our Maritimes holiday – just getting my excuses ready and up front here).

So off we go!