Part II: Iron Chef, the kid's edition

Last week, I attended the second half of the Boulder Valley School District's Iron Chef competition for kids. This time around, the competitors were middle schoolers, grade 6-8. Definitely more skills here - very serious kitchen skills!

The rules are:

• cook up a lunch meal that comes in under $1.20 per student
• must include a serving of milk, fruit, veggies, whole grain, and protein
• all the ingredients have to be available to the district's food service
• do it in 90 minutes

Judging categories include adherence to the rules, as well as appearance, flavor, and proper sanitation. The judging was done by the district chefs, two elementary school students, two middle school students, and 3 community judges including Bradford Heap who owns two restaurants in the area and is a self-described Ann Cooper fan.

Ann Cooper is a huge champion of getting real food into school lunches and we in Boulder are lucky to have her running the district's food service operations. She is a supporter of the Food Revolution and is working hard to change what school children are fed through numerous organizations such as the The Lunch Box and Food Family Farming Foundation, Salad Bars to Schools, and Lunch Lessons. She is one busy lady!

Four teams competed, representing three schools:

The Crazy Cajuns from Centennial Middle School prepared Mexican Street Tacos filled with chicken and some fresh pico de gallo. This was served with Mexican rice and sensational lime-zest flavored black beans.

The Flaming Lemons, also of Centennial Middle School, served a Pesto Turkey Panini filled with sautéed red peppers and mozzarella cheese and a colorful fruit salad on the side.

The Monarch Mustangs showed some fancy plating skills with their Rubik's cube of watermelon and pineapple served with a Philly-style cheesesteak hoagie and "Quickles," their version of quickie pickles. They gave me the recipe for the Quickles, which they said I could share with you. Quite tasty!

Finally, Aspen Creek's Blue Striped Pineapples made a chicken gyro open-faced sandwich served with a Tzatski sauce and Greek salad. Fresh and tasty and showing off some very nice knife skills.

And the winner, for the second year in a row, was the Crazy Cajuns.

The Crazy Cajuns accepting their certificates and a check for Centennial's PTA from Ann Cooper

Each and every participant did a great job. Their food looked and tasted great. Congratulations, awesome young chefs!

"Quickles"
(from the Monarch Mustangs of Louisville, Colorado)

These are great with sandwiches, particularly cheesesteak!

½ cup rice wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 pinch kosher salt
1 pinch black pepper
2 large cucumbers, peeled and cut into ⅛" slices

In a bowl, whisk together the vinegar, honey, soy sauce, salt, and pepper until combined. Add the sliced cucumbers and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Overnight is even better, they say.  I tried them after about 1 hour and they were delicious.

Part I: Iron Chef, the kid's edition

The winning entry from Fireside Elementary: Sweet and Sour Chicken 

Last week, my local school district held their Elementary School Iron Chef competition. I attended as the Boulder, Colorado Ambassador for the Food Revolution. The Food Revolution promotes food education (the primary mission of School of Eating Good) but also works in the community to improve school lunch. This competition hits both: the competitors learn a lot about cooking and real food AND the winning team's lunch dish gets put on the district's menu for the next academic year. How cool is that?

The competitors are all students in kindergarten through 5th grade. And they have a tall task: to come up with a lunch meal that meets the USDA nutrition guidelines for school lunches, that comes in under $1.20 a serving (more on this in a second), and it needs to taste great! The students also get points for proper sanitation and presentation. It may seem like $1.20 is a generous sum of money for a kid's lunch. But, 25¢ goes for a serving of milk and another 25¢ goes for a serving of fruit, leaving only 70¢ for the rest - a vegetable serving, a serving of a whole grain, and a protein serving. Now, that is not easy, my friends!

They are further restricted because they have to use only ingredients available to the district for food service. They don't all have to use the same "secret ingredient" like in the TV show but the time limitation is the same. The teams have an hour to do all their prep, cooking, and plating of 1 lunch plate. They did an awesome job, each and every team.

They are judged by the district managers in food service who are the chefs who run the food service for the Boulder Valley schools every school day (Deb Trevor, Sarah Acker, Eric Ditzler, Brandy Dreibelbis, and Sal Manzo), sponsors of the Iron Chef Competition, and a team of 3rd-5th graders. The student judges were totally into this. They took notes, they tried all the food, and they were so intense.

Though I didn't get to taste the food, I can tell you that it smelled incredible.

The winning entry from Fireside was Sweet and Sour Chicken with a side of roasted green peppers. Some fancy plating for their brown rice - they used a small funnel to shape it into a cone.

The other entries were (clockwise from the top left):

• Sacred Heart's Ground Beef Goulash, showing some nifty plating skills
• Fireside's Black Bean Soup. Secret ingredient: salsa!
• Horizons K8's Chicken Gyros, flavored with lemon juice, garlic and oregano
• Creekside's Lentil-Vegetable Sliders with Lime Coleslaw

That's some pretty nice looking school food. Congratulations to all the students who competed. Impressive young chefs, all of them!