Allez cuisine!

I have an obsession.

Iron Chef America.

Has anyone else ever watched this show? It's mesmerizing! Now that we have an actual cable package, I record episodes of it and watch them in the evening with Brett. It's just so interesting! Fast-paced, creative, competitive, and most of all, all about FOOD. What could possibly be better? It's really encouraged Brett and me to get a little more adventurous and creative in the kitchen.

Recently on Pinterest (yeah, I'm typing that word a lot tonight) I found a blog about date nights. This woman and her husband have a weekly date night, and she blogs about it. A lot of them cost little to nothing, and there are really some fun ideas on there. One of the ideas was to do a double date, and have an iron chef competition!

We couldn't resist.

So, we enlisted the help of our good friends, David and Karen Walker. We just love the Walkers, and look forward to our game nights complete with Fitz's root beer floats. This was a little different than our usual night together. We changed the game a little bit, and I'm not sure if I love the changes we made or not. But. Here's the general idea.

We knew we were having burritos for dinner, that was set and wasn't going to be messed with. We decided to make 2 dishes each, one appetizer/side and one dessert. Each couple had a different "secret ingredient" for each course, so there were 4 different ingredients. I think next time we'd do the same one, it made it a bit confusing for our judges.

Appetizer:
Walkers--black beans
Minsters--cilantro

Dessert:
Walkers--honey
Minsters--chocolate

And the game began! (After a quick shopping trip to pick up a few ingredients)

David and Karen came up with the coolest little concept ever. It tasted good, and it was beautiful.

The beauty you see before you is a homemade salsa, on top of sliced avocado, on top of a fried black bean patty, on top of a tortilla chip. It was FABULOUS. I could've eaten the whole plate myself, pretty easily.

Our appetizer was greatly improved by Brett's plating idea.

This would be a chilled avocado-cilantro soup served in red bell peppers, garnished with tomato and a sprig of cilantro. (Is it a sprig?) It was pretty good, but looked fantastic in the hollowed-out peppers. I do wish we'd cleaned up the plating a bit, though.

The desserts were pretty darn good, and I'm sad I forgot to take pictures until it was too late. The Walkers made little honey cookies, which were drizzled with honey over the top. They were so tasty! Plus, I'm a sucker for cookies.

Brett and I made dessert taquitos--a whipped chocolate cream cheese filling, wrapped in a tortilla sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, fried, and then drizzled with a spicy chocolate sauce. They were delicious! I would honestly make them again.

The Walkers won the appetizer, and we won the dessert. Overall, I think we technically beat David & Karen by, like, 0.2. Next time we'll specify to the judges that only whole points are allowed. :D Win or lose, it was a blast and I can't wait to do it again!