This past Saturday, my church had its first annual Chili Bowl Cook Off! How smart is this? Make a huge batch of chili on Saturday, and then you’ve already got your main course for Super Bowl Sunday done!
Fellow cookbookhalic Janet along with Paul and Sara put the whole thing together and it was amazingly fun! Very professional as well, I might add. We had a total of 15 entries and believe me, that’s a lot of sampling!
I don’t have a chili recipe that is from scratch. I open up a package of French’s Chili-O and I’m good with that. I can’t handle too much fire and spice. But the hubby found a recipe that he loves and he entered “Scott’s Awesome Chili” into the cook off.
Once we got to the fellowship hall, we put the crockpot onto a table. Each batch of chili was assigned a letter (hubby’s was “B”) with a stack of small plastic sample bowls with the letter written on the bottom. Everyone took turns and got a small batch of chili for every entry.
That tray was looking pretty full by the time we reached the last crockpot.
We had to pick our top three choices and write them down on a form. Each place was weighted with a different score.
I noticed that a stack of napkins near me was a bright green. I chose to make that green napkin my palette of champions. If I liked a chili, I immediately moved it over to the green mat. Others were put off to the other side.
Here are the top 6!
Let me tell you, sampling 15 tiny bowls of chili is pretty hard work! I had to take a break or two along the way. I was especially proud of my youngest, he was brave enough to give the taste testing a try.
After my final break, I had to narrow the choices down to the final 3. And here they are…
After all that sampling, there was no room for going back and getting a full bowl of my favorite. Just wasn’t happening. Too stuffed! But what fun!
The awards were handed out for first through third places. Hubby didn’t win, but the boys made a special award called “The Vince Lombeani Trophy” and Pastor Chris bestowed it upon the contest’s Honorable Mention. So here’s a picture of Joe with his trophy for his entry “Jesus’ Favorite Hunting Lodge Chili”!!
This was a really fun event and I can’t wait for next year’s Chili Cook Off! Hubby might make a few tweaks to the recipe and have at it again for 2012!