Iron Chef: Battle Pepper

Yesterday was the big Iron Chef party. The theme ingredient was peppers, and people really delivered. There was a lot of creativity and tastiness. In no particular order, here are the dishes, besides any ones I forgot about:

Muhammara, a Syrian red pepper-walnut spread
Roasted red pepper hummus
Roasted red pepper, roasted onion, and cream cheese dip
Tortilla soup with all the fixins (avocado, tortilla strips, queso blanco, and lime)
Poblano-serrano cornbread with honey butter
Inverted stuffed peppers (baked potato halves stuffed with peppers, onions, cheese, etc.)
Fried red bell pepper rings (like onion rings) with avocado ranch dip
Macaroni and goat cheese with roasted red peppers and fresh basil
Broiled bell pepper pieces with mozzarella cheese and crushed red pepper
Mushrooms stuffed with red peppers and other stuff
Green chile enchilada casserole
Tangelo-red pepper sherbet
Vanilla ice cream with avocado, lime, and jalapenos
Vanilla ice cream with chocolate-chile topping
Dark chocolate with chile mixed in (not brownies, but soft)

In the "not actually containing peppers category":
A nice Chianti with strong pepper flavor
Tequila and limes
Pineapple and rum
Pineapple soda and beer

The last two were based on someone's "hilarious" "joke" that the letters of "pineapple rum" can be used to spell "pepper" and the copycat joke that rum can be replaced by beer.

I intended to take nice pictures of the dishes, but with all the hubbub, I kind of forgot. I did get this one after we had eaten most of the food.



Iron chef parties are always really fun. People like being creative and eating weird food. And there are prizes. The three categories are best tasting, best presentation, and most creative. I forgot to get prizes until the day before, so they weren't as awesome as they normally are. I got Pickapeppa sauce for everyone. It's a tasty A1/hot sauce combo with "peppa" right in the name. The poblano-serrano cornbread with honey butter won best taste. I am going to try to get the recipe from the guy who brought it and post it soon. My sherbet won best presentation. I filled half a tangelo peel with sherbet and put it in a dish of salted ice water to keep it cold. I had wanted to do a bunch of those, but we mangled the tangelo rinds pretty badly when juicing them and that was the only one that held up, so it was the "display model". The prize for most creative went to the vanilla-avocado-jalapeno-lime ice cream, which was also pretty tasty, actually. When you think about it, avocado makes sense as a dessert ingredient. At least after you've expanded your mind by eating three different ice creams involving peppers.

The only other picture I took was Jon tallying the votes: