Iron Chef

We had a great YMYW activity this past week.  We had an "Iron Chef Challenge".  The youth were given an invitation on Sunday with a bag of sunflower seeds attached to the invite saying,  "Have you sown the "seeds" of greatness in the culinary arts?  Come and find out at the Iron Chef Challenge, with the date, time and place.  They all met at our home.
The Beehives and Deacons stayed at my home, the Laurels and Priests went to the YW secretary's home down the street and the MiaMaids and Teachers went to a member's home around the corner.  They were given instructions at my house which were, "Make an appetizer, a drink, a main dish and a dessert and each of them must contain the "secret ingredient." The secret ingredient was given to them in a brown paper bag and they were off.  It was peanut butter.  They went to each of the kitchens and used whatever they had at that house along with the peanut butter to make these 4 items with the instructions that the kitchen had to be left as clean as it was when they got there.  When everyone was done, we met at the biggest home, where the Bishopric was there as judges and prizes were awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd.  The youth are still talking about how much fun it was and
we had a huge turnout that evening.

Our ward just did this.  We had three teams. The YW consisting of MiaMaids and Laurels,  The teachers and the Priests.  They had a theme...Italian.  Each team was at a different house for cooking then they met together and they had a judge sample each fooe.  There were awards for taste, appearance, etc.  I think what my daughters group liked the best was sneaking up on the boys acting like they were spies before they entered the house for the final judging.  They all had a good time.  The Priests won best taste. We have a young man that really likes to cook.

Here is what we did a few months ago.  The kids wanted to do the boys against the girls but we have a lot more girls than boys so if we do it again I would make teams of no more than 6 or 7 or a lot of kids end up feeling left out.  The leaders brought about 1/2 lb of hamburger (or you could do chicken breasts), potato (or rice) a few carrots and an onion and some basic
seasonings from home.  We gave each team $5 to run across the street to the grocery store to get whatever they needed to impress the judges. Most buy something to make a dessert.   We told them their were points for presentation so they had fun plating the food and scrounging in the YW cupboard for stuff to make up a fancy table.  We had the judges (a couple of parents who were hanging around) taste everything and declare a winner.  We
did tell them they were responsible for cleaning up the kitchen but if we do it again I will be standing at the door with a dish cloth for all that try to leave without cleaning up!  It was a lot of fun and I think it will become a tradition in the ward.  Good luck!