Iron Chef!

This week in sustainable agriculture we got to mix it up a bit with a super fun activity we do periodically throughout the year called Iron Chef! If you have seen the show before you know the appeal. We first split off into groups of 8 the day before and planned out our meal. Each iron chef competition has a different focus, this one was based on seasoning and herbs found out on the farm. Ideas were being thrown out all over the room until each group individually decided what to make. The next step was planning what we would source from the farm and what we would have to buy or find somewhere else. We were told to pay attention to where the items not from the farm were coming from, for example: were they from a students garden? A local farm? Or less desirable... were they packaged and processed? That day after class ended we all went home excited for the following day to come. My group talked all evening about what our game plan was until finally the next day arrived. We started Wednesday's class by meeting out in the redwood sustag farm (our very interactive classroom) and we were given intrusions to only pick what we would use and not extra to go with our main focus on the farm which is sustainability. From there the groups went off grabbing what they would need for the iron chef challenge. Once the groups were done with getting their ingredients we walked up to the classroom and Mr. Stewart briefed us on safety. Then it was off to the races with 40 minutes on the clock! The groups began to construct their dishes with the hot plate, spatula, 2 knifes, cutting board and plate they were given to display the food on (plus whatever else was needed from home). After each group completes their dish they bring it up to the front judging table where Mr. Stewart, accompanied by his TA for the period judge on presentation, taste, creativity, and use of the farm ingredients. Our class had a very wide variety of dishes with people making hash browns with brussel sprouts and topped with a fried egg, omelets with farm tomatoes and other ingredients, smashed seasoned potatoes, mint, strawberry, and lemon verbena lemonade, and toasted bread with bruschetta and farm grown tomatoes. Not too shortly after Mr. Stewart completes his judging do we get to do our own taste test accompanied with a presentation by a few of the group members. Slightly hesitant but intrigued we all tried each others food and with that the class period came to an end and a winner was announced. The winner of this weeks challenge was the group that made hash browns with brussel sprouts and a fried egg. Overall this was a super fun way to interact with what our farm produces and I think we can all agree that we can't wait for next time!
-Annika Geissberger