Popplewood 4H Chopped Challenge

 We tried something different at 4H last night.  Our daughter, Justine, did this when she was the summer intern for PPA - Ag Adventure tent for the fair.  

Last night we did a chopped challenge as a club.

We had 4 groups - 3 older youth and 1 cloverbud.  We had parents help too, but for the most part it was all their ideas.  I bought the 4 kits for the club to use, as I want to do this as an event type thing at the farm and it was a wee bit (wink, wink) over the club's budget.  

We had families bring "pantry items" along with electric appliances they could use to cook their items.  The club did buy the basket ingredients and additional pantry items.  Unused non-perishable items will be donated to a local food pantry.  

We had 2 guest judges, the Marathon County Junior Fair Foods Superintendent, Mary Jansen and the chef from The Ugly Mug, Carlie Peterson.   Carlie gave a knive presentation for the youth as well.  

Here were the basket ingredients:  animal crackers, Spam, black olives and sweet potato baby food...ahahah....

These were the creations:

Group 1:  

They made a mac n cheese and spam pancake inside an english muffin, with a fresh salad using the black olives and baby food as a dressing and an Oreo and animal cracker deconstructed cake pop.  

Group 2:

They put all the "eggs" in one basket and made a goulash and an animal cracker cookie for dessert.  

Group 3:

They made a spin on a "spaghetti bowl" also putting most of the basket ingredients in the dish and served with a lava type cake and berry smoothy.  (in all the excitement, the handle to open the Spam can broke off and they were down to a minute to put that ingredient on the plate).  

Group 4: Cloverbuds (K-2nd grade)

They made a pizza style quesadilla using the smam and baby food in the sauce and a brownie waffle dessert using both baby food and animal crackers.  

The judges score sheets were out of 100 points:  50 for taste, 25 for creativity, 15 for group interaction/paticipation and 10 for plating.   The winner is.....

.....the Cloverbuds!  

This was so much fun, but I did think of things we could have done better...that's always the way.  4H is about educational opportunities and "making the best better."   At the end our club president, Lindsey talked about what they learned from this.  "Working together" was the big one.  

Blessings from Ringle, Wisconsin.