Festive Friday: how to participate in recipe contests

By Alice Wadley staff writer

At Festive Friday, Barbra Jones shared the shopping tips for the month. She said eggs are still on sale at many locations. They are cheap, easy to make and there are countless recipes to try with eggs. There are a dozen safety tips for eggs: Discard any cracked eggs. Keep eggs refrigerated at 40 degrees or below in their cartons on a middle or lower shelf, not in the door. Avoid contact of the shell with the eggs contents, use a clean utensil to remove any shells. Cook basic egg dishes until the whites are set and the yolks begin to thicken. Cook scrambled eggs, omeletts and frittatas until there is no visible liquid remaining. Cook dishes such as french toast until they are done in the center, 160 degrees. Cook eggs or use a pasteurized egg product when making eggnog, ice cream or hollandaise. Keep egg dishes in the refrigerator as much as possible. Divide leftovers into small containers and refrigerate right after a meal so they will cool quickly. Wash hands, utensils, equipment and work surfaces with hot soapy water before and after preparing eggs and all other foods. When coloring eggs wash your hands thoroughly before handling eggs at every step. Use refrigerated hard-cooked eggs within one week.
Christine Jensen advised everyone, housing vouchers are available at the Emery County Housing office. Call Jennifer at 435-381-3581 for more information. Income requirements to apply.
Jensen introduced Carmell Childs from Ferron. She is married to Joe Childs. They have four children, Colten, age 12, Carsen, age 9, Jessie, age 7 and Kelsey, 17 months. She has won several competitive cooking and recipe contests, including the prestigious title of World Recipe Champion, which took place in Vegas back in 2012. She said, I like to eat and I love cooking. It all began 5 years ago when I lived in Provo. There was a flyer in my grocery bag advertising Utah’s Own Recipe Round-Up, a recipe contest spanning six weeks and accumulating in the grand finale at the Utah State Fair. Inspired by my mom, who won countless baking contests at the state fair, I decided to give it a try. I prepared my recipe and had it ready to take to the grocery store to compete. I realized that I was at the wrong store location for that particular weekend, but decided to drive up to Orem and compete anyways. I didn’t come home with the coveted first place win, but I did receive a lovely consolation package of Utah made sausages for my effort.
Despite my disappointment, I decided to try again the following weekend with a new recipe that incorporated Utah’s logo and several Utah products. I took it to the Provo store and it was literally packed with hundreds of participants and delicious looking culinary creations. It probably took them an hour before they got to my recipe. I overheard one of the judges say that he hated nuts, so once again I went home disappointed, with my nut covered dessert in tow and no blue ribbon.
As the days went by, I knew I couldn’t rest until I had redeemed myself so my sister suggested I try looking up recipe contests online. I did and I came across several recipe contests. One contest I entered was the Philadelphia® Cream Cheese “Real Women of Philadelphia” contest. The contest was sponsored by Kraft Foods and Paula Deen. I bought a case of cream cheese to try out several ideas. I entered my first cream cheese masterpiece and as luck would have it, I won a check for $500, followed by another win of $2,500, and another win for an additional $500. At this point I realized that creating recipes can really be enjoyable and rewarding! At the end of the RWOP Season II, Kraft sent all of us members a case of cooking cream and asked us to create a video. I did this and earned the first spot of four appatizer finalist that got to travel to Savannah Ga. to meet and cook for Paula Deen. I wasn’t the overall $25,000 winner, but I did enjoy being pampered and entertained for the four day span of the competition.
I hadn’t traveled much outside Utah until I started entering and winning recipe contests. Following the cream cheese contest, I won a trip for five to Mexico for winning the Gorton’s® Ortega® Fish Taco Contest and of course a years supply of fish sticks, which my children enjoyed.
Those first few months I would diligently check my email every night, and it was very rewarding to get a message from one company or another, stating that my diligence and hard work had payed off!
Many recipe contests are available to the untrained “Foodie”. You don’t have to be a professional chef to enter.
My husband has often played the role of videographer and sous chef in many a contest. We would set out to make a video for a recipe contest, which is virtually impossible with young children. We would turn on a video, give the kids some fruit snacks and shut the door hoping to buy us enough time to make the video. You can tell when the fruit snack ran out because the kids would come running and screaming from the room, to see what was going on. Through out it all my very patient husband has been a great support to me.
Childs offered some tips for recipe contests. You eat with your eyes first. Something may taste amazing, but if it doesn’t look appealing it probably won’t appeal to other people.
Know the rules and read them carefully, find out if there are time restrictions. I once created a ice cream recipe, but wasn’t able to submit it due to the time restraints.
Become acquainted with the product and know what the company promotes. Del Monte® promotes eating healthy. I entered a recipe contest not knowing this. I used the fruit, the juice and the can to make the winning recipe, Mandarin Tin-Can Tower Cakes, which was not so healthy; to say the least. Lucky for me, they loved the creativity and later revised the original recipe on their web-site to be a lot more healthful.
Follow food trends, right now savory and sweet are the in thing. Do your homework, look at cooking magazines like Taste of Home to get an idea of what is trending.
Make sure your recipes are well written and understandable, never abbreviate measurements. In some contests ease of preparation is judged highly.
Be creative. Don’t be afraid to put a recipe away for 24 hours. If it still excites you in 24 hours, it’s a good recipe. If not move on to another recipe.
Have a good title for your recipe, instead of pineapple pizza call it Aloha pizza. Put some thought into the name.
Make your final product look good. Presentation is important. For the most part, keep it simple.
Two of Childs most notable victories was for $21,000 in a Smucker’s recipe contest, along with the World Food Championship Recipe Title. She won $10,000 there and had the chance to compete for $50,000. I thought it would be great to place in the top 10 and win $1,000. I never thought I would place first in my category and make it to the finals. It was the average “Joes” versus the pros. I was surprised there were so many professional chefs there and here I was a self-taught home cook from Ferron Utah, in street clothes, with my husband as my sous chef. I decided if for some reason I made it to the finals I would not compete because it was held on Sunday, the Sabbath Day. I learned from my parents to keep the Sabbath Day holy. I believe with great sacrifice comes great blessings. I feel that I have come full circle since my first foray in the Utah’s Own Recipe Round-Up contest. I entered the contest the following year and was able to make it the the final round at the Utah State Fair. I created a 30 layer Utah Truffle Crepe Cake, and dag-nab-it!, it earned me the grand prize, a seven day Carribean cruise, a fancy BBQ grill, cooking class to Gigi’s, and other wonderful Utah products!