Paleo Iron Chef

Have you ever heard of Reddit?  According to Wikipedia, Reddit is “a social news website where the registered users submit content, in the form of either a link or a text ‘self’ post. Other users then vote the submission ‘up’ or ‘down,’ which is used to rank the post and determine its position on the site’s pages and front page.”  These posts are usually confined to a certain topic; each topic has it’s own section on the site, known as a “subreddit.”

Now that I’ve thoroughly bored you, I’ll confess that I was only vaguely aware of the existence of this site until recently, when I started receiving a little traffic from the paleo board, usually someone linking to one of my recipes.  Then yesterday, Patty of Chowstalker linked to one of the threads, announcing a 20-day Paleo Iron Chef competition.

As a Food Network/Cooking Channel junkie, and huge fan of Iron Chef America, Chopped and other “cooking challenge” shows, I am just all over that.

Basically, every day for 20 days, there will be a new thread posted for people to share their recipes using that day’s “not-so-secret” ingredient; the recipe with the most community “up-votes” wins that category, and the poster with the most up-votes overall wins the competition.  The very kind person organizing this, knowing we’re busy folks, has already provided us with a list of ingredients, hence the “not-so-secret” part.  The list is:

Day 1: Coconut Milk

Day 2: Eggs

Day 3: Avocado

Day 4: Salmon

Day 5: Tomato

Day 6: Chicken

Day 7: Curry

Day 8: Shrimp

Day 9: Sweet Potato

Day 10: Ground Beef

Day 11: Almonds

Day 12: Pork

Day 13: Garlic

Day 14: Broccoli

Day 15: Onions

Day 16: Asparagus

Day 17: Honey

Day 18: Butter

Day 19: Spinach

Day 20: Halibut/Tilapia/Haddock

The competition begins April 16, and I’ve already started plotting my recipes (I have great hopes for the coconut milk recipe).  I’ve also decided I’m going to use existing recipes for at least 3 of the categories, and I’ll let you know which on those days.  I’ll post the recipes I develop for the other ingredients here as part of my normal routine; if not on the competition day of the ingredient, then soon thereafter.

So, whose cuisine will reign supreme?  Well, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I hope mine will, but no matter who wins, it will be a great way to share lots of tasty, real food recipes.

Ala cuisine!