Cooks, Top Chef fans, Chicago foodies

Cooks, Top Chef fans, Chicago foodies ... may I have your attention please?

Got this email from Chef Izard.

After @redeyechicago's wildly successful Virtual Kitchen Stadium (the original) featuring guest judge and Top Chef Master Rick Bayless, we wanted to do something else to whet your appetite.

Here's your chance to cook with Top Chef Stephanie Izard at an upcoming Wandering Goat dinner.

Sound tasty? Good. Here's how it works and what you need to do:

1. On each of the next three Sundays, come back to redeyechicago.com for the week's three secret ingredients. Participants will have 24 hours from when the ingredients post Sunday morning to cook ONE dish using those three ingredients. You can add other ingredients, but you must use all three of the ingredients in one dish. The ingredients will also be posted on Stephanie's site at http://www.stephanieizard.com

2. If possible, keep the dish seasonal and the use of any local ingredients are a plus.

3. Here's what you must submit to be considered entered into the contest:

a. Recipe that serves four people.

b. A photo of the dish. Remember, this is Virtual Kitchen Stadium, so we're not tasting, we're looking.

c. Optional, but encouraged, would be any other photos, video and/or stories of how the dish was developed.

d. Send everything via email no later than Monday morning at 9 a.m. (you have 24 hours from when the ingredients are posted to enter) to redeyetalk@gmail.com -- must have the subject line VK2. We'll post everything by Monday afternoon, so check back at redeyechicago.com

e. While Stephanie gets the final say as far as who wins, you can help her make a decision by sharing your opinions on redeyechicago.com and leaving comments. Who knows, she may even comment back.

f. Also, make sure you follow along with Stephanie on Twitter at twitter.com/stephanieizard and RedEye at twitter.com/redeyechicago for any updates or changes.

4. There will be one winner each week chosen by Stephanie herself, and then she will pick one of the 3 winners to cook with her during a Wandering Goat dinner and see things from behind the scenes.

5. Winners each week will be posted on Wednesday morning at http://www.stephanieizard.com.

6. If you play one week and don't win, you are welcome to play each week.

That's about it - we encourage you to leave comments here.

Oh, and here's a link to some of the best of the original Virtual Kitchen Stadium so you can get an idea of how much fun it is.

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye/ ... plate.html

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye/ ... n-wgn.html

So I decided to give this a go yesterday. Here's the link to my entry:

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye-photos/2009/10/tony-ham-roasted-apple-braised-pork-shoulder-with-basil-green-olive-chimichurri-with-roasted-red-potato-carrots-parsnips-and-brussels-sprouts.html

I made roasted apple-braised pork shoulder with basil-green olive chimichurri, with roasted red potato, carrots, parsnips, and Brussels sprouts. Sorry for the super long name! What do you think?

Nice. I think it's between the apple-fig salad with pork medallions, the cumin-dusted scallops with apple, orange, etc., and the baked apple. The baked apple gets my vote. They all sound very good.

via, your dish looks and sounds like something I'd like to eat. However, my take is that it just has too many components that don't really tie in with the challenge ingredients, so I'd guess that Stephanie might take off some points for that.

Thanks Kennyz.

Based on the comments on the RedEye page, it looks like the goat dish is consensus favorite. Oh well. It was fun to participate. We'll see what Stephanie's verdict is...

Here's my entry for this week. The 3 ingredients were celery root, pears, and mushrooms. So I made bacon...

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye-photos/2009/10/tony-ham-braised-bacon-and-mushrooms-with-celery-root-pear-puree-crispy-oyster-mushrooms-and-celery-orange-gremolata.html