Iron Chef: Lemon!


What to do with so many lemons?

At the beginning of the month, my workplace hosted a large event. The centerpieces at event contained lemons. After the event, lo and behold, my entire office was awash with lemons. At first, everyone smuggled home pursefuls of fresh yellow fruits. After a week of that, however, there were still far too many lemons around. Someone had the brilliant idea to hold a friendly office-wide competition: Iron Chef Lemon!

I knew that with the stress of this week, launching a big project at work and taking care of things at home on the weekend, I wouldn’t have time to come up with anything new or incredibly complicated. I did try one new lemon recipe, but it isn’t ready yet (don’t worry, I’ll post as soon as it is, success or failure!). Instead, I decided to “submit” my Syrian Lemon and Olive Chicken. While I was excited to share my own dish, I was most looking forward to seeing what everyone else would come up with.

Well, let me say, the ladies did not disappoint! The variety of savory dishes was particularly exciting, because it seemed everyone thought there would be too many desserts and beverages. It turned out there was a perfect ratio. Traditional lemonade and puckery strawberry-lemon-basil mocktinis (not pictured). Lemon chicken, lemon pesto pasta, sweet lemon bean salad, creamy lemon gnocchi, and even a mini-shrimp boil! Feast your eyes on the spread below (all photos in this post courtesy my fabulous friend Martina):

The savory entries formed quite a spread, even in tupperware.

The desserts were even more sumptuous though. The lemon flavor really shone in all of these. I have to admit, I tasted my fair share. There were lemon bundt cakes large (with pinenuts) and small (with lemon glaze), lemon crumble so moist I thought it was cheesecake, and shockingly tart lemon thin cookies.

Sweet and sour lemon desserts tasted even better than they looked!

I loved Martina’s mini-bundts even more when she told me that their deep, almost carmel flavor came from the brown sugar she used instead of white!

Mini-bundts are way cuter than cupcakes.

Once the “judging” began. It was clear which dishes were quickly becoming favorites. The spread was devoured in minutes.

This lemon crumble was one of my favorites and made voting in the sweet category very difficult.

With so many lemons still leftover, we used them as our ballots for voting for winners in the sweet and savory categories. My entry won second place, an honor among such delicious competition. The first place winners were the pesto pasta:

Classic yum

And in the sweet category, almost by a landslide, Martina’s second entry: Lemon thins!

If I had any patience for baking, I'd be making these with my extra lemons this week.

Fun and a full stomach were had by all and now the office is almost lemon-free. We’re all already trying to figure out what the next Iron Chef potluck might be. I love my co-workers. Any ideas for ingredients?


3 responses to “Iron Chef: Lemon!”

  1. Wow! I am so sorry I missed it! And I had no idea you had a cooking weblog! I knew you were into cookery, but not to this degree. Will wonders never cease?

    • Aw, I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Let me know if you try any of the recipes out around the site 😉 I haven’t been posting as often because my camera is on its way out, but there’s usually something new a few times a month.

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