Feast Your Eyes on This Spicy Cooking Challenge 2013- Round 1

Here we are again with our 3rd annual spicy cooking challenge. We are kicking things off with a Round 1 sponsor who was also last year’s winner, Shauna Jellsey of Tats Sauces & Marinades. Shauna along with her hubby Derek will guest judge this round along with our other special judging panel. Representing some of our sponsors, these judges are Sir McMillan from Chile Pepper Magazine, Carol Borge from the Houston Hot Sauce Festival and Greg Bagarozy from Zestfest Midwest. Adding to that mix will be our bloggers extraordinaire, Firehead Thomas and Scott Roberts. Together they make a very educated group of spicy aficionados.

The video will explain the contest and the first challenge our group of contestants will have to face. We put up their Intro videos last week, and if you would like to see them I included the link in the Contestant area below for your easy access. In a nutshell, the way this spicy cooking challenge works is that we post weekly challenges every Wednesday at 9am est, and the contestants in turn make recipe videos to be sent to us Saturday by midnight est. The videos are posted each Sunday morning at 9am est, and then the judging begins. Results will be posted Wednesdays with someone being eliminated and a bonus and $50 gift card to the winner of that round. We will do this for 6 weeks with a winner to be announced on April 17th. Confetti and balloons are sold separately.

The overall winner of Feast Your Eyes on This Spicy Cooking Challenge will receive a free vendor booths from both the Houston Hot Sauce Festival & Zestfest Midwest. Plus, Chile Pepper Magazine will give an advertising package valued at over $2000. Cash prizes will also be awarded by Endorphin Farms & Refining Fire Chiles. Together, 1st place will receive an additional $300, the runner-up $150, and 3rd place $100. Plus, on top of all that good stuff, they will get one big ass trophy from yours truly. I thank all our great sponsors for their contributions to this spicy cooking challenge. Without them we would have no contest.

I also want to make note of one other special sponsor for this round, Chef Denise Baxter of Mountain View High School’s Wildcat Cafe & Bakery donated the first ingredient for this challenge made from the hard work of her students. Thank you so much for your contribution! Please show them some love, and support their High School Culinary Arts program by clicking on the link HERE and trying out some of their delicious goods, one of which won a 2013 Lenny Award. Hint: it had pineapple in it.

Contestants:

Bo Perkins of Addiction Sauces
Tina Tillman of Chesterville Pepper Company
Sam Peters of Patter Fam Sauces
Jennifer Reynolds of Sauce Goddess
Tracy Carter of JAC’s Tailgaters
Mike Isenberg of Wicked Cactus Sauces
Kevin Billings of High Octane Sauce Company
Ricky Sanders of Madison Chocolatiers West
Intro Videos can be seen HERE

NOTE: VIDEOS FOR ROUND 1 ARE UP TO 5 MINUTES LONG