Thanks for entering this edition of Chopped! for VeganMoFo!

The contests is now closed and we’ll have the judges weigh in with their decisions later this week!!!

Hi everybody! Jess here, and I’m taking over Chopped! for VeganMoFo 2014!

I spent four weeks this summer cat-sitting at my sister’s in Brooklyn, watching some fairly fancy cable, glued to the Food Network, and catching up on what seemed like 2 years’ worth of episodes, so I feel like that makes me right for the job. Plus, I’ve got a little thing – a penchant, if you will – for putting an obsessive, vegan-spin on culinary competitions for my own personal amusement (and you know, large audiences! the good of the world! community! and the future of veganism!! and Isa! ) And most importantly, I have two of the ingredients below in my own kitchen. Right now, being all inspirational and stuff. Adorn your aprons! Down to business! This Chopped! VeganMoFo Edition stars four ingredients I think are swell. Let’s get started. Your four ingredients* for this round!:

1. Jalapeño!
2. Radish!
3. Oolong Tea!
4. Fresh Prune Plums! (I’ll explain more below)

aka Fraggle food

Yes, fresh! Curious? Read more about Italian prune plums here. They’re really plums!!!

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*Okay, okay, if you can’t track down prune plums or oolong tea (what?!) this weekend, just get close enough with purple plums and black tea, or whatever, if you must! But it’s like on the actual series Chopped!, if you miss an ingredient, you could still win, but we’re gonna take it into account.

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Your mission: Create a dinner-appropriate entree plate utilizing all four ingredients as little or as much as you want. You can also use any other items in your pantry. And unlike the television competition, you can make one plate. Or two. Or three. Or forty. Totally up to you, your dinner company and your appetites!

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The rules: You must use from-scratch, vegan ingredients to the best of your ability (if it’s covered in packaged vegan cheeze and made out of trademarked faux-meat products, sorry but you won’t win.) Submissions will be judged on perceived taste, creative use of the mystery ingredients and presentation. The photograph is important, so if you’re not a professional photographer, use natural light where you can, feel free to use a real camera or fancy smartphone, and remember, flash on food photos is rarely appealing. There is no time requirement besides getting it in by the deadline below, so take all the time you need. This competition and the prizes are open to everyone, everywhere!

 

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Here’s how to enter (please read carefully): On Sunday, September 14 at 12pm EST/9am PST, you can begin to post your entries in the comments of this thread. Please don’t post before then because a) you don’t want your ideas stolen, do you? and b) it makes it harder to go through when entries are interspersed with questions and other comments. Your link, including at least your rough recipe and a photo, can be posted anywhere, so long as it’s public and everyone can  see it  (your blog, your friend’s blog, Instagram, Facebook, your mom’s Tumblr, FlickR, etc.) All entries must be in by 2pm EST/11am PST, on Monday, September 15th.

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If you’re posting on social media, you can use the tag #VeganMoFoChopped to represent!

 

And please make sure when you leave your comment, that a valid email is used so that you can be contacted if you win. Along with a panel of special vegan judges from across the internet and the spirit of VeganMoFo (aka the organizers in a top secret thread), I’ll announce the winner by mid-week!

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Super important stuff! Your entry must contain 3 things:

1. The title of your dish
2. A picture of your dish (you can have more than one pic)
3. A description of your method/ at least a rough recipe.

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Please mention all ingredients used, not just the four mystery ingredients. Describe what you did as best you can so that people can recreate it if they like! A recipe would be ideal, but not totally necessary.

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Our VeganMofo Chopped! Champion will receive:

~Oodles of fame, glory & the 2014 Chopped! VeganMoFo title

~A sweet prize pack from Chicago Vegan Foods

~Limited edition Vegan Iron Chef tshirt! I know, wrong show riff, but my connections only go so far sometimes.

If you need a little inspiration, check out these past PPK & VeganMoFo Chopped! competitions: 2012 Brunch Chopped!2012 Dessert Chopped! And if you have no idea what Chopped! is, then you can read about it here on the official site, and watch a few episodes (warning: lots of animal products, sometimes pretty gruesome looking ones, and occasionally vegan goodies like chia, vegan lobster and even vegan chefs represented!) You can also watch it on Hulu.

 

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P.S. Isa also gets credit for writing the rules! Duh.