On Saturday, November 14, 2009 I placed second in VeggieConquest III: Battle Cranberry with my CranBanApple Parfait. VeggieConquest is monthly amateur vegan cooking competition that’s held in NYC.
This marked my return to VeggieConquest as a chef. I had competed in the inaugural edition Battle Apple back in August.
A week before the event it was revealed that the chefs had to come up with dessert dishes featuring cranberries. I started to formulate ideas for my dish immediately.
Besides the challenge of making the dessert, I wanted to make the dish as simple as possible, which is how I like to make all of my recipes, and I wanted to make it in an eco-friendly way as well. By this I mean utilizing as little resources, buying local when I buy and having the entire meal a “Zero Waste” dish.
The dish that I decided on was a Cranbanapple Parfait that I started to make around noon the day of the competition. It was a three layered dish. The bottom layer was apple, cranberries and raisins pureed with some cinnamon.
An Omnivore’s Point of View
My friend, Al Kavadlo, attended VeggieConquest. As a personal trainer and longtime fitness enthusiast, he has a burgeoning interest in healthy eating and its role in holistic wellness. He’s continually striving to be as healthy as possible. The following is his take on the event.
This past Saturday I attended VeggieConquest III. It was my first time attending a VeggieConquest (or any vegan cook-off for that matter), and as an omnivore, it was a very new experience for me.
Considering that the chefs were restricted to making cranberry based desserts, there was quite a bit of variety at VeggieConquest.
Some of the desserts that were prepared by the contestants were exceptional, but the judges and I didn’t agree on which ones. I was honestly surprised that the crepe won, as I had that in the bottom three on my scorecard. My other favorites were the cranberry oat bars and the chocolate cranberry tart on almond crust.
The food that was kindly donated by various vendors was even more varied than the desserts, and it ranged from delicious to disgusting. The raw “ice cream”, donated by The Raw Ice Cream Company, and vegan lasagna were my favorites.
The raw “ice cream” didn’t taste much like ice cream but it was a tasty treat, nonetheless. I don’t typically enjoy foods that are trying to mimic something else, but this was a nice exception.
I definitely tried a lot of new foods and, perhaps more importantly, left with a feeling of wanting to be more aware of what I put into my body.
I don’t plan to stop eating meat or dairy, but I can start making smarter choices. This morning at the grocery store I had VeggieConquest fresh in my mind so I bought lots of fruits and veggies. I also decided to opt for the grass fed beef, and even went home with organic milk!
Al Kavadlo is a personal trainer at New York Health and Racquet Club and has worked with hundreds of clients with various goals, guiding them through the process of changing their bodies and their lives. Check out Al on the web at AlKavadlo.com
I was straining out the puree because it was very watery. There was lots of fresh squeezed juice that started to accumulate. Being a zero waste meal, I decided to serve up the juice alongside the dish and was going to add some fresh mint from my fire escape garden.
Now I needed to pick up the compostable corn cups before I headed out because I didn’t want to use the single serve plastic ones. I also purchased compostable baking tins to serve to all of the tasters as well.
The second layer was a banana custard that was made from brown bananas, pears and lucuma powder. The top layer was coconut oil, dates and more cranberries.
As a last minute addition, I decided to sprinkle some raw cacao nibs on top to add some more texture. I also wanted to add some crushed dehydrated banana as well if I had time.
After I prepared my dish, I harvested the mint and blended it up in the juice. Then I got in the shower to wash the stank off, get pretty and head over to the venue.
This was a new venue for the event and as expected Jessica who runs VeggieConquest really outdid herself. It was moved a more spacious venue, DJ Lil Ray was added to provide some tunes and Josh Katcher returned as the emcee.
The judges for the event were Mattie Hagedorn (VeganBaking.net), Fran Costigan (The Diva of Dairy Free Desserts) and Sharon Valencik (author of Sweet Utopia).
They were definitely hard, but thought they offered constructive criticism, which I can totally appreciate.
When it was my turn to present my dish, I explained what it was and requested that every return their cupcake liners and cups to me because I wanted to generate zero waste with this dish. Up until that point, the only piece of waste generated was a cloth that I wasn’t sure if I could compost. I think the concept was well received.
After hearing some of the critiques of the other dishes, I was curious as to how the judges were going to receive my dish. I was happy to hear that they enjoyed it and really loved the fresh juice. Funny because that part was added at 3:30 that afternoon.
The judges liked the dish enough to award me second place, which I was definitely happy about. To me participating in a competition like this isn’t only about placing, it’s about meeting new people, exchanging ideas and learning new things. The food is just the excuse to do it.
The following day, I completed my mission of my zero waste meal when I brought all of the banana peels, apple cores, cups baking tin liners and cups to the Lower East Side Community Compost Garden.
And yes I was able to and did put the rag in the bin as well. Mission accomplished.
Thanks again to Jessica for putting on such a great event and can’t wait (in a zen kind of way) to the next one.
