Final Results of the Slow Cooker Tournament

Pin It The final two recipes that made it through every single round of the tournament were the Hawaiian Chicken and the Cafe Rio Shredded Beef.

Because I wanted to make the ultimate decision on who won the finals I decided from the beginning that I would make the final two myself and let my husband and I decide.  When we found out what the final two were, we both said, "I guess we only really have to make one recipe."  That's because we knew that the Cafe Rio Shredded Beef would win any day against the Hawaiian Chicken in our book, at least.  So just like the Kentucky/Kansas game, this one was a blow out.

And so I present to you, my friends, the ultimate winner of the 2012 slow cooker tournament:  The Cafe Rio Shredded Beef Salad (and don't forget the dressing)!

Great for serving big crowds, very easy prep, relatively inexpensive and the flavor is delicious.  All the components of a perfect slow cooker recipe.  Although I didn't pick it from the beginning, I'm glad it won (it gave us a reason to cook it again).

A GREAT BIG thank you to ALL those who cooked recipes, photographed them, and wrote reviews.  I hope you had as much fun as I did!

Final Four Results

Pin It The Final Four recipes are:

Soups

1.  Cordon Bleu Soup

Meaty

2.  café rio shredded beef 
Chicken

3. hawaiian chicken

Other

4.  Turkey Lasagna  

Because I wanted to really make sure the right recipes made it to the finals, I enlisted 2 people to make each set of recipes.  Luckily, the results were unanimous and there were clear winners.

Cafe Rio Beef (photo by Jessie from http://borntocrock.blogspot.com/) 

Cordon Bleu Soup

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Cordon Bleu Soup	8/9	30/30	45/50	8/9
Cafe Rio Beef	8/9	30/30	45/50	8/10
Recipe 1 notes and review: The ingredients for this soup were easy to find, I had most of it on hand already. I didn't have tarragon on hand, but I did enjoy using it for the first time. We would eat this again, but when we voted, we all had liked the Cafe Rio Beef more. It also seemed as though it was a bit more expensive, just because it has more expensive spices in it!  This was delicious! I loved the tarragon in it. Everyone liked this. The flavor was good and some of the kids dipped their bread in the broth because it was so tasty. We really liked ham and chicken in the same soup and even the pickiest eaters tried this.
Recipe 2 notes and review: I liked that we had everything on hand to make this recipe. I did go to the store to get the ingredients for the dressing, but that was just because I wanted to try it and see how it compared to the recipe I usually make. We weren't sure we loved the dressing on the beef, it seemed to clash a little bit, but it did taste great on a salad and the beef was great without the dressing too! The beef was a big hit with those of us that eat meat at our house. Our older daughter even loved it, she doesn't love the sweet pork, so I was surprised she loved this. We used the beef in different ways, I had a salad with the beef and my husband and daughter had a burrito. I didn't feel that it took too long to put this together, I did a lot of the prep work the night before, so we could just throw it together in the morning. It makes quite a lot too, we had enough beef to have it twice, and I froze some for later too! This was hard to decide which we liked best, but everyone agreed they liked this one more (except me - I like them both equally) and they would eat this more often. The shredded beef would also freeze well so I would make extra when meat is on sale and freeze portions for later.  This is delicious! It has lots of flavor but its not too spicy. I had some of the meat on a roll the next day and it tasted even better the second day.

Final Score:

Cordon Bleu Soup:  189

Cafe Rio Shredded Beef:  190

Review by Cathy (in blue) and Lori (in yellow)

Hawaiian Chicken

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Hawaiian Chicken	10/10	25/25	45/45	10/10
Turkey Lasagna	10/8	30/10	50/20	9/10
Recipe 1 notes and review: I was a little skeptical of this dish at first because I don't love warm fruit, but I was gladly mistaken. This dish was so easy to prepare with very few steps and not many dirty dishes! The ingredients were easy to find. This dish took 4 hours in our Slow Cooker and was ready by lunch. The first "words" out of my husbands mouth were "oohh, oohh man this is good!" The dish was very flavorful and we did not need to add any extra seasoning. We poured it over White Rice. I would make this recipe again as it is now one of my husband's new favorites. The price of this meal was very reasonable.  I halved this recipe and it was the perfect amount for my family. I served it over rice and there were no leftovers. This, to me, was exactly what a slow cooker meal should be. The total prep time was less than 10 minutes, it cooked perfectly, the house smelled wonderful, and every person in the family ate it without complaint. I will definitely make this again but might try to tweak the sauce slightly because I wanted more of a zing. If you got the “perfect” bite—some sauce, peppers, pineapple, chicken, and rice—it was delicious. The value of this meal is excellent, especially because it is basically pantry items.
Recipe 2 notes and review: I was very excited to learn that you could make Lasagna in the Slow Cooker! I had a hard time finding Ground Turkey Sausage but then discovered it's in the breakfast freezer section! All the other ingredients were easy to find. It didn't take too long to make, just browning the Sausage was the most time consuming but I could get the other ingredients ready while that browned. The overall flavor was a little bland even with adding salt and pepper, but I love Lasagna and still thought it was good.  My son whose is 18 months old even ate this one. I think the price was average for the cost of Lasagna. I would make this again and use a different Spaghetti sauce that had more seasoning. It's a nice "fast" meal in 3-5 hours.  I prefer my slow cooker recipes to be “throw in the pot and go” meals, but it only took 10 minutes to chop the onion and then brown the meat. Mixing the meat with the ricotta/cheese/sauce made the layering in the pot easy. The overall prep time was much less than my usual lasagna prep time—it was probably only 20 minutes from the time I started to brown the meat until I turned on the slow cooker. However, my family did not like this meal. I’ve never made lasagna with a store-bought sauce and so it is very possible that our aversion to the taste was completely due to the sauce flavor, and I hate to score this meal so low based on the flavor of the sauce, but it just was not a success at our house. Although maybe it wasn’t the sauce. Maybe we hate turkey sausage or ricotta cheese or green peppers in our lasagna. It’s hard to tell what, exactly, we all found so unappetizing. Even my youngest, who normally eats anything served to him, refused more than two bites. I will absolutely make lasagna in the slow cooker again, but next time I’ll use a homemade sauce and try the cottage cheese. The pros of this recipe: It made a lot, so the value is great especially if you have most of the ingredients on hand like I did. It would easily have made two full dinners plus a lunch for my family of four. It also looked pretty and came out of the pot perfectly.

Final Score:

Hawaiian Chicken:  180

Turkey Lasagna:  147

Review by Daphne (in blue) and Jennifer (in yellow)

Turkey Lasagna

The recipes that will go to the finals are the Hawaiian Chicken and the Cafe Rio Shredded Beef.  Because it's my blog, I'll be the one to review these two and decide the winner.  But you can play along at home if you want to form your own opinions :)

Down to the Final Four Recipes

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So we're really getting down to the wire here.  Last time I checked in, we were left with these eight recipes:

Soups

1.  Beef and Barley Soup 2

2.  Cordon Bleu Soup

Chicken

3.  Massaman Curry

4.  hawaiian chicken

Meaty

5.  beef gyros

6.  café rio shredded beef 

Other

7.  Turkey Lasagna  

8.  Salsa Rice Bake

Certainly not the recipes that I thought would make it this far!  But that's the beauty of letting others pick and score.  It's not just about me.  

Here's how this round went down:

Cordon Bleu Soup

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Cordon Bleu Soup	9	27	50	8
Beef and Barley Soup 2	8	20	35	7
Recipe 1 notes and review: This soup is awesome!  The hardest part is making the roux, and that is extremely easy!  My husband said “I’d buy it”.  Great praise from him.  The soup is very tasty and easy.  Definitely going into our meal repertoire.  Goes together very fast (just dump everything in the crockpot).  Can’t get much easier than that.
Recipe 2 notes and review: This is a good soup, but it has a different taste (which I attribute to the red wine vinegar).  Easy to make.  Prep was fairly easy since I have a veggie chopper.  Without one, you would probably spend a little time dicing the onion, celery, etc.  In any event, a good soup and worth the time.

Final Score:

Cordon Bleu Soup:  94

Beef and Barley Soup:  70

Review by Lynda

Hawaiian Chicken

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Hawaiian Chicken	10	25	45	10
Massaman Curry	10	24	45	9
Recipe 1 notes and review: Yet another close game this week!  So close it was parents against kids.  And because there are more kids at our house their vote tipped the scales to a very close win. This game was so close we had such a hard time finding a winner.  As a matter a fact we got into a voting war at the dinner table!  My oldest son should go into debate.  When he really believes strongly enough in something, he can give a very convincing argument.  If it were up to me we would have had a tie.  Is that even possible?  Both dishes were just so GOOD!  Both recipes were just dump and go.  And they did not need to cook all day to turn out great in the evening.  Don't get me wrong I like that feature some days, but so many times I get busy in the mornings. The next thing I know it is noon, and I still have to cook dinner for 8 hours!  It was nice to have a cook time of 4-6 hours!   The flavor of the Hawaiian chicken was much easier for my children to handle.  The sweet and tangy sauce with the pineapple, soy sauce, brown sugar, and vinegar was so good!  Who could go wrong with those ingredients.  Everyone cleaned their plates!  That is what a mom likes to see.  I had to police the crockpot so I would have leftovers for lunch the next day.  I also liked that I had all ingredients in the pantry.  I love that on my budget.  I will definitely make this again.
Recipe 2 notes and review: My husband and I LOVED the Massaman Curry.  I was surprised at the depth of flavor and creamy goodness.  After sampling the curry I thought for sure my children would love it also.  Who wouldn't like peanut butter chicken?  They each tried it, and most of them even took more than one bite, but not one of my children finished their plates.  I did have to buy coconut milk which can get pricy on a budget.  So a few points were taken of for value.  Although my children did not enjoy this as much as I did, I will be making this for us again.  It would freeze well and I can have this on mac & cheese nights.  {I'm not really a fan of mac & cheese...SORRY}

Final Score:

Hawaiian Chicken:  90

Massaman Curry:  88

Review by Jody

Cafe Rio Beef (photo by Jessie from http://borntocrock.blogspot.com/)

Beef Gyros (photo by Jessie from http://borntocrock.blogspot.com/)   

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Cafe Rio	10	30	50	10
Beef Gyros	9	15	25	10
Recipe 1 notes and review: This recipe was a repeat for me. I made it way back in round two when my husband was out of town. I KNEW he’d love it just as much as I did, so I had no problems crocking it again. I could eat this every day and be happy. Turns out, my husband could, too! We’re both big fans of crocked beef, so this bracket was super fun our taste buds!
Recipe 2 notes and review: We were both REALLY looking forward to this recipe because we love gyros. We had 4 friends over for dinner the night I crocked this. Luckily, it made enough food for all of us! Our friends thought this was pretty awesome, but my husband and I weren’t all that impressed. The meat was drier than we’re used to and the pitas I found (the only ones the store had...and that’s after I had a nice sales clerk if they were hiding them somewhere) were dry and crumbly. I’d attempt to make this again, but after I made some changes and found better pitas. The faux tzatziki sauce was delicious.

Final Score:

Cafe Rio Beef:  100

Beef Gyros:  59

Review by Jessie

I had so many people that wanted to help out with this last round so I let 2 different people review the lasagna versus the salsa rice bake.  They both came up with a different winner so I averaged the scores and the lasagna came out as winner.

Turkey Lasagna

Here is Amelia's Review of the 2 recipes:

Salsa Rice Bake:

Total prep time was about 25 minutes, but could have been a breeze if I already had left-over rice or ground sausage ready to go.  Very easy to put together and the ingredients were easy to find.

The flavor of the recipe was strong and delicious.  I don’t normally use sausage or brown rice in recipes (because of my kids), but I loved it! My husband and I really enjoyed it, but felt that something was missing or that there could have been something else in it. 

I felt it was a very affordable meal as there are only a few ingredients – most of which you probably already have.  It would even be good as a side at a family Mexican night.

Turkey Lasagna:

I only spent 15 minutes getting my Lasagna ready and assembled into the crock pot.  It was my first time ever making lasagna and found it to be very easy and quick to throw together.   My husband loved this Lasagna and even had 3rds.  My kids weren’t as thrilled but they are very picky eaters.  We would definitely make this again in future.  The flavor was delicious.  At the store, I could only find an Italian Turkey sausage and figured that would work for the lasagna and it really amped the flavor.  Adding the mozzarella cheese, the ricotta cheese and the sausage, I wouldn’t say it’s a very cheap meal but still on the affordable side as it goes a long way.  Based solely on taste, we would definitely pick the Turkey Lasagna to win.

Here is Mindy's Review:

Salsa Rice Bake:  

I pretty much loved this dish.  First let me just say that Jimmy Dean pre-cooked turkey sausage crumbles may be my best friend.  I have an unhealthy fear of raw meat so this made the meal so doable for me :)  Since I didn't have to cook or season the turkey sausage the prep work was super easy.  I made the rice in my rice cooker, and when it was done I mixed everything together in the crockpot.  No hard to find ingredients here.  I sort of loved it.  May have had 3 helpings.  I loved the way the flavors blended together and the sour cream was super tasty with it.  I was worried that it wouldn't be very filling but the brown rice and sausage made it hearty.  My 7 year old picky eater loved it and my 5 year old who eats everything snubbed it.  Go figure.  This meal is pretty budget friendly (thought if you get the lazy person sausage like I did it costs a bit more).  Yum.  Too bad all the leftovers are gone...

Turkey Lasagna:

Gotta say I was pretty excited to learn that I could make lasagna in the crockpot!  It was also quite nice to not have to deal with layering cooked noodles.  This meal was fairly easy to prep (especially since I used my pre-cooked sausage crumbles again).  There was a little bit of veggie chopping (though I just couldn't bring myself to use the peppers or mushrooms, so I used zucchini and I highly recommend it!)  Then just mix and layer-awesome!  I only have a 4-qt soup pot style crockpot so I was worried about not being able to fit enough noodles in.  I ended up only using 6, but it turned out just fine.  We will totally make this again-the kids loved it and I didn't even hear a complaint about the zucchini :).  It tasted great but I did notice that the noodles were a little bit mushy.  The meal was also pretty affordable. 

So the final four recipes are:  Cordon Bleu Soup, Hawaiian Chicken, Cafe Rio Beef and Turkey Lasagna...more results soon!

Final Four Recipes

Pin It Anyone up for trying 2 recipes this week as part of the March Madness Tourney?? We have 4 recipes left and I need to get it down to 2. If you're interested email me at karenbellessapetersen@gmail.com (the deadline for the recipes is Saturday, so it's kind of short).
 

March Madness Round 3 Results

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Here's where we stand after 3 rounds of the tournament.  The last eight recipes standing are:  

Beef and Barley Soup,

Cordon Bleu Soup, 

Beef Gyros, 

Cafe Rio Beef, 

Massaman Curry, 

Hawaiian Chicken, 

Turkey Lasagna, and the 

Salsa Rice Bake.

Cordon Bleu Soup

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Coconut Soup	10	30	50	2
Cordon Bleu Soup	10	30	48	8
Recipe 1 notes and review: It was so hard to pick a winner this round because both soups were so good.  It truly came down to the value of the two soups.  When I think of soup I think of something that will feed my family of 5 for under $10.00 and have leftovers for lunch the next day.  The Coconut Thai Soup was so wonderful and my husband went back for seconds telling me it is restaurant quality, but it was so expensive to make.  Not only that I had a very hard time finding all the ingredients and had to settle for substitutes on two of the ingredients.  Now that I have the ingredients I will definitely be making again.  I would also double this recipe.  We barely had enough for dinner and only one bowl of leftovers.  I was also confused by the step of microwaving the onions and ginger.  I have never done that before.  It made my house smell instantly wonderful, but it kinda mellowed out towards the end and I was thinking the flavor was going to be kinda flat.  Because I added all the spices back in at the end it was not the case at all.  Next time I will just dump and go.  One less step for me to do at prep time and 4-6 hours should be plenty of time to soften ingredients.
Recipe 2 notes and review: The Cordon Bleu Soup was a bit pricy as well so I took some points off for that but it was just because I had to make the trip to the store to buy the meat and and cheese.  I was plesently surprised that I had all the spices and It was so exciting to use tarragon!  I love that spice.  Not only that the tarragon mixed with the basil was so YUMMY.  More of my kids ate the Cordon Bleu soup but they all agreed it didn't really tast like chicken cordon bleu so it lost a few points for overall flavor.  Chicken, ham, and cheese are the three most favorite ingredients in my house so my kids all voted for the Cordon Bleu soup.  This will definitely be cooked again at my house.  Good luck next round Cordon Bleu Soup.

Final Score:

Coconut Soup:  92

Cordon Bleu Soup:  96

Review by Jody

Beef Gyros

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Beef Gyros	7	28	50	8
Roast Beef Sliders	9	25	35	8
Recipe 1 notes and review: This was an easy recipe to make.  The steak cooked up nice and tender.  Making the cucumber dill sauce took the longest, but dicing up the cucumber and mixing it with yogurt and dill doesn’t really take that long, but I made it the night before so I didn’t have to do anything to do but assemble the gyro Wednesday night for dinner.  I had all the ingredients on hand for the cucumber dill sauce.  The cucumber dill sauce made the gyro.  I used the leftover sauce on my wraps the rest of the week for lunch.  I did have to buy pitas and the meat but this could easily be served on tortillas that I always have on hand.  I will definitely be making these again.
Recipe 2 notes and review: This was also an easy recipe to make.  Only had to buy the meat, rolls, and soup because it was one kind that I didn’t already have in my pantry but planning for both recipes ahead of time would be very doable.  This recipe was good but not a whole lot different than other roast beef or pulled beef recipes.  The banana peppers on the finished product did add an extra zing that I really liked.  It was fun to serve them on a mini-bun (I used potato rolls because I couldn’t find mini-buns) rather than my typical wheat buns.  I would make this again but not anytime real soon.  This is a once or twice a year recipe.

Final Score:

Beef Gyros:  93

Roast Sliders:  77

Review by Traci

Cafe Rio Beef

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Shredded pork salad	10	20	50	5
Rio beef	8	20	50	8
Recipe 1 notes and review: It tasted good, but the picnic pork shoulder was rather expensive.  We buy our beef by the side, so beef for me is much cheaper.  However, it was easy to make and very tasty.  My oldest son thought it made really good tacos.   I liked the fact that the pork took very little prep to get into the crockpot.
Recipe 2 notes and review: it was good!  Too spicy for the kids, but I loved it.  Lots of interesting flavor.  However, the dressing was not as good as it sounded in the description.  I can’t imagine liking this dressing enough to lick it off my plate.  It  was okay, but I probably wouldn’t bother with the dressing if I make this again.   Finding green enchilada sauce was a challenge, even in the Mexican bodegas around here.

Final Score:

Shredded Pork:  85

Rio Beef:  86

Review by Tammy

Massman Curry

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Massaman Curry	8	30	48	7
Mushroom Tarragon Chick	7	28	50	7
Recipe 1 notes and review: The massaman curry is really easy to put together.  Cubing the potatoes is the hardest part.  I usually have all the ingredients on hand except the coconut milk, which is fairly easy to find.  I have made this recipe numerous times because my husband requests it often.  The flavor is delicious and is easy to make spicier or more mild, if desired.  Using the thighs is inexpensive and once the other ingredients are purchased they last for a long time.  My husband and kids loved this and ate it all.  That is why I ended up choosing it.  It scored a bit higher on likeliness of making it again just because all of my family will eat it happily.
Recipe 2 notes and review:  I love this recipe!  I forgot how good it was until I made it again this week.  The flavor is delicious but not overpowering.  I love mushrooms so anything with mushrooms I am a fan of.  I only scored this lower because my kids wouldn't eat it :( I'm sad to see you go Mushroom Tarragon Chicken!  I wish both recipes could win!

Final Score: 

Massaman Curry:  93

Mushroom Tarragon Chicken:  92

Review by me, Karen Petersen

Hawaiian Chicken

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Chicken and Broccoli Pasta	7	6	30	7
Hawaiian Chicken	10	30	50	10
Recipe 1 notes and review: I used 8 chicken breast tenders instead of thighs. We didn't feel like it would have made that big of a difference. We did enjoy the overall flavor of the whole dish, but thought that the chicken itself was a little bland, although it really wasn't all that dry. That's why the flavor points are lower. We would eat the recipe again, however I would probably do some tweaking on the chicken. I think instead of salt and peppering it at the beginning, I would probably use garlic salt and pepper. We had to buy extra ingredients for this one. I don't keep tapioca powder or white wine vinegar normally, but those types of ingredients are usable again and again. It did also involve some extra prep time with chopping all the vegetables. This recipe made enough for our family of 4 to have it twice. Neither of our kids loved it, but they did eat it both times I served it to them. I did like that it was healthy with the extra veggies and the whole wheat pasta.
Recipe 2 notes and review: I actually went ahead and halved this recipe, I used 8 chicken breast tenders instead of the 3 thighs. I also used a crockpot liner and tied it to keep the chicken nice and moist. We enjoyed this one and thought that the chicken had more flavor than the other recipe, that's why it got a better score. Halving the chicken worked out fine, but I wished that I had made the full amount of sauce. The sauce was good, but we tend to like things really saucy and wished for more of the Hawaiian/sweet pineapple flavor. I thought this had a great value, because I had everything on hand, but the tapioca that I had already bought for the other recipe. I loved that it was a really quick throw the meal in the crockpot and go. I think I spent maybe 15 minutes making this whole meal. Our kids both liked this one better.

Final Score:

Chicken and Broccoli Pasta: 50

Hawaiian Chicken: 100

Review by Cathy

Turkey Lasagna

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Ham & Swiss Frittata	10	15	30	7
Turkey Lasagna	7	25	45	5
Recipe 1 notes and review: This was an easy recipe to follow with fairly simple ingredients, all of which I had on hand. The prep work was simple and I had it ready to cook in a short amount of time. I had a few issues in the cooking of it (turns out my crockpot cooks VERY slowly) and we had to eat much later than anticipated.  My family liked the meal but it turns out they would rather have cheddar instead of Swiss cheese in it.  I am much more likely to make again in the oven instead of the crockpot.  I served it for dinner but I think it would have gone over much better had it been a breakfast or brunch type of meal.  It was served with the bacon on top which always makes everything better!  I have a hard time assessing the actual cost since I didn’t purchase anything just for this recipe but I’m sure by the time you’ve added up the cost of eggs, cheese, ham and bacon it isn’t cheap.
Recipe 2 notes and review: Finding turkey sausage for this recipe proved a little challenging but in the end I was able get something that would work, buying turkey sausage breakfast patties. I broke apart the patties while browning the sausage to get the meat as it is called for in the recipe.  All other preparation for this meal was super easy.  I finely chopped up the red pepper and the mushrooms so they weren’t so noticeable when eating since my kids will refuse them when identifiable.  The plan worked and they had no idea that these ingredients they claim they didn’t like were happily eaten.  Everyone loved the lasagna and my only hesitation in making it again is that my husband prefers traditional lasagna compared to those done in a crockpot.  But it’s an easy to prepare meal and would be nice for a day when I am busy and can’t spend the afternoon getting dinner ready. With pricey turkey sausage, Parmesan cheese, mozzarella, mushrooms and red bell pepper it wasn’t the most inexpensive meal but the taste makes it a winner, hands down, in my book.

Final Score: 

Frittata:  62

Lasagna:  82

Review by:  Michelle

Salsa Rice Bake

Recipe:	Prep time/ease of ingredients (10 points)	Likeliness of making it again (30 points)	Overall flavor (50 points)	Value $ (10 points)
Salsa Rice Bake	6	29	47	9
Artichoke Dip	7	28	48	6
Recipe 1 notes and review:  My family loved the taste of this recipe!  Having to prepare the rice in advance while understandable was kind of a pain along with the aluminum foil collar but not as much as the fact that it was done in two hours and would really only be something we could only do on the weekends.  The value at right around $11 was terrific and my wife and daughter both had seconds.  If you have family members that are sensitive to spicy food the whole can of peppers may need to be cut in half as my daughter kept commenting on the heat but the rest of the flavor was so good she had seconds.  To summarize: Prep-time limits us to weekends but flavor and value will definitely put this dish in our regular rotation.
Recipe 2 notes and review:  This recipe was billed as an artichoke-spinach dip every bit as good as one you could find in a restaurant, and on this, I TOTALLY AGREE!  The preparation was very easy to follow but getting the artichokes chopped up and spinach dried out added some time.  At around $20 it was a little more than some people may like to pay for an appetizer, even though it makes quite a bit.  The flavor was really good and rich and is definitely a recipe we will use again for parties and when our friends tried it, they loved it as well.  Overall this recipe could compete with any restaurant or deli made spinach artichoke dip but the fact that it did not really provide a NEW flavor twist and its value kept it from scoring higher.

Final Score:

Salsa Rice:  91

Artichoke Dip:  89

Review by Mark (our one and only male volunteer!!!)

Things I'm surprised by?  Artichoke dip is out and Beef and Barley Soup is STILL in!  

I can't wait to see who makes it to the final four!!!!!