Cooking contests are brutal. You never know what’s going to turn the judging panel on or turn them off.  Probably the Mack daddy of the cooking recipe contest circuit is the Pillsbury Bake-Off, with a million dollar prize on the line. This year, 2013, marks the 46^th Pillsbury Bake-Off.  I’ve never entered it before, but I’ve finally decided to get out of the balcony and into the ring!

The first round was Dobable Dinners. To have a shot at being a winner, you have to be innovative and tasty with your recipes, yet at the same time, simple. The guidelines and rules were tough, calling for a maximum of seven ingredients of which two must be the sponsors’ products. Goodie-goodie, salt, pepper and water were ‘free’ ingredients! Additionally, the total preparation time had to be 30 minutes or less.

The first thing I did was head to the grocery store and bought a small fortune of blue tubes, that is, Pillsbury products. I bought everything from biscuits and cinnamon rolls to pizza dough, crescent rolls and piecrusts.  I just had no idea what would spark in my brain.  Then, of course, there were other sponsor products I wanted to have on hand as inspiration set in, such as Green Giant (I think I wiped out the inventory at City Market!), then I loaded up on lots of Smuckers, jelly, jams and fruit (dang, the store brands are so much cheaper!). Oh! Of course I couldn’t forget some JIF products. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the mocha cappuccino spread anywhere so I resorted to ordering from Amazon and nearly dropped my teeth at the cost with shipping—16 buckaroos!  And, yep, I also threw into my cart some Crisco products and Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk. It was a very expensive venture.  There was no doubt I’d surely be throwing out a lot of my creations as they’d be inedible or disgustingly disturbed.

For over two weeks, I was incessantly obsessed with creating a Doable dinner.  And, when I say obsessed, I mean didn’t do anything else.  I dreamt about recipes.  I awoke each morning and jotted down ideas and to put together different combinations of my limited seven ingredients.  I dared anyone to come into my kitchen domain and mess with me. Family and friends feared for their lives! My first three recipes that I made and had my family eat were pathetically gross.  Your family and friends have to be brutally honest otherwise you’re in big trouble.  I was getting majorly disappointed. How was I making this so incredibly difficult?

Finally, I decided to let go of the desire to make something winning and just tried to make something that was good to eat, easy to prepare and fun to serve.  When I changed my mindset, I was able to create another eight recipes; still no easy task and it took a lot of time.  I would make the recipe not once or twice but sometimes three times to get my timing correct or to tweak an ingredient.  Then there was the photography. I had to have pictures because if any of the recipes wasn’t a winner, I wanted to use it for another recipe contest and/or on my website.  Dual purposing is so important in foodie blogging and contests!

The next part of the process that was nerve wracking was uploading the recipes to the website. I uploaded them, all eight, over the next three weeks or so.  I must say there was a thumping in my chest and almost a shortness of breath as I cut and pasted. Everything was critical!  I would let these recipes sit in the archives for days and not hit submit but rather, went back to read and re-read.  I had a trusted friend review the recipes to ensure that they were understandable. I have a tendency to use way too many words and simplicity is so important in this contest! Thank goodness I asked my friend to review them because she came back with things that were unclear to her. Finally, the time came that I had to go to the website and click submit. Geez, why was this so hard!  There was a sigh of relief, but, I also was kind of in an addictive mode. I was really diggin’ these little blue tubes! I had to force myself to stop the madness. Besides, I was putting on some extra pounds and starting to look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy!  Now, it was time to wait and see if I’d get an email or phone call from Pillsbury.

This first round of the Pillsbury Bake-Off probably consumed over 50 hours of my time and several hundred dollars in products and other ingredients. Maybe I made it too hard, maybe I over-thought it, maybe my estimations of prep timing were askew, but the bottom line is that none of my recipes made it to the top picks and believe me, I checked everything and everyway someone could find me—cell phone, email, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, snail mail—nothing, nada, zip, zero!  Obviously, what I thought were pretty darn good entries they didn’t have the ‘uuumph’ or whatever the judges were looking for. Yep, it’s hugely disappointing, defeating, and a confidence zapper, but what do you do?  Curl up, head for a rock or cave, tuck your tail and run?

Hell NO!  You get ready for the second round of the Pillsbury Bake-Off —Sweets and Starters! You look at those little blue tubes and start cackling like a mad scientist ready to gear up the lab!  I have a lot of the tubes nesting in my refrigerator ready to use, so they’re going to be morphed into creations that just could be the next million-dollar winner! Enjoy looking at some of my ‘Doable Dinners’ entries I’ve included in this post.

Hey, I thought these were killer ideas (so did my food critics who gave them thumbs up!) but what do I know? Only the Dough Boy knows for sure. There are always other contests. I might re-fashion some of these ideas into something new.  So much of any adventure in life is all about the chatter in your head, your outlook, and your resiliency!  Attitude in competitions is supreme. If you get knocked down, you get your butt up and get back in the ring.  Remember, if you wanna run with the big dogs, then hike up your leg and give it your best shot!

Read more at http://www.allyskitchen.com/