Paper Chef winners and more

OK, despite all my intentions I am not getting updates done at anything like an acceptable pace. However, in an effort to keep moving, here are the official winner(s) of Paper Chef 25. Since we had a couple of single dish entrants and a couple of multiple dish entrants I am going to just decide to have a singel dish winner and a multiple dish winner this time around.

As usual, it is practically impossible to make any kind of differentiation – the entries are always all so very good. But a choice must be made. So for nest single dish entry, the winner is Mrs Anderson (Heather) of Gild the Voodoolily for her chowder. Abby of eat the right stuff was a worthy runner up (and not a first time entrant as I had said) for her smoked aubergine and elephant garlic soup. And we also had Jonski Farms enter a burger, dip, almost-bengan bhartha combo.

Hard as that decision was, the multiple entry was even harder, especially since the two entrants are two of my all time favorite food blogs ever. Both of them have won Paper Chef before. Both could write knockout cookbooks (and should!) I thought about awarding a tie but that would be a cop out. So I thought and thought and thought some more. And ended up giving the win to Ilva of Lucullian Delights because the pasta dish she made is so simple. Runners up are the Belly Timber crew and especially their ‘Oven-roasted Indian eggplants filled with a paste made from the extras on hand: bell pepper, garlic, chives, Thai chiles, and more of that delicious cherry-smoked cod.’

I am going to ask that all four winners and runners up be part of the next judging panel if time allows – let me know if you are up for it – the next Paper Chef will be kicking off very shortly.