Here we are, finally!
Winners of the Fiesta Friday Healthy Recipe Challenge have been selected and are ready to be announced.
Big thanks to all who participated. You have made it fun and exciting for everyone involved with your unbridled enthusiasm and genuine willingness to challenge yourself.
In the process, you have encouraged and inspired one another to embrace the concept of thinking outside the box. To do something out of the norm or ordinary.
And to go where no man or woman had gone before… Oh, well…maybe not that far, but you did stare a challenge in the eye, rose to the occasion and came out all the better for it.
Selecting a handful of winners from such an impressive pool of entries was not an easy task. After much hand-wringing, hair-pulling, and nail-biting, I still wasn’t able to narrow down my selections.
That was when my daughter suggested that I create a scoring guide rubric. Brilliant! How did she get to be so smart? She didn’t take after her mom, that’s for sure.
I broke down the rubric into the following criteria: creativity, originality, technique, and presentation. And because I couldn’t taste the results, I applied one other consideration.
The challenge asked that greens and pineapple be used in a single recipe. The overall recipe should reflect that the two required ingredients be used in a cohesive manner.
In other words, they both should be an integral part of the recipe, and not just an afterthought or garnish that can easily be left out. That became the fifth criteria.
A score of 1 – 5 was applied to each criteria.
I looked closely and tediously at every single recipe, applied the scores and didn’t tally until all entries were scored.
At the end of the process, I had one clear winner for 1st place, but I was surprised to see that two entries were tied for 2nd place. I had to review the two recipes once again, and decided that one was a healthier recipe than the other and that was how I came up with 2nd and 3rd places.
Another surprise was that 3 other entries were tied for 4th place, very closely behind the 3rd place. However, there wasn’t any prize promised for 4th place. Instead, I will give them honorable mentions.
I hope all of you can understand the decision-making that I put myself through. You can tell it was exhaustive and as fair as I could possibly make it to be. It was extremely difficult but I’m pleased with the results.
Without further ado, the winners of Fiesta Friday Healthy Recipe Challenge are:
1st Place
2nd Place
Salad Rolls with Pineapple and Pineapple Mint Dipping Sauce
3rd Place
Thai Pineapple Fried Rice with Kale
Honorable Mentions
Grilled Pineapple-King Fish Kebabs In Spicy Spinach Marinade
Chicken Spinach Flatbread Wraps With Grilled Pineapple Salsa
Carnitas-Filled Pineapple Ravioli with Crispy Kale
Let’s have a round of applause, please! ???
If you’re one of the winners, please email me your address, so I can send you the prize.
And if you didn’t win this time, please don’t hate me. I promise there will be more challenges in the future!
Congrats all! Really had a great time participatin!
Thanks for participating, Lin! I’m glad you had fun! ?
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Congratulations to all the winners, very well deserved! ??????
Thanks for participating, Elaine! Guess what?! Found and bought freeze dried pineapple. At Target! Will try your recipes since they sound so yummy. Wish we could let taste be the deciding factor. Maybe we’ll have to incorporate that next time, but I would need helpers to do it. Can’t possibly cook all the recipes on my own! ?
Excellent! Have fun experimenting!
Congratulations to all the winners!? They all look so delicious!?
Please do another challenge sometime! Maybe once your hair and nails have grown back from all the pulling and biting?lol. I had so much fun being challenged to get creative in the kitchen! (I think all of us did?)
Lol, it’d be a while before they grow back; they’ve been reduced to stubbles. Thanks for participating, Ai. I’m glad you had fun!
Wow great picks and Congratulations to the winners. Delicious choices!!
So glad you approved, Suzanne! Thanks for participating. I love your smoothie and in a real life event, it’d prob win based on taste. Too bad we can’t taste, huh? ?
Congratulations to everyone who entered and to this year’s winners! What inventive, beautiful dishes! I know you had your hands full trying to pick from such a talented pool.
I almost asked you to help! But then I decided to suffer alone, lol ?
Congratulations everyone! And thanks Angie for hosting and managing to find a way to judge all the tasty entries!
It was very, very hard!! I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a state of agony before. I must have kept changing my mind a thousand times! Everything looks so delicious! Thanks for participating! I hope you had fun!
Angie,
Wow! For once I am at a loss for words. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! And do thank your smart daughter on my behalf too.
My husband and I were to leave for Cancun that week and I said to him “I have to do this challenge before we leave” so you can see how much fun I had with the challenge.
Once we were back, I really enjoyed visiting the other blogs with their amazing entries. It was fascinating to see how many different ways greens and pineapple can be used in a recipe. I am always impressed by the pool of talented bloggers at Fiesta Friday and have bookmarked quite a few recipes to try.
Thanks again! You have made my day!!!!!!
Congratulations, Sandhya! I’m so thrilled to have made your day! Your Spa Salad is just simply stunning. I can tell you took your time composing it, including carving the heart-shaped apple pieces. And the techniques used (massaging, tempering, etc.) are inspirational and eye-opening. My daughter said you’re welcome! She was happy that your entry won ? I’ll be talking to you again via email.
Wow.. that’s a great result.. loved all the participating recipes and of course the winning ones too.. thank you so much for the honorable mention ?!! I am sure that you would be relieved after declaring the result.. ??
I feel like now I can finally sleep, Nimmi, hehe… It feels like finals are over and I’m free! ?? Congratulations on the honorable mention; it’s such a clever recipe incorporating spinach in the marinade! ??
Thank you so much dear?
hi Angie
Thank you so much for the mention! I am indeed honored! Amazing dishes and a brilliant challenge! 🙂 xx
Congratulations, Petra! I’m so pleased to be able to give you an honorable mention; it was a uniquely creative recipe! ??
xx
Hey Angie! Well thanks a million for this!! I feel so very honoured to have won second prize among all of these beautiful entries! Honestly it was so much fun watching what everyone came up with. And you deserve a prize for all of your time and energy putting together this challenge and then the huge task of scoring all the recipes! Bravo to you, and congratulations to all the winners! 😀
Congratulations, Julianna! All your recipes are exceptional! I’m so pleased you placed in the top three ?? Seriously it was a lot of fun for me, too. Except for the scoring part ? I had so much fun I forgot to share my own recipes! ?
Absolutely no hate from me, Angie!! Well done, everyone! Wonderful recipes and presentation for sure!
It was so fun doing this challenge. Can’t wait for the next!
You’re a good sport! ?? I’m so glad you had fun! Thanks for participating! ?
Congrats to the winners- this was such a fun exercise in creativity! Loved it- thanks for the fun of it!
Thanks for participating! I’m so glad you had fun!
Wonderful picks and congrats to the winners. Looking forward to participating in many more challenges 🙂
Wow! Congratulations to the winners!
??? Next time you MUST participate! ?
I will Angie. I’m sorry I haven’t been around much lately and I appreciate your invitation. I’m working on better time management these days.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Same here! No worries! Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤️❤️
Oh my gosh, thanks Angie! I can’t believe I made the top three – don’t get me wrong, I loved the Pineapple Fried Rice but I was just awed by all the creativity I saw from everyone. Every time I saw a new link I was like “Why didn’t I think of that?” lol!!
It was so fun to see all these amazing bloggers step up to this challenge – the challenge that seemed odd at first but won me over and really changed the way I think about food! Do it again, once you recover! Happy Valentine’s Day!!
You won for a number of reasons. Not least of all would be the carving of the pineapple to make into a boat! That must have taken you some time to do! And your technique is sound, i.e. wringing out the kale and not overcrowding the pan (both I neglected to do when I made mine and that’s why my fried rice wasn’t the best). So, congratulations, Mollie! It’s well deserved ?? I’m very pleased with the results. Send me your address, please. It may a while before you get your first magazine, though. Usually 6-8 weeks.
Well, thanks again! That little step with the kale made all the difference and the kale still really picked up all the flavors and remained fresh and lovely. I think kale and pineapple are a marriage made in heaven, now!
I’m looking forward to getting the magazine! I think there will be a lot of down home recipes my folks will love!!
Don’t forget to email me your address!
I did forget!! I’ll do it now, Angie!!
Congratulations to all of the winners! Everything looks delicious and I love all of the ideas. Thank you Angie for coming up with this idea, and going through the painstaking process of selecting winners. I am looking forward to your next challenge!
?Wow! Angie, thank you so much! With all the lovely entries, I didn’t expect that I’ll make it this far. Such an honor to belong to the honorable mention. I am doing my happy dance?? I am beyond delighted that you liked what I shared – I really had fun doing this for the challenge. Thank you for all your efforts (and your daughter as well) – the sleepless nights and all… just for this final exam of yours?
Congrats to everyone – awesome job!???
It was a successful recipe, Jhuls! ?? Your use of the greens in the bread dough is a great one. As a matter of fact that was the first thing I did when I was experimenting. So you see, great minds think alike ? Thanks for participating! I’m glad you had fun! ?
Congratulations to all the winners! I imagine it was a daunting task to select the winners having so many recipes to choose from. Well done to everyone!
That was the worst and least enjoyable part, but I’m happy with the results. Thanks so much for participating, Monika. I hope you had fun!
Yes I did! Thanks:)