Be My Valentine recipe challenge

Welcome to the 3rd recipe challenge organized on Very Good Recipes!

The theme for this challenge has been selected by 10 food bloggers who have kindly accepted to be the judges for the challenge. Each judge is also presenting his or her own recipe of the theme they selected. The judges will select the winners at the end of the challenge (and of course they cannot win).

The Judges

The judges for this month are:

• Han Ker from Hankerie
• Irini from Irini Savva
• Katie from Down Home Foodie
• Kristen from Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker
• Leslie from Culinary Chronicles
• Michelle from The Adirondack Chick
• Minna from Naked Plate
• Simcha from Turkish Cooking Everyday
• Teri from The Freshman Cook

Thanks a lot to the food bloggers who volunteered to become judges! The judges change every month, so there will be an opportunity to be a judge for all the bloggers who want it. Please e-mail me if you would like to become a judge for an upcoming challenge.

Theme

This month theme is: Be My Valentine.

There are many ways to express your love to your loved ones, and cooking is definitively one of them!

Valentine's Day is on February 14th, but you have almost all month (until February 27th) to participate in the Be My Valentine challenge. To make it more of a challenge, the judges added an extra rule: your dish needs to include something Red, the color of Love!

Participating

The challenge is open to everyone, whether you have a food blog or not.

In order to participate, you need to enter a recipe on the theme "Be My Valentine", with something Red in your dish.

• If you have a food blog registered on Very Good Recipes, you just need to publish your recipe on your blog with a link to the challenge page http://verygoodrecipes.com/be-my-valentine-challenge in the text of your recipe. It will then be automatically listed on this page. (if you don't see it after 30 minutes, please e-mail me)
• If you have a food blog (or a blog with a recipe category or label) but are not yet registered on Very Good Recipes, you can register in 30 seconds.
• If you do not have a blog, you can participate by sending me your recipe with one or more pictures. I will publish your recipe on Very Good Recipe's blog so that it can be displayed on the challenge page.

Rules:

• There must be at least one picture in your recipe, and both the recipe and picture need to be your own. If your recipe is inspired by another, please mention it in your recipe.
• You cannot use an already published recipe to participate in the challenge, you need to publish a new recipe (otherwise there's no challenge!)
• We would love to have participations from all around the world, including from blogs in languages other than English. Please do include an English translation of your recipe in your post though. :-) If you need help with the translation (proofreading etc.), we will be glad to help if we can.
• You can participate with only one recipe.

You can participate from Friday February 3rd 2012 until Monday February 27th 2012 included.

Prizes

The judges will select the winning recipes.

1st place

For this challenge, I wanted to offer something truly special and unique, something that would be tailor made for the winner. So I asked Poppy who is both a talented food blogger and a professional illustrator to draw an illustration for the winner. Once the results are known, Poppy will draw a surprise illustration inspired by the winning recipe and/or the winner's blog.

Here are some sample illustrations from Poppy. The winner will receive a similar one, made just for her or him!

Can you guess what the man and woman are thinking in the last drawing? (answer a bit below! :-)

Laurels and badge

All the participants will receive a badge with laurels that will be displayed on Very Good Recipes (on their page and in the huge list of food blogs). You can also display it on your blog or your challenge recipe if you want to.

Feel free to add the badge to your recipe (HTML code below):

<div style="text-align:center;">
<img src="http://verygoodrecipes.com/images/badges/be-my-valentine-challenge/1.90x120.png" width="90" height="120" />
<a href="http://verygoodrecipes.com/be-my-valentine-challenge">Be My Valentine Challenge</a><br />
on <a href="http://verygoodrecipes.com/">Very Good Recipes</a>
</div>

Winners will get gold, silver and bronze laurels.

If your recipe is heart-shaped, you can also participate in the Valentine Hearts project until February 14th!

Answer

In the last illustration, he is thinking "She's so beautiful!" and she is thinking "My cake is so beautiful!". :-)

Have fun!

Thanks a lot to the judges for making this challenge possible!

I hope you will enjoy the challenge and that many of you will participate! Have fun!

Results

Thanks a lot for submitting so many wonderful Valentine recipes!

The judges have chosen the Chocolate Brownie Cream Cheese Sandwich from Rosh of Chef Al Dente. Congratulations Rosh!

Valentine's Special: Chocolate Brownie Cream Cheese Sandwich By Chef Al dente

I would also like to mention the runner-ups:

Blancmange with strawberries By Bake-a-mania

Pomegranate cranberry hearts By spabettie

Cuore di formaggio salato - Savory heart cheese By CIBO VINO E PAROLE ...

Thank you everyone! You can now participate in the March recipe challenge, the Saint-Patrick's Day Recipe Challenge.