Area cook’s dish tastes like victory

Published 7:56 pm Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Snohomish County’s recipe whiz has won big again.

Elizabeth Bennett, a home-cooking guru from Mill Creek, won $10,000 on Wednesday in the National Beef Cook-Off in Sonoma, Calif., with her recipe for Sonoma ranch steak salad.

Despite the challenge of cooking over a hot grill in 95-degree weather, despite being the last of the 15 finalists to present her dish to the judges, Bennett’s culinary skills stood out.

“I’m thrilled to have won my category. The competition was fierce, so I am truly honored that the judges liked my dish,” said Bennett, whose airfare, lodging and meals were paid for by the contest sponsors. “This has been an amazing three days.”

This is the second time the 39-year-old event planner and marketing consultant has brought home the big bucks for creating an original recipe and cooking it live for a panel of judges.

Bennett won $10,000 in 2006 in Sutter Home’s Build a Better Burger contest with her Mediterranean-inspired lamb burger. She was also a finalist in the $1 million Pillsbury Bake-Off last year.

Though Bennett didn’t take home the National Beef Cook-Off’s $25,000 Best of Beef grand prize — that went to Mary Hawkes of Prescott, Ariz. — Bennett beat four other finalists in her category.

She tried to bring out beef’s “Sonoma Style,” the theme of this year’s contest, by layering three of her favorite dishes: grilled steak with a dry rub, a butter bean and spinach hummus and a modified Greek salad.

Sherry Hill, the cook-off’s program manager, said Bennett seemed calm cooking outdoors on a brand-new Weber Genesis gas grill.

“She was nervous, but most of the contestants were,” Hill said. “She was well poised and certainly presented herself really well.”

Bennett said she easily completed and plated her dish in the 65 minutes allowed.

Her only regret was leaving fresh basil, one of her ingredients and her garnish, in the hot sun instead of in a cooler.

“I was able to find five really nice leaves,” she said. “I was really pleased with how my plates looked going to the judges.”

Bennett, who lives with her husband, Michael, and their black Lab, Rogue, has entered up to 30 recipe contests per year in recent years. This year she had time to enter only about 10 because of her busy full-time work schedule.

In the face of the recession, Bennett is planning to save most of her winnings.

Her 40th birthday is coming up in November, however, and she’s planning a trip with three of her college girlfriends to celebrate at Suncadia resort near Cle Elum.

“I’m sure a portion of the winnings will go to spa day,” she said.

Bennett’s recipe was chosen as a semifinalist earlier this year from more than 2,400 entries.

Sixty of those entries made it to a test-kitchen round of judging. Bennett’s recipe was selected from those as one of 15 finalists who competed in one of three categories in the contest, which is held every other year by members of the beef industry.

Morgan Hanrahan of Olympia won $10,000 in the Teens Cooking with Beef category, while Kristina Vanni of Hollywood, Calif., won the same amount in the Live Well with Fast and Convenient Grilled Beef Recipes category.

Hawkes’ grand prize recipe, grilled beef top loin steaks with zucchini, yellow bell pepper and red grape tomatoes and herb-marinated fresh mozzarella balls, came from the Live Well category. Three other cooks won runner-up prizes of $5,000 each.

Five judges critiqued the dishes based on taste, appearance, convenience of preparation and nutritional balance.

Bennett, who has found a whole new circle of friends in her past few years in national cooking contests, said she would never dream of taking her skills to the professional level because it would make her ineligible for contests.

“No way,” she said. “I’m having too much fun right now as an amateur participating in these great cook-offs.”

It’s not about the money either, she said.

“I just love food a lot, really,” she said. “There are some people who eat to live and I kind of live to eat.”

Sarah Jackson writes for the Herald of Everett.