Recipe Disaster

This coming Saturday, we are hosting our monthly game night. Since it is likely to be our last, we are having a special game based on the Food Network's "Chopped". The game requires players to use mystery ingredients in preparing a three course meal. Each course gets new mystery ingredients. Our variation was to have each person prepare one course (an appetizer) using four ingredients determined by the players themselves. Four players submitted one ingredient each. The four players did not know the other three ingredients until after all four had been chosen. The "mystery" ingredients were then given out to everyone two weeks prior to our game night.

The four ingredients were honey, corn, garlic, and chicken. No too bad of a mix considering what the show "Chopped" usually dishes out.

Tonight, I decided to practice my recipe or recipes to see if any of them would be worthy of the competition. I can safely say that the competition has nothing to worry about from me. I will also tell you what I WILL NOT be fixing for game night.

I WILL NOT serve the following:

Honey Garlic Chicken Cornbread muffins - cornbread muffins with chicken, sweet kernel corn, honey and garlic mixed into the batter. This was the best of the group, but it lacked the punch to take home the trophy.

Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Honey Garlic Cornbread Muffins - This was a big disappointment. I "stole" our friend Jennifer's recipe for Buffalo Chicken Dip and I baked some inside of the corn bread muffins. The batter for these muffins had honey, garlic and sweet kernel corn, but no chicken since the muffins were to be stuffed with the Buffalo Chicken Dip. I really thought this would turn out better than it did. The flavors did not go together quite the way I had hoped.

BBQ Chicken and Corn Dip - I found this recipe online and thought I would give it a try. The original recipe had all of the ingredients except honey, but adding a little honey to barbeque sauce is no big deal. The recipe however did not turn out as a dip like it was suppose to. It seemed more like a chicken and corn stew with BBQ sauce as the broth/gravy. Go ahead and say it -- it's exactly what I am thinking. (I can't even finish writing this because of the tears from laughing so hard.) You really had to see this. It more pitiful than disgusting, but I wouldn't even feed it to the dogs, it looked so bad. The closest I can come to describing it is to think of baked beans, only with corn instead of beans. You couldn't even see the chicken.

I won't reveal my backup recipe, but I am expecting it to turn out a little bit better. Wish me luck.