With the first version of the Prepper Cook-Off Challenge coming to a close we are happy to report that it was spectacular success. With the internet at our fingertips, finding elaborate recipes is easy to do. We are inundated with beautiful food photography, accompanied by long ingredient lists and complicated processes. Finding simple recipes with modest ingredients is much more rare.

Part of homesteading is the ability to maximize your available resources and, even though this challenge was for fun, these entries are all excellent examples of how to make tasty food with limited ingredients. The creativity used to come up with these meals would even be well served in anyone's day-to-day cooking. Many of these recipes, with a few tweaks, would be perfectly acceptable meals even before the apocalypse.

Renegade Traveling Gypsies

One of the benefits of being part of the Steemit community is having the ability to drop in on all of your friends after the apocalypse to mooch food and Aimee and I weren't disappointed. With each camp we dropped in on we were greeted with open arms and even though food was scarce we were given small rations of the meals that had been scrounged up that day. We were delighted with their ingenuity and didn't find anything too gag-worthy, except for you @boodles17. You know what you did. 🙀

Luckily, with eight places to stop we managed to refuel enough to make our journey back to the compound.

 
We were extremely impressed with the quality of all the entries which made choosing the top three entries very difficult. After careful deliberation, using our highly-sophisticated algorithm, and carefully examining the judging criteria a few times, we finally came to a decision.

The Criteria

• Overall quality of post.
• Whether the meal is described or actually made.
• Was the meal eaten (photos required 😀🤢).
• Difficulty of items rolled.
• Creativity of the food and how it is prepared.
• Overall effort level.
• Presentation of the meal.

Prize Pool

I hinted that I might sweeten the prize pool in the reminder post and due to the quality of entries I decided to do just that.

• 1st Place: 10 SBI + 1 STEEM
• 2nd Place: 7 SBI + 1 STEEM
• 3rd Place: 4 SBI + 1 STEEM
• Runners Up: 2 SBI

• Also, one random contestant will be awarded 2 additional SBI, generously donated by @revisesociology. The winner will be determined by random dice roll! ☺️

First Place

@tacostate - Prepper Party Food - Caraway and Fennel Crackers & Bean Dip

If you came across beans and oatmeal in your daily scavenging what would you make? We sure as hell wouldn't have thought to make crackers and dip! We were really impressed with the sound of these crackers and are considering making them to go with some hummus.

Second Place

@sagescrub - Mushroom Risotto - A Hippy Prepper's Survival Meal

In his entry, @sagescrub takes you along his journey through the EMP. We were really impressed with how he maintained his character and he also earned top marks for using ingredients he collected and stored himself as well as cooking this delicious sounding meal over a fire. Not going to lie, it looks like gruel but sounds scrumptious.

Third Place

@roselyn028 - my very own Rice and peanuts is equal to rise crispies for #preppercookoff

As the saying goes Life is short, eat dessert first! We weren't expecting anyone to make a sweet treat, but we were really impressed with the creativity that went into making rice crispy treats from scratch! An excellent snack to pack with you anytime you feel like you might have to run from zombies.

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Everyone's a Winner!

Even though these entries didn't make the top three we were so impressed with their recipe ingenuity that we're rewarding them anyway. Take some time to read these recipes and give them some upvote love if you agree. Listed in no particular order, because we're tired:

@llfarms - Prepper Cook Off Challenge | Peanut And Apricot Protein Bars

@mosic - Something Random Sunday

@boodles17 - Ambrosia Fruit Salad a Survival Meal Fit for the Gods

@revisesociology - Beating the Apocalypse Blues with Vegan Mushroom and Apricot Risotto

@girthbomb - Prepper Cook-Off Entry

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Hopefully you enjoyed this challenge. If you didn't get a chance to participate, or if you did and are eager to have another crack at it, don't worry because another Prepper Cook-Off Challenge is in the works!

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Thanks for reading everyone! Please upvote, follow, and resteem to support this work. As always, comments are welcome.