{"id":9863,"date":"2015-12-08T09:48:48","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T16:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/?p=9863"},"modified":"2015-12-08T09:48:48","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T16:48:48","slug":"central-valley-ag-student-wins-big-on-chopped-junior-from-the-sacramento-bee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov\/wordpress\/index.php\/2015\/12\/08\/central-valley-ag-student-wins-big-on-chopped-junior-from-the-sacramento-bee\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Valley ag student wins big on “Chopped Junior” – from the Sacramento Bee"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"San<\/a>

San Joaquin County teenager Elisabeth Watkins won big on the Food Network<\/p><\/div>\n

By Cathie Anderson<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Food Network <\/a>threw everything from orange push-ups to a vegetable sushi roll at 14-year-old Linden resident Elisabeth Watkins, but she kept her cool and came out a winner on a recent episode of \u201cChopped Junior.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The teenager went to New York with her parents, Kenny and Molly Watkins, in August to shoot the show, and though she knew she had won, the only people she was allowed to tell were her parents and her older brother, Kenneth Watkins IV. In the \u201cChopped\u201d programs, contestants must cook an appetizer, an entr\u00e9e and a dessert, but the judges try to stump them with four mystery ingredients for each course.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThey give you about 15 seconds to figure out what you\u2019re going to make,\u201d Watkins said, \u201cand then you have 30 minutes to actually prepare your dish\u201d<\/p>\n

In the appetizer round, the contestants got chorizo, orange push-up pops, premade waffles and lobster mushrooms. For the entr\u00e9e, they had to use pork chops, smoked oysters, heirloom tomatoes and vegetable sushi. And for the dessert course, the mystery ingredients were passion fruit, dehydrated cheese, premade, precooked french fries and applesauce.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made a panzanella salad (for the appetizer),\u201d Watkins said. \u201cI made the orange push-ups into a vinaigrette. The next round \u2026 I did a pan-seared pork chop with a red-wine oyster reduction. I used the insides of the sushi for a carrot and green bean with heirloom tomato saut\u00e9, and then I did a ricotta wonton.\u201d<\/p>\n

For dessert, Watkins produced a dehydrated cheese and french fry crumble with saut\u00e9ed cinnamon apples and a passion fruit-raspberry compote.<\/p>\n

A freshman at Central Catholic High School<\/a> in Modesto, Watkins doesn\u2019t tend to sit around twiddling her thumbs. She taught herself to cook by reading cookbooks, watching Food Network shows such as \u201cChopped\u201d and asking adults with special expertise to let her cook alongside them.<\/p>\n

She has taken lessons in cooking, sewing, welding and much more for six years now with the\u00a0Linden-Peters 4H chapter<\/a>. Last summer, she competed on a team that won the fair\u2019s Junior 4H cooking contest, and she took second place at the California State Fair for a wool coat she made for the \u201cMake It With Wool\u201d contest. She raises Shorthorn beef cattle for projects with 4H and her high school chapter of FFA. Also at Central Catholic, she competed in water polo this fall and hopes to compete in springboard diving in spring.<\/p>\n

Watkins has a couple of pre-K memories of cooking: Every year, the men, women and children of the Watkins family gather around the holidays to make sugar cookies in the shape of Santa Claus that they give to friends and family. She also recalled that, as a toddler, she helped her mom make the Watkins family\u2019s legendary brownies from a recipe that includes six eggs and two cups of sugar.<\/p>\n

Watkins said she got the idea to compete on \u201cChopped\u201d after watching an episode in which teenagers had competed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking to my mom, and I said, \u2018Oh, I think I can do that. I think I\u2019m better than those kids,\u2019\u00a0<\/span>\u201d she said. \u201cI went on the Food Network website and filled out an application and submitted it. That led to a series of interviews, a home video and another, longer application.\u201d<\/p>\n

She learned in July that she had won a spot for the inaugural season of \u201cChopped Junior.\u201d Her episode initially aired Nov. 24, but the Food Network website said it will be rebroadcast at 5 p.m. Dec. 27<\/a>. She beat out three other contestants, winning $10,000 and an apron with the \u201cChopped Junior\u201d emblem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe judges really liked how I transformed the ingredients into something new and put my own twist on it,\u201d Watkins said. \u201cThey liked how I knew what to do with each ingredient, adding acid to the orange push-up pops to tone down the sweetness. … They liked my presentation, and they really, really, really liked my red-wine reduction sauce.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since winning that contest, Watkins has been written up in the Linden Herald, the Stockton Record<\/a>, The Modesto Bee <\/a>and San Joaquin Farm Bureau newspaper. She\u2019s also been interviewed on \u201cGood Day Sacramento<\/a>\u201d and KAT Country 103 FM. She\u2019s received congratulatory messages from old friends, former teachers and complete strangers.<\/p>\n

Every year, the Linden-Peters 4H has a Christmas boutique where students are encouraged to sell their wares. In the past, Watkins has sold items she has cooked, but this year, she said, she will be offering cooking lessons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cooked a \u2026 meal at school,\u201d Watkins said. \u201cI made an omelet for them, and one of my friends said, \u2018You\u2019re catering my wedding.\u2019 That\u2019s when I realized that I had a talent that people were looking for, and I like teaching people how to cook, sharing my tips and tricks and my style of cooking, the things that I eat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Link to story<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Cathie Anderson The Food Network threw everything from orange push-ups to a vegetable sushi roll at 14-year-old Linden resident Elisabeth Watkins, but she kept her cool and came out a winner on a recent episode of \u201cChopped Junior.\u201d The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\r\nCentral Valley ag student wins big on "Chopped Junior" - from the Sacramento Bee - CDFA's Planting Seeds Blog<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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