At-Home Cooking Competition - Homemade Pasta

Virtual gatherings have been a total game-changer for us during these past few months. It’s been a creative way to stay connected with our friends while we’re unable to hang out in person. We’ve scheduled virtual happy hours, themed hangouts, and last Friday, we planned a virtual cooking competition!  

Over the past few weeks, we’ve discussed different activities that would be fun to virtually do as a group. We’ve tossed around the idea of a cooking competition with a social media voting element as a way to include others. Since we all had Friday off, we decided it would be the perfect time to host an all-day cooking activity. 

The theme? Homemade pasta.

The Rules

The rules were pretty simple. We decided that each couple had to make their noodles by hand. The shape could be whatever they wanted but they had to be a long noodle of some sort. In terms of time, the competition would begin at 2 pm and end at 6 pm. The dish had to be plated and photographed before 6 pm in order to qualify. Any additional elements (within reason) had to be homemade, as well. (Think meatballs, sauces, garlic knots, etc.)

The Competition

At 2 pm, the Zoom room was open and the competition officially began! Each participant had set up a kitchen cam to monitor progress (and to keep each other company during cook time). This was the first time we learned what the others were making. After a brief intro about the dish, the race was on.   

For our dish, we decided on handmade spaghetti featuring bacon, basil, and brie, with a side of garlic breadsticks. (We were super excited to use fresh basil from our garden!)

Time management and overall presentation were two large parts of the competition. Depending on the side dishes and other elements of your dish, you really had to have a schedule (and stick to it)! Plus, the presentation was huge for the competition since we were unable to try the other contestants’ dishes. The overall visuals could make or break the dish. 

Since our breadsticks had about 3 hours of inactive time, we knew we had to start right at 2 pm to have them out of the oven in time. Luckily our pasta was only going to have about 30 minutes of inactive time, so we were able to balance our timing well. 

After the cooking time was over and all the photos were submitted to our handy, dandy group chat, we then posted the photos to Instagram Stories for voting. 

The 3 entries were Summer Pancetta Linguini, ‘Winter is Coming,’ and Bacon, Basil & Brie. After 24 hours, we tallied up all votes across each account and were able to determine a winner!

The Results

With a total of 75 points, Summer Pancetta Linguini took the title! Followed by Bacon, Basil & Brie with 50 points and Winter is Coming with 37 points.

Overall, our virtual pasta competition was a ton of fun, especially seeing the variation in the final dishes when given one common theme. It gave us all a shared activity to enjoy together while still being able to have some friendly competition. 

If you’re looking for a fun, virtual activity during Quarantine, I highly recommend getting your friends together for a cooking competition at home!