Brown winner in kids cooking contest

Published 9:15 pm Monday, August 2, 2010

A nine-year-old Goshen Elementary School student, Morgan Brown, has been named a winner in the Red Robin Gourmet Burgers Kids Cooking Contest.

Morgan’s recipe, Maui Momma Burger, was selected from more than 11,000 recipes to be featured in the fourth annual “Red Robin Kids’ Cook-Off” cookbook.

Morgan’s “Maui Momma Burger” is made with a chicken breast, pineapple, sweet red onion, lettuce, mayonnaise, cheddar cheese, bacon and sweet barbecue sauce on a ciabatta bun.

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Morgan said that, once the chicken breast is cooked, the Maui Momma Burger is easy to prepare.

Simply, brush the chicken with sweet barbecue sauce and top with a slice of pineapple and a slice of cheddar cheese. Melt the cheese and top with cooked bacon. Lightly toast the ciabatta bun. Spread on mayonnaise and added lettuce and sweet red onion on the top bun and chicken on the bottom. Put them together and, “there you go.”

“I thought that my gourmet burger should win the cook-off because it’s very different,” Morgan said.

“I like to cook with my mom. She makes chicken breasts with pineapple, barbecue sauce for dinner and it’s yummy. That’s what inspired me to come up with this burger.”

In addition to Morgan’s creation and those of 49 other kid-invent gourmet burgers, the cookbook includes a recipe from Cook-Off celebrity judge, the Food Network’s Robin Miller.

The cookbook also includes back-to-school safety tips from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) that kids and parents can discuss while cooking together.

In the Red Robin Gourmet Burgers Kids Cooking Contest, kids ages six to 12 expressed their culinary creativity by submitting original gourmet burger recipes and 100-word statements on why their burgers deserved to be America’s next gourmet burger. The cookbook recipes were chosen based on their inventive combination of ingredients and fun flavors and the statement

The “Red Robin Kids’ Cook-Off” cookbook is available for free download online at www.redrobin.com.

The cookbook is provided free in an effort to help keep kids safe during the school year.

According to the NCMEC about 38 percent of all attempted abductors of children happen when kids are going to and from school or at a school-related activity.

The good news is that, in 84 percent of these attempted abductions, the kids get away because they know what to do. Therefore, back-to-school is a smart time for families to review their child safety strategies because it is a time when children are interacting with new and different people outside their homes.