Winners of Bauman College’s 2026 Summer Recipe Writing Contest

Content Summary

Bauman College is proud to announce the winners of our 2026 Summer Recipe Writing Contest! Open to students and alumni from our Holistic Chef and Nutrition Consultant programs, participants were challenged to craft seasonal, nourishing, budget-conscious appetizers in under 30 minutes. This introductory post spotlights our three award-winning entries across recipe writing, originality, and presentation.

• Best Written Recipe: Dee Cartier for her Tropical Dragon Fruit Crunch Salad w/ Cool Herbed Coconut Lime Dressing—praised for impeccable organization, clarity, and crowd-pleasing tropical flavors.
• Most Original Recipe: Ashley Denisov for her Blistered Shishito Peppers with Whipped Tofu—a plant-based, interactive appetizer that makes history as the first winning entry from a Nutrition Consultant student.
• Best Presentation: Katelyn Ritchie for her Summertime Tomato, Cucumber, and Radish Salad—a vibrant, travel-inspired dish celebrated for precise knife work, storytelling, and elevated seasonal simplicity.

This summer, Bauman College challenged students and graduates from our Holistic Chef and Nutrition Consultant programs to create Quick & Easy Summer Appetizers that were seasonal, nourishing, budget-conscious, and could be prepared in under 30 minutes.

Much like our first Recipe Writing Contest celebrating the mighty lentil, entries were evaluated not only for flavor, but also for thoughtful recipe development, clear writing, creativity, and presentation. Our Lentil Contest brought together an impressive range of recipes, and the summer submissions continued that tradition of showcasing the creativity and culinary skill of the Bauman College community.

After recipe review, testing, and thoughtful deliberation, three standout recipes rose to the top.
We’re excited to announce the winners of the 2026 Quick & Easy Summer Appetizer Recipe Writing Contest!

Watch the 2026 Awards Ceremony

Experience the highlights from our ceremony, where we celebrated the creativity and dedication of our finalists. Hear from the judges and see the moment our winners were announced:

Meet the Category Winners

Best Written Recipe: Tropical Dragon Fruit Crunch Salad w/ Cool Herbed Coconut Lime Dressing by Dee Cartier

Dee Cartier earned the Best Written Recipe Award for her colorful and unexpected Tropical Dragon Fruit Crunch Salad w/ Cool Herbed Coconut Lime Dressing, featuring dragon fruit, mango, cucumber, fresh herbs, and a vibrant coconut-lime dressing.

The Best Written category looks for much more than a delicious finished dish. Recipes are evaluated for an engaging title and headnote, clearly stated servings, properly organized ingredients, and concise instructions that allow another cook to confidently recreate the recipe. Dee’s entry excelled in each of these areas.

Her recipe also passed an important test: another cook could successfully make it exactly as Dee intended. Chef Carrie Bonfitto prepared the salad herself and found the instructions clear and easy to follow. The finished dish was later served at a party—where it was quickly devoured.

Dee combined professional recipe-writing skills with adventurous summer ingredients to create a dish that is colorful, refreshing, and approachable.

Most Original Recipe: Blistered Shishito Peppers with Whipped Tofu by Ashley Denisov

Ashley Denisov received the Most Original Award for her Blistered Shishito Peppers with Whipped Tofu, a playful shareable appetizer pairing smoky, blistered peppers with creamy plant-based whipped tofu and a finishing touch of sesame.

While many of this summer’s entries leaned toward salads, Ashley took the theme in a completely different direction. Inspired in part by cooking for vegan friends, she had been experimenting with plant-based alternatives to whipped ricotta or feta. Tofu provided the creamy texture she was looking for while also adding protein to the dish.

Ashley paired that creamy base with quickly blistered shishito peppers, sesame oil, and sesame seeds to create a simple appetizer with bold flavor and plenty of personality. Even the way it is eaten adds to the fun: guests can pick up a pepper by its stem and swipe it through the whipped tofu.

Ashley’s win was also a first for Bauman College’s recipe contests: she became the first Nutrition Consultant student to earn one of the contest awards, demonstrating how culinary creativity and nutrition education can beautifully come together.

Best Presentation: Summertime Tomato, Cucumber, and Radish Salad by Katelyn Ritchie

Katelyn Ritchie earned the Best Presentation Award for her vibrant Summertime Tomato, Cucumber, and Radish Salad, a recipe inspired by the summer she spent studying abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Before that experience, Katelyn considered herself an extremely picky eater who rarely enjoyed vegetables. Her host mother changed that by preparing fresh salads each day using seasonal produce from neighborhood markets. Katelyn’s contest entry brings together some of her favorite elements from those meals and celebrates the simplicity of letting great ingredients shine.

Ripe tomatoes, crisp cucumber, thinly shaved radishes, dill, parsley, scallions, olive oil, and vinegar form the base of the salad, with toasted sunflower seeds adding crunch and a personal nod to the flavors Katelyn encountered during her travels.

The judges were impressed not only by the finished plate but by the care behind every element of the recipe—from varied knife cuts and paper-thin radishes to clear instructions, professional organization, and thoughtful explanations of ingredient and technique choices.

Katelyn’s entry showed that a beautiful presentation begins long before the food reaches the plate. It comes from intention, technique, storytelling, and a recipe designed to invite others into the experience.

Celebrating Summer Creativity at Bauman College

Congratulations to Dee Cartier, Ashley Denisov, and Katelyn Ritchie—and thank you to everyone who participated in this summer’s contest.

From tropical fruit and coconut-lime dressing to blistered peppers and whipped tofu to a vegetable salad inspired by summers in St. Petersburg, this year’s winning recipes demonstrate just how many directions a simple summer appetizer can take.

They also reflect something central to culinary education at Bauman College: a successful recipe is more than a list of ingredients. It combines flavor, technique, nourishment, creativity, clear communication, and the personal experiences we bring into the kitchen.

The Summer Recipe Writing Contest Series: What’s Next?

This post is the first in a four-part series celebrating the winners of Bauman College’s 2026 Quick & Easy Summer Appetizer Recipe Writing Contest. In the next three posts, we’ll spotlight Dee, Ashley, and Katelyn individually and share more about the inspiration, culinary thinking, and stories behind their award-winning recipes.