The HomeChef Throwdown competition is the brainchild of Pittsburgh home cook and influencer, Desarae Legros. She is also known as Cooking_Comedy_Chaos on Instagram and TikTok.
Lasagna Love
Desarae created the competition in support of her favorite charity, Lasagna Love, which began during the height of the pandemic.
The charity started off with one simple mission: providing a dish of home cooked lasagna to help someone in the local community.
Since then, Lasagna Love has grown immensely. It now has more than 52,000 volunteers who have impacted the lives of more than 1.8 million people.
Layers of Love
In order to build even more awareness to Lasagna Love’s amazing efforts, home cook Deserae sparked the idea of getting the internet cooking community together in a series of challenges.
This initiative has led to the production of a brand new cook book, Layers of Love – Recipes from the Heart. The book features a range of creators with a percentage of each book sold going to Lasagna Love.
The book, produced by unique publishing company, Found, includes content from several contributors. Not limited to Cassidy Camp from Mississippi, Renee “Birdie” Davis from Virginia, Sara Andrews and Trick Pardo from Tennessee, Ashley Ripple and Mackenzie Conklan from Alabama, and Ryan Cinnamon from North Carolina.
Along with the book, a special hot sauce has also been created. A share of the profits will also go to Lasagna Love.
HomeChef Throwdown
The HomeChef Throwdown kicked off on March 26th. Over the course of eight weeks, competitors are tasked to create a dish around a specific challenge each week. 10 talented home cooks are taking part this year, based in locations as varied as Arizona, Michigan, and Tennessee.
The challenges Desarae created for this year’s competition include “The Price Is Right” – where an entire meal has to be created for less than 10 dollars. Also, the “T Rex Challenge” – where someone else puts their arms through the cook’s and has to do the creating.
Followers of the participating chefs can watch along as they complete challenges and vote for their favorites. The finale will be a cook off between the top competitors.
Join the fun and watch the HomeChef Throwdown Competition! Learn more about how you can support the charity on the Lasagna Love website.
Get your copy of Layers of Love – Recipes from the Heart here!
This content was provided by a local, independent contributor to Made in PGH, a lifestyle blog.