Taste of CHS Recipe Contest Crowns Winner

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- An Indiana woman's Asian twist on pizza earned top honors in the Taste of CHS Recipe Contest, sponsored by CHS Inc. and its joint venture company Ventura Foods LLC.

Hidemi Walsh of Plainfield, Ind., created an Asian-flavored naan pizza featuring a zesty combination of Dean's Ranch Dip -- a Ventura Foods product -- with soy sauce, garlic, spinach, Parmesan cheese and other ingredients spread on Indian naan bread and toasted.

As the contest's grand-prize winner, Walsh will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to the 2012 CHS Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, where she will join two Ventura Foods professional chefs in demonstrating her recipe for the estimated 2,400 attendees.

Mary Marlowe Leverette of Columbia, S.C., earned second-place honors in the recipe contest for her Crab Cakes with Asian Yogurt Sauce creation, which features LouAna Safflower Oil and Marie's Sesame Ginger Salad Dressing. Both are Ventura Foods products. Leverette will receive a $500 cooking store gift certificate and a $250 contribution in her honor to a local food bank.

Third-place honors went to Linda Bonwill of Englewood, Fla., for her Baked Cheddar Onion Potatoes, which include Dean's Cheddar Cheese Dip, Dean's French Onion Dip, Gold-n-Soft Margarine and L.B. Jamison's Ham Soup Base products from Ventura Foods. Bonwill will receive a $250 cooking store gift certificate and a $100 food bank contribution in her honor.

The top three winners, along with 17 other recipes that earned honorable mentions, have been compiled in a booklet available for download at www.chsinc.com/recipes.

CHS owns 50 percent of Ventura Foods, the California-based national manufacturer and marketer of branded and custom-made shortenings, oils, dressings, sauces, mayonnaise, margarines, culinary bases and pan coatings for the foodservice and retail industries.

CHS, a Fortune 100 company, also supplies energy, crop nutrients, grain marketing services, livestock feed, food and food ingredients, along with business solutions including insurance, financial and risk management services. The company operates petroleum refineries and pipelines, and manufactures, markets and distributes the Cenex fuel brand.