Sarah Maki | Daily Press The top three winners from the Ladies Day cooking contest are, from left to right, Jen Vasconcellos (3rd), Stacey Keuhl (2nd), and Kathleen McConaghie (1st).

ESCANABA — The U.P. State Fair hosted Ladies Day and Men’s Night yesterday at the fair. Ladies Day has become a staple at the fair while Men’s Night is in its sophomore year at the fair.

Ladies Day returned to highlight and support local women.

This year, the contest received 18 entries with recipes for homemade Jell-O, pasties, brownies, cookies, pickles, waffles and more.

Coordinator Debbie Mokszycke talked about the event as well as the turnout.

“We had 13 vendors come in (and) they all donated a package for our raffle for our customers,” Mokszycke said.

She added that the turnout for the contest was great, regardless of the humid weather that morning.

“We figured we would have about 200, so after kind of looking it over, I figured we had about 180 show up, which is a great turnout, especially with the weather today,” she said.

She added that overall, she believes the event went really well.

“I’m just glad we had the turnout that we had and hopefully next year we can get an even bigger turnout than this year,” Mokszycke said.

Lily Simmons of WZMQ, Bobbi Ryan from Jack’s Restaurant and Vicki Griggs from Island Resort and Casino served as the judges for the contest.

Entries for participants were eligible as a main dish, side, appetizer or a dessert.

Each dish submitted must have included at least one ingredient grown or made in the Upper Peninsula.

Judges were tasked with grading each dish on a scale from one to five based on taste, appearance, creativity, clarity of recipe and the use of the U.P. ingredient.

Wanda Debassige brought her homemade pasties as well as rhubarb and strawberry Jell-O.

She said she participated in the event in the past, but it had been some time since she last made an entry. She said she had tried the Jell-O before, but did not get the recipe. She liked it so much that she decided to recreate it based on what she remembered.

“It was fun just to experiment,” Debassige said.

She was excited to be there and hoped her pasties would stand out.

Dianne LaChance brought her apple crisp as well as a strawberry jam. The apple crisp is LaChance’s grandmother’s recipe.

“It’s U.P. grown apples — we have a couple of different apple trees at home that I get the apples off of,” she said.

LaChance has attended the contest in the past, but this was her first time entering the contest. She added that she was excited to participate in the contest as it was something different that she hadn’t done before.

Rebecca Keuhl brought her New York-style cheesecake with a homemade wild blueberry sauce, a recipe she has made for years. She makes her homemade sauce from wild blueberries that she picks on her property. She said it’s a process to make her cheesecake, but she enjoys doing it.

Her daughter, Stacey Keuhl also entered the contest with her “Million Dollar Spaghetti” as well as kosher dill pickles.

“I have been going every single year as far as I can remember,” she said.

She said she was excited to be at the event, this year as a vendor as well.

After the judges tasted every dish submitted, it was time to announce the top three.

In third place was Jen Vasconcellos, of Gladstone with her brown butter blueberry oatmeal sandwiches. She received 66 points.

Stacey Keuhl, of Powers came in second with her “Million Dollar Spaghetti.” She received 68 points.

The top award went to Kathleen McConaghie, of Escanaba for her blueberry jam made with homemade apple pectin. She received 72 points.

After the conclusion of Ladies Day, the activities tent will be repurposed for Men’s Night.

At 5 p.m., men had a chance to hang out and try out a golf and hunting simulator, chair massages, drinks as well as some casino activities.