My family and I sometimes like to watch the TV show "Chopped" on Food Network. It is a competition with chefs to see who can make the best dish with 4 ingredients already picked for them. The items that the chefs are given can be a bit bizarre (gefilte fish anyone???). The show begins with four chefs, with each chef being given the same ingredients-in a convenient basket- for each round. There is an appetizer round, an entree round, and a dessert round. To make matters worse, they are given a certain amount of time, usually 20-30 minutes in which to cook their dishes. After each round is over, their dish is judged by a panel of three judges. Whoever has the worst dish is "chopped" after each round. The last one standing is the Chopped Champion and wins $10,000! So we were inspired to try our own "Chopped" competition.
My son, Alec, decided that he wanted this to be his family night, so he came up with the ingredients for our baskets. In the first round, we were all given a box with gordita shells, horseradish, persimmons, and a can of pears. We had 30 minutes to come up with something edible! All of us, except Zachary, prepared a variation of chips and salsa. Zach on the other hand made a meatless taco with horseradish in place of sour cream. Needless to say, Zach was chopped because Alec took one bite of his taco and spit it out.
Then it was down to three of us. Dan won the round, so he got to have Zach as a helper. In the next round, we had canned chicken, bacon, Chocolate Frosted Flakes, and this weird cranberry/granola crunch. I couldn't think of anything to make for awhile, except for mashed potatoes and I added cheese and the bacon. Then I heated up the chicken with some spices. I reduced (don't I sound professional?) the Chocolate Frosted Flakes with some water and balsamic vinegar and strained it to make a dressing (I added olive oil when it cooled down). Then I put my dressing on spinach leaves with the cranberry granola. Emma made a salad with all the ingredients mixed together with some dressing added. Dan cleverly thought up making a chicken potpie with the food items we were given. After our cooking time was over, Alec decided that Emma would be chopped and Dan won round 2. Well, this was most disappointing because I do most of the cooking in our house and consider it a hobby of mine.
Round 3 came around putting Dan and I against each other and I was determined to beat him! Zach was Dan's helper and Emma was mine. We were given chocolate bars, fortune cookies, and chopped pecans. My fourth ingredient was crushed saltine crackers and since Dan won the second round, he got Rice Crispies! Emma and I made chocolate covered fortune cookies sprinkled with pecans. We also made some "cookies" by melting the chocolate bar and adding the crushed crackers and some pecans. Then we hardened them in the freezer (they were surprisingly good). Dan and Zachary made a variation on Rice Crispy treats. They combined the Rice Crispies and crushed fortune cookies with melted marshmallows. After hardening in the freezer, they topped them off with the pecans and some chocolate shavings. This round I actually won!!! But needless to say my son "chopped" me because his dad did better over all. Oh well, it was a lot of fun and harder than I thought. If any of you try this family night, please tell me what food items you used and what dishes you came up with. And by the way, our chopped champion won a dollar!
I home school our three children; and this week the kids and I have been studying one country a day and the customs that they follow for Christmas. Friday is Mexico. We are making luminaries (farolitas). Then in the evening, we are going to have enchiladas and bunuelos for dessert. Then we are going to go look at Christmas lights. A funny tradition we have is getting Blizzards from Dairy Queen and eating them while we drive around looking at lights (you would think we would have hot chocolate).
