You've Been Chopped

Yesterday, Kevin and I were excited to have an entire day off together which can sometimes seem like a rarity in our busy lives (although with me now working nights we do see each other much more often which is lovely). Since we had a whole day to ourselves, I decided to break out one of the ideas I had from our date night jar that I made Kevin for Christmas. The jar consists of Popsicle sticks painted one of three colors each representing a different type of date: dark blue means more expensive/planning ahead involved, regular blue means average cost/moderate planning, and light blue is nearly free/stay-at-home/little-to-no planning involved. This way when we are plum out of ideas for what to do with our free time we have a little help and we can pick from each category based on how much effort we feel like putting into the days activities. 

Some of you may not be aware of this, but Michigan has been absolutely freezing lately. I'm talking single digit numbers here and with the wind chill its even been in the negative. Miserable. Especially for someone like me who is always cold. I generally wear leggings under my sweatpants to keep from being absolutely frozen. I say all of that to say that there was slim chance of getting me to want to venture outside for any sort of adventure so I decided to stick with a stay-at-home/basically free date - our very own Chopped Challenge.

Our Individual  & Shared Supply Stations

I have recently been watching a lot of Chopped on the Food Network; the concept for this show is pretty interesting. For those of you who have never watched,let me fill you in briefly. The show consists of a cooking competition between four contestants. There are three rounds - appetizer, entree, and dessert - with one contestant being eliminated each round leaving a winner after the dessert round. The twist with the show is the mystery basket that the contestants open each round which holds usually three different ingredients that they must incorporate into their dishes in creative and innovative ways. Usually these ingredients are not well known like an exotic fruit or perhaps not ones you would associate with fine dining such as canned pasta. The chefs have very limited time to come up with an idea for what they are going to make with their mystery ingredients, execute the dish, and get it plated before the timer goes off. 

Kevin 'The Iron Chef' in the heat of the battle

I thought it would be a lot of fun to have our very own version of Chopped and so we decided to modify the rules a little to make it work in our tiny apartment kitchen. We each got to individually pick one of the ingredients and then together picked a third ingredient which gave us a 'mystery basket' of turkey sausage, blueberries, and wheat thins. We were not allowed to use the internet to look up recipes before or during the challenge. We decided that we would have thirty five minutes to make an entree and split up our limited counter space and cookware and each took one half of the stove-top to make everything as fair as possible. And then the cook-off began! Kevin kept a running commentary like he was on Iron Chef for most of the time (he's never actually seen Chopped so he was a little confused which show he was on). 


After thirty five minutes we were left with a sink overflowing with dishes and two very interesting creations. Kevin made a 'Penne, Italian Sausage, & Broccoli Casserole with Crushed Crackers & Mozzarella Cheese Topping in a Blueberry White Wine Sauce' and I made a 'Sweet and Savory Feta & Sausage Cinnamon Cracker Crepe with a Balsamic Blueberry Reduction'. We each tasted both dishes and then graded them on a scale of 1 to 5 (with one being the worst) in four different categories: plating, creativity, taste, and use of the ingredients. Kevin won by far in plating as I barely managed to get my food on the plate before the timer went off and the blueberry sauce on top did not drizzle down the way I planned but rather just sort of plopped very unappealingly. Taste was a toss up - blueberry overwhelmed both the dishes in a not so pleasant sort of way (although Kevin plans on eating the leftovers from his today - brave man). After the points were tallied and averaged, I ended up coming away with the win by just half a point due to my creativity in the use of the ingredients and the originality of the dish. 

My Crepe Creation & Kevin's Pasta Dish

I cannot wait for our future Chopped Challenge rematches and according to this interview conducted after his devastating loss interview neither can Kevin Patrick aka 'The Iron Chef'. Bring on the re-match!