In our post about our trip to Connecticut, we mentioned that we had played a game of “Chopped” . Our friends had done this before and it sounded like a lot of fun, so one morning we decided that it would be fun to do together 😀
The judges got to decide on what ingredients had to be used, then the ‘chefs’ were given a time limit to finish each dish: appetizer, main dish and dessert. On one of the courses, the chefs were running around right down to the last minute, making the judges nervous…just like the tv show 😀
Then after the judges tried the dishes and talked to the contestants, the contestants went into a bedroom and talked about their dishes and wondered when they would be allowed to come back out. Let me tell you, they were messy! So the judges and anyone else available helped decide who got chopped, then they cleaned up and got the next set of ingredients ready. I know we started sometime in the morning, and we didn’t finish until well after lunchtime! If I remember right, it was near suppertime 😀
We did our best to find ‘out of the ordinary’ ingredients from what we had. Some of the combinations were quite interesting!
The four contestants, Susannah, Cassia, Colleen, and Kelley
The four judges: Joseph, Allison, Anna and Rebekah
And off they go! It was so much fun to watch them running around the kitchen, working around each other…they did great!
Here’s a short video showing a little of the cooking that went on 🙂
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJoaTdYzDok[/youtube]
The first course, the appetizer, had to include potatoes, lettuce, and eggs.
Unlike the tv show, the chefs did not each get their own stove. Instead, everyone got their own burner. As each chef was chopped, it was first come, first serve for the extra burners.
The finished result…
some make potato salad, some made a hashbrown and egg dish, one made a ‘lettuce wrap’ with the potatoes and eggs inside
Colleen and Cassia, awaiting the next round.
The next course, the main dish, included the following:
Cassia busily cooking away. They really did a great job with this course…I tried all of them and they were pretty tasty! Some of the girls hid their maple syrup by boiling the noodles in maple syrup water, and others hid the cocoa with the hamburger.
Lots of pans, sizzling away!
Not all these pictures are in order, because I know that Susannah got chopped first…they didn’t like the extra spice and mustard in her potato salad!
Kelley busily cooking 😀
We love this picture of Cassia…she was trying to figure out a microwave she’d never used before!
Cassia getting ready to use her hamburger
I did the video and Leah was the photographer. She got some really neat pictures with Colleen’s nice camera!
The judges and the audience, waiting, waiting….
Another pretty picture by Leah
The last two contestants…Colleen and Kelley. We were terribly mean to them in our choice of ingredients. Orange popsicles, airheads, peaches (but we changed the peaches midstream because we discovered that they were rotten), mozzerella cheese sticks and pistachios. Both of them did amazing considering what awful ingredients we gave them!
Colleen, our Chopped Champion 😀
Yay Colleen!!!
Our prize wasn’t that spectacular…nobody had $10,000 they wanted to part with, so the prize was just winning in itself 😀 But we all had a LOT of fun, which is worth much, much more!
Chopped didn’t end there, though. Once we got home the younger girls and the boys were always playing Chopped, only with plastic food 😀
A picture of Isaiah, playing Chopped by himself…Noah was the judge. We don’t have any videos of this, but when the girls all played ‘Chopped’ together downstairs, Isaiah was ‘Ted’, the guy who announces who has been ‘chopped’ out of the competition. It was really cute to watch him as he would put his hand on the lid, look straight at the person who was being chopped, and in a dramatic little voice saying, “and WHO is on the chopping block???”
Here’s a video of the girls and Isaiah playing Chopped 😀 I never knew that you could get that excited and nervous over the plastic version…it was really cute to watch!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeE_qeTeByQ[/youtube]
I think Andrew approved of the food 😉 Miss you Andrew!
aw, that looks so fun! (: I’m so glad you all could go.
lol! That is SO funny! 🙂 I don’t very much like the show “Chopped” on Food Network, but I do like “Food Network Star” with the exception of some of the competitors. 🙂
That’s a really neat idea, I’ll have to keep in mind. Looks like ya’ll had a very good time. 😉
Blessings,
Grace
P.S. I finally figured out how to follow your blog! Yay! I LOVE it!:)
I agree…in the show ‘Chopped’ they aren’t all that nice to each other! I liked the one where the judges competed against each other, they were much nicer and more fun 😀
Jessica
aww the little kids chopped was so cute =)! the big kid one looks like lots of fun…i would love doing that!!!!!! me and kate talked about kate on down to alaina entering the real chopped then one of us one fry all the food together one would blend it one would boil it and one would bake it =)…i think fried would be the best…depending on what it was =)
-mary
That is so neat! The little childrens version is so cute. And I would really enjoy the “real”
chopped, like what you did. I never saw the show, so I have nooooo idea what they did.
Vanessa
ROFL!! Ohhh, ’tis too much. My family’s always wanted to do a Chopped showdown once all my brothers’ and sister’s families are in from across the country. It would be SO. MUCH. FUN.
Great choice on ingredients, too!! I can’t wait to show momma this post. =P She’ll get a kick out of it!
{HUGS}
That looks like so much fun 😀
I want to do that with some of my friends 😀 BTW how much time did you allow for each meal prepration? And how do you “chop” a person ? 😀
We allowed 30 minutes for both the appetizer and main course, and I think it was 20 minutes for dessert. 30 minutes was too long for the appetizer…we had people standing around waiting for the timer to finish! I think the show gives 20 minutes for the appetizer 🙂
You judge the food on creativity, how good it tastes, and of course how well they used the ingredients. It really comes down to whoever’s dish isn’t quite as good as the others. They get chopped 😛 For the dessert course, not only are you judging the dessert, but also the overall meal 🙂
Jessica
This is such a great idea! I’ve done an Iron Chef match with friends before, but that was just one ingredient. You mentioned what was made for the first course but what were some of the dishes created for the second 2….especially that challenging dessert course?!
I’ve never seen Iron Chef before, but that sounds fun to do, too 😀
For the main course, I remember one of them mixed onion soup mix with the hamburger and served that over the noodles. That was so good! For dessert I remember that Kelley made an ‘Airhead Cobbler’ type thing…it was actually pretty good 😀 Colleen had nuts with chocolate and airheads melted over the nuts. There wasn’t enough for us all to try it, but I know she liked it when she was test tasting 😀 I know she had something else to go with it, but can’t remember what! Colleen, help me! lol!
Jessica
Oh my goodness how creative! I think the airheads would have really stumped me!
i love the videos alot
i wish i could see the whol thiing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*alaina♥*
it looks like you all had a fun time!!! the mini choped video was so cute!!
ok well sys!
-Emily
That is really neat! I would of got stumped on the Airheads too! Your food looks great though.
-Beth
I love those pictures!! And I loved the videos, but I wish they were longer!! 🙁 😀
Awesome post! I love Andrew’s picture! We MISSS you!!!!!
Oooooh that sounds fun!
~R
That is so cool!!!! We love Chopped, I never would have thought of actually having our own “Chopped” episode at home though!!!! NEAT! I think that we might have to do something like that! Thanks for the awesome idea! It looks like you had FUN!
In Christ,
Brianna
http://helpingtheleastofthese.blogspot.com/