A "Chopped" Competition

So, one of my favorite shows on the Food Network is "Chopped!"  It is a fun, competitive show where they have a limited amount of time to present an appetizer, entree, and dessert, having to utilize mystery basket ingredients into each of the courses.  One Friday, I thought it would be a really great family activity to have Jared and I compete for some pretty critical judges, our kids.

The thought that I may have the upper hand crossed our minds,... 

 since I have had much more opportunity to hone my cooking skills!

 Jared has had his time taken up in honing his surgery skills, even practicing on food;o)  When we thought about it, though, we knew he would keep his recipes simple, which may actually may be more to the taste of the young judges!!!

 So, the competition was on!  I had the family watch an episode of "Chopped" to let them get a good idea of there parts!

Then, we had the kids each get to pick one random ingredient for us to use in our first dish in the appetizer round.  They picked Ramen Noodles, frozen berries, and fruit snacks!

 The result was the above!  Mine was scrambled fried ramen and eggs with a berry and fruit snack dipping sauce.  Jared's was a buttered ramen with cheese, berries to the side, and a ramen and berry smoothie!

 Despite Jared's lack of using one of the mystery ingredients (the fruit snacks), he did well!

After careful deliberation and after sharing their critiques of our dishes, the girls picked Jared to win the first round!  Gotta love how seriously judgmental they look!!!

We were a bit full after after eating the appetizers, so we decided to go straight to the dessert round!

 The mystery ingredients for dessert were caramel, orange push popsicles, and cake and sprinkles ice cream!

 When I saw that Jared was looking at the smoothie cookbook and was going to utilize our wonderful Blendtec again, my competitive edge got the best of me...he he he!  I hurried as fast as I could and got the my ingredients into the Blendtec asap!  This saved me, as it thwarted Jared;o)  I was able to produce an orange julius icecream with crumbled oreos and a raspberry on top, while Jared scrambled and came up with a Cocoa Puff dessert, that was not up to the judges' impecable tastes.  I took that round!

It turned out perfect (minus the increased dish load);  Jared and I tied, we all got to eat some interesting stuff, and we got to 'pretend play' in a way that even us adults enjoyed!

Plus, it seems like it definitely was an Emmy approved activity!  Ha ha!