Chopped Walter Style! Season 1

My Brother, Sister, and I all enjoy cooking and we all enjoy watching Chopped on the food network.  My brother, Mark, recently did his own Chopped at home.  His wife gave him secret ingredients and he made it into dinner within a certain time limit.  That was the inspiration for this year's Thanksgiving weekend entertainment with my family.  We were limited on space and knew we would need more time than given on TV so we made it our own.

The Rules:
Each chef was given a specific course to cook.  Their spouse would be their sous chef.  Each chef would have an hour to cook and mystery ingredients were revealed a half hour before so the chef and sous chef could start thinking.  We didn't exactly know what Mom's pantry would hold so some of us did bring extra ingredients we thought we might want.  Each family would bring mystery ingredients for a certain course different then the one they would be cooking.

We made 8 plates for all the adults so all were "judges".  To make clean up easier paper plates were used.  Mom helped gather pantry ingredients and clean up.  We also video taped which made it a whole lot of fun as we did commentary on cooking techniques and "judged" the dishes.

Appetizer:
My sister, Kim, was the chef for the appetizer round.

And the mystery ingredients are: Chicken Leg Quarters, Red Onion, Pomegranate, and Texas Dinner Roll Dough.
Kim had never worked with pomegranate before.  It was interesting that we each got one stumper ingredient. It made it challenging and fun.

Kim and Jared boiled the chicken and started cleaning and cutting greens and the onion for a salad.

The bread was baked as dinner rolls then cut up to make croutons.  The pomegranate was made into a vinaigrette and we were served a lovely chicken salad.

The Croutons were crunchy, garlicky, delicious!  The "judges" were impressed that a boiled chicken salad could be so scrumptious.  The perfect beginning to our Chopped meal.

Entree:
My sister and I did NOT want to do entree so we passed that off to my brother.  He was glad to do it.
Chef Mark and his wife Deana took on the Entree round.

And the mystery ingredients are: Assorted Pork Chops, Eggplant, Oatmeal, and Tomato Soup.

Mark was hoping for pork chops so he was happy.  He had never worked with eggplant before but was really more stumped by the tomato soup.

Mark quickly marinated the pork chops in an assortment of things including red wine and garlic.  He grilled the chops while Deana went to work on the eggplant.

The oatmeal was ground and used to bread the egg plant.  The tomato soup was made into a mushroom sauced and ladled on the pork chops.

The result was moist and flavorful, even succulent pork with a side of crunchy breaded eggplant.  The "judges" were somewhat concerned about the sauce starting so late but it turned out very good.  One "judge" thought the sauce would have been better served with the eggplant but all in all the entree was superb.

Dessert:
I was the chef for the dessert round.

And the mystery ingredients are: Pineapple, Filo Dough, Honey, and Brie Cheese.

I had never worked with brie before and though I had an idea how to use it I wasn't sure how it would melt.  I had several ideas but decided to go with something I was a little more confident would work.  Erin cut up the pineapple and I started cutting the rind off the brie.

I used several layers of filo dough to make desert bundles filled with brie, pineapple, honey, lemon juice, and pecans.  They were tied with lemon rind strips.  Once removed from the oven the bundles were placed on a smear of chocolate and topped with glaze and more pecans.

The brie started melting out before the filo was as crisp as I would have liked it but it was still delicious.  One "judge" said that the chocolate really added to the dish.  Another "judge" commented that while the pineapple was good, this dish would have been even better with berries.

Our Chopped Walter Style was a very fun way to spend time together over the Thanksgiving holiday. We fed the kids their own meal and worked our "schedule" with breaks to take care of their needs.  We all chipped in caring for needs as they arose but also enjoyed adult time.  The commentary was a lot of fun as we tried to sound as much like Chopped judges as we knew how.  We hope in the future to have more seasons of our owns special version of Chopped.  A version where no one actually gets chopped but we all have a lot of fun and good food.