Chopped

Last night was the BEST. DATE NIGHT. EVER. Seriously, it was such a blast!! After our crepes last week, Colby said he got the idea for this week. While I tucked the kids into bed he ran out to the grocery store and then printed something up on the computer. I kinda figured we were going to be trying a new recipe again, which I thought was a little lame considered we JUST did that. Boy was I wrong!

He brought me into the kitchen and showed me this: and announced we would be having a Chopped competition! (Love that show.) I was a bit perplexed, wondering what was in the basket and how on earth I could come up with something from scratch. I'm soooo not creative with cooking and am a very recipe-oriented kinda girl. Here were the ingredients we had to work with:Kiwi fruit, mini chocolate chips, cashews and peach syrup. (Can't you just hear Ted Allen's voice as you read those?!) We had 50 minutes (yes, I know the contestants on the show only get 30, but hey, we're amateurs!) to come up with a dessert using these ingredients. We both just kinda sat there laughing for a few minutes and staring at the ingredients, wondering what on earth we were gonna make. We finally started going and it was such a hoot running around the kitchen and acting like goofballs. I admit I was known to say, "Behind you!" several times, just like they say on the show. :) We made quite the mess in the kitchen.
I decided to make a dessert pizza. I think I had a bit of an advantage cuz I knew what other ingredients we had in the kitchen. Like sugar cookie mix. And cream cheese. And I was pretty proud of my chocolate melting skills, too. I tempered it (is that the correct term?) just like I saw the Barefoot Contessa do once. :)I mean, look at that beautiful, silky stream of chocolate!
Time literally FLEW by! I wanted to wait til the last minute to plate cuz I didn't want my cookies to get soggy. Plus, they always wait til the last minute on the show. (I know, I'm a dork.) I was literally sprinkling the nuts on top as we were counting down the seconds. Colby, on the other hand, was not even CLOSE to being finished. I had to wait a good 5 minutes before his dessert was done. He was totally disqualified for that. :P

So here's what I came up with. A sugar cookie topped with a frosting made of cream cheese, sugar and peach syrup. Then sliced kiwi and a cutie orange. Then my silky chocolate drizzled on top, followed by chopped cashews I toasted and candied with some sugar. It was yummy if I do say so myself. :)Here was Colby's dish. He took the blueberries out of a Jiffy muffin mixed and used chocolate chips and peach syrup mixed in. It was placed on top of crushed cashews and topped with a very bright green kiwi & apple puree and was complimented by a stream of melted chocolate. I was laughing so hard I could barely take pics cuz all I could see were two big eyeballs with bushy eyebrows staring back at me! :P
Although it looked like eyeballs, it really wasn't too bad. But I still think my dessert was better. ;) And plus he was DQ'd cuz of the time issue, and because he used a mixing bowl that was pretty much 12 sizes too large for the batter he was mixing. :)

We had so much fun last night!!! It was totally different and we got to act like big goofballs! I'll still be giggling about this one for a while. I don't know if either of us can top it. Or if we can watch Chopped the same way any more. (I totally have a new respect for those chefs!)