CHOPPED!

So first a little background…. Frank and I both love to cook. My passion came later in life, after I graduated college and realized that having boxed mashed potatoes every night for dinner wasn’t all that fun. I think cooking is in Frank’s blood. I hear stories of his Grandmother cooking amazing, huge traditional Puerto Rican meals and I think he inherited some of that passion. We love to watch Food Network and most of our favorite shows revolve around food: Hell’s Kitchen, Top Chef, Anthony Bourdain etc. Well one of those shows is Chopped. The premise of the show is that they have 4 contestants (chefs) and 3 rounds (appetizer, entrée and dessert). In each round the contestants’ are given a basket containing a few secret ingredients. They have to use ALL of the ingredients in the basket to create a meal for that round. They also have a fully stocked pantry to use but they must include the ingredients in their baskets. Usually the secret ingredients are things that normally do not get paired together, octopus and animal crackers, string cheese and gingersnaps… After each round, one person is CHOPPED until just one chef remains and they get $10,000! So because Frank and I love to cook, love to challenge ourselves cooking and enjoy trying new meals we have decided to a weekly Chopped night at our house! One week Frank will give me a list of 2-3 ingredients that I have to incorporate into a new dish. The next week we switch. We will post the secret ingredients and resulting new recipe here and tell you what we thought of it. Tonight we begin. I am cooking and Frank is currently contemplating his selection for secret ingredients! We will let you know how it turns out!