Top of the morning to ya!
I believe I have mentioned a few times our "Chopped" competition with the awesome Schmidts. Back in October, they were visiting with my Tio Sergio from Mocambique and we were all watching the FoodNetwork competition Chopped.
Mr. Schmidt had the splendid idea to do our own and the next day Morgan, Mrs. Schmidt, and Mom judged Team 1 (Gabbi and me), Team 2 (Mr. Schmidt and Graham), and Team 3 (Dad and Craig) on entrees and desserts.
It was LOADS of fun!
Everyone we have shared this story with has expressed a desire to participate and I believe this will become a regular-random event for us.
This time, we had pointers from the last competition, more judges, slightly different teams, and two curveballs. *gulp*
Helene and Willem. A lovely couple recently moved here from Bloemfontein.
Helene was one of our 4 judges, this time, and Willem was the official
taste-tester.
Dad (Team 3) and Roger (Team 2) were standing
awfully close for being Chopped enemies, wouldn't you say??
This was after the dessert curveball which I
will explain momentarily...
I was working away at what I like to call "Rosemary Redemption"... Again,
this was a result of the dessert curveball I will explain shortly. Dewie failed to realise
that the "plain" crackers he was going to crush for Team 3's dessert were actually
Rosemary... Not a good mix with peanut butter and chocolate... Nor the the
three secret ingredients for dessert: Brandy. Coconut milk. Cape Malay Curry.
Gabbi and I came up with this dessert but we did not get the credit for it
thanks to the lovely dessert curveball Morgan came up with... I still love her.
This Cape Malay Pudim- as I called it- was inspired by a delectable dessert
I had in Dubai. This was the winning dessert and Team 2 (Graham and Mr. Schmidt)
will go down in history as the creators. ... I really hate revisionist history! ;-P
Dad and Dewie were trying to boot us off of the stove. The other fun factors in this competition
were the limited space, microwave-sized oven, and the lack of proper
pots/pans/cooking utensils since our shipment is yet to arrive. But the resulting
smack talk and competitive spirit was HILARIOUS.
Dad was trying to slow Gabbi down. Ha!
I just had to post another photo of them. I love this couple!
They were quite entertained by the debates between the contestants
especially since they - as judges - were in-the-know about the curveballs. -.-
So... I said I would tell you about the curveballs. The entree curveball
actually saved our creation. 30min in, Morgan gave us a 4th secret ingredient (some apricot-mayo type sauce) that rescued our cocoa/anise balsamic reduction sauce that Gabbi burned on a high flame. (Love her still, too.)
The second curveball, however, was a real...shocker. And I guessed it RIGHT before
the 20min mark hit and we would be informed as to what it was.
Morgan was lovely enough to tell each team to move to the station to the right and pick up where the last team left off. We could not tell each other what we did or what we had in mind. The sad part was Gabbi and I were finished with our
dessert that was just baking in the oven. Team 2 benefited from our prepared efficiency.
This was my face when they told me the dessert curveball.
... And this was Dad's face when he heard the dessert curveball.
Team 1's entree.
Team 2's deletable entree. (No, this isn't mine. Yes, it was delectable.)
Team 3's manly entree. - Dad and Mr. Schmidt I could swear were separated at birth.
They were talking a LOT of smack to each other. We all got a kick out of Mr. Schmidt when he saw this one. His way of painting the...unique trait of this pizza was by saying: "Ice cream is good. Pizza is good. But ice cream on pizza is not."
"Well... That's all I have to say about that."
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