Adventures in Married Life: Chopped Date Night

Daniel and I love watching cooking shows. One of our favorite is Chopped

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If you have never seen the show before, here are the basics:

4 chefs start the competition.

Each round has a basked with 4 mystery items that the chefs much use in their dish.

Each round the chefs are judged on the taste, use of ingredients, creativity, and presentation of their dish.

At the end of each round the chef with the worst dish is "chopped".

3 rounds. Appetizer, Main Dish, and Dessert. 

Last chef standing wins! 

So, a few weeks ago I was reading Megan's blog Ephesians 5:33 Wife. She posts super fun date night ideas, and when I read her "Chopped Date Night", I knew we HAD to do it! 

First, we decided who was making what. Daniel wanted to cook the main dish so I said I would do the appetizer and dessert. He shopped for me, and I shopped for him. 4 mystery items for each round. I kept giggling as I was walking around the grocery store, trying to avoid Daniel so he wouldn't see what ingredients I was getting for him to cook with. It was the most fun I've had at the grocery store in ages! When we got back home, we got to cooking...

Appetizer Round:
Daniel shopped and got pumpkin pasta sauce, maple sausage, hash browns, and french onion cheese. 
I cooked and made 2 different fall tapas - one was a onion and sausage tapas, and the other was a pumpkin spice with potato tapas. 
Results: We both agreed that the onion and sausage tapas was yummier. 

Main Dish Round:

I shopped and got canned corn, chopped pecans, pomegranate juice, and pork tenderloin.

Daniel cooked and made pomegranate braised pork loin with spinach and pomegranate quinoa and warm veggie salad topped with roasted pecans. 

Results: The pork and veggies were really good, but the quinoa got a bit over salted.  

Dessert Round:

Daniel shopped and got gnocchi, tapioca, chocolate covered acai gummies, and pineapple bourbon sauce. 

I made a pineapple bourbon tapioca pudding in a gnocchi cup with fried gnocchi strips and melted acai chocolate sauce. 

Results: Be both agreed that dessert was the best! I was totally surprised at how yummy the pudding turned out.  

Thanks Megan for a fun date night idea!!

We will totally be doing this again! 

What did you do on your last date night?