Everybody who loves food loves Chopped. Even people who don’t claim to be cooks love the adrenaline that the show provides – and I am no exception. In my free time, I use this random list generator to create mystery baskets for myself. I take the four random ingredients and brainstorm meals. Then I type up how to prep and plan the meal. Sometimes I even include how I’d plate it. It’s a whole thing.*
My friends have caught wind of my obsession, and have put me to the test. A series of mystery baskets will be presented to me during this series. Then I’m going to see what kind of magic we can whip up.
Chopped Training: How this works
We’re going to try to keep this as close to the show as possible (even though cooking and filming will likely be happening in an apartment kitchen instead of the state-of-the-art Chopped kitchen).
4 mystery ingredients in a basket (or box or whatever we find that day to put the ingredients inside)
30 minutes for appetizers
60 minutes for entrees and desserts
Mystery ingredients are chosen by one of my friends (or by YOU during our viewer’s choice rounds). Contestants will have no idea what they are cooking until they open the baskets.
Some rounds will be solo training sessions for me to practice my cooking, creativity and improvisation in the kitchen. Other rounds will include one or more of my friends going head-to-head in a round of intense cooking competition.
Footage Round 1
Round 1 of my Chopped Training was very haphazard and random. A friend texted me one day saying they had a taste for some lump crab. Then they randomly picked up a few more ingredients for me to whip together into something delicious.
Mystery Basket Ingredients
- Lump crab
- Maraschino cherries
- Funyums (off-brand Funyuns)
- Pickled okra
- Sardines canned in tomato sauce (because my friends are extra and they clearly hate me LOL)
Here are the results:
Brussel sprouts with bacon and pecans candied in cherry juice with
crab & sardine cakes with a cherry & pickled okra remoulade
How to get involved
You can send us ingredient suggestions (The Chopped Training Mystery Basket Review Board – CTMBR aka “my friends” and will review comments and assign them to baskets accordingly). Add a comment below, email me, or hit me on social media.
Join our mailing list and follow me on Instagram! This way you can stay on top of poll announcements for new mystery baskets as well as upcoming training rounds.
We will be expanding the competition to include more competitors and different locations. If you’d like to be a part, reach out and let us know!
*When I said the random meal planning is a whole thing, I meant it. Check out these screenshots of my brainstorms inside my Asana “Culinary Dreams” project
