New Years Chopped Competition

On new years day my dad hosted a chopped competition. For those who don't know what that is, the concept comes from a popular food network show called Chopped, where individuals compete to cook the best dish using the same secret ingredients in a limited amount of time. 

For our competition we had 3 teams and a box of 4 ingredients that we had to incorporate into one main dish- Acorn squash, oranges, breakfast sausage links, and a hunk of dad's fruitcake. We were also welcome to use any of the ingredients in dad's house.  Everyone had 45 minutes and the judges were everyone at dad's house that wanted to eat some.

April and I were on a team. Micah and Debby were a team and the last team was dad and his foreign exchange students hok and yuta.

April and I used a spice blend Spencer had made to season everything we made. We roasted the acorn squash in slices, we made our own stuffing with leftover bread and the breakfast sausage.  We also made an orange sauce thickened with a paste made from the fruitcake that we pulverized in the food processor. Our dish barely finished in time and it wasn't much to look at, but it tasted like thanksgiving for breakfast, so that's what we called it. And we won Best taste award.

Micah's team made a fruitcake French toast stuffed with a cream cheese and sausage mixture and orange syrup drizzled over the top with a side of acorn squash hash. It was tasty and definitely a treat. However I didn't like it when I'd bite into one of those weird glowing jelly fruit things that you find in fruitcake.
The whipped cream and berries were a nice touch.

Dad's team made a "Jimbalaya." I'm not sure how he made it but it was good and quite pretty. It tasted similar to my dish except his had added heat, which I thought made it better tasting than mine; however sometimes I got a hunk of that nasty jellied fruit stuff from the fruit cake and it wasn't so good then.

All in all it was a successful competition and everything tasted good and everyone was satisfied. I think Micah took the overall win, I can't remember right, but I know it wasn't me :). What a way to start 2014!