Chopped!

November 2012

We continued to celebrate Austin and Amy's upcoming wedding with another shower thrown for their Dallas friends and family.  This was truly one of the most interesting and unique wedding showers I've ever attended.  Amy's sister-in-law-to-be's mom owns 3015 at Trinity Groves, a really neat culinary event venue near downtown Dallas.  We arrived at the venue and snacked on some yummy apps and drinks.  After we'd mingled for a while, we were all given an apron in one of three colors.  Then, we were told the secret ingredients - those ingredients that everyone had to use in their meal.  Austin and Amy planned a destination wedding in Key West, so the ingredients were appropriately island themed; shrimp, seaweed, dried mango, key lime (I think) and maybe something else I can't remember.  We got five minutes to conceptualize our winning dish and pick any additional ingredients we needed from the "pantry."

Our group decided to make some sauteed shrimp over a seaweed and potato pancake with mango-lime salsa.  Here are our cooks in action.  I was the photographer/consultant :)

Each of the teams had a cooking station from which to create their shrimp masterpieces:

Here is our finished product.  Notice the beautiful plating?  A heart for the two lovebirds!

Of course, Austin and Amy got to judge the finished dishes:

Sadly, while the blue team won "best plating," we did not win for the best tasting dish.  That honor went to the seaweed and shrimp wrap made by the red team which included Austin's mom and dad - do you think they had a little bit of an advantage? :)  Mrs. Pichot is an amazing cook and certainly has a good idea of what pleases Austin's palate.

While the adults competed, the kids were having some fun of their own.  Jack, Gemma and Sierra got to decorate their own cupcakes!

 

Such a fun night, and a wonderful way to celebrate Austin and Amy!