A Chopped Theme Supper Club

Almost ten years into our Supper Club now thinking of fresh themes when hosting can be a little more difficult than it was when we all first started.

Being the huge Food Network fans that G & I are we thought we might want to do a take on a Chopped theme. We played around with some of the options of how we might do it. Given our smaller kitchen space we decided the couples would need to know what their ingredients were ahead of time and mostly prepare them at home. 

We decided everyone would have the same 4 ingredients to prepare with; Pear and Hazelnut to go with the season. And then chocolate and cayenne pepper to add to the challenge. The task was to use at least two ingredients in your dish. A prize for using 3 or more ingredients in your recipe. Everyone stepped up to using three, most used 4 ingredients. 

I always love an excuse to create a seasonal table and supper club is always the perfect excuse. Also it seems like if we didn't host events like these we might never so thoroughly clean our house. Thank goodness we do. 

Kris & Jeff were assigned appetizer and stepped up with this beautiful Pear, Roquefort & Caramelized Onion Galette from My Recipes. They made some tweaks such as switching hazelnuts for the pecans and adding some cayenne. It was wonderful but anything with both pears and caramelized onions will hit the spot with me. Our Chopped meal was off to roaring start.

Next course was assigned to Jenni & Arnie who had salad. Definitely challenging to get all 4 ingredients into this one. But they met the challenge beyond well, making Roquefort Pear Salad W/Grapes &  Chocolate Spiced Hazelnuts adapted from a Junior League recipe linked on Food.com . This salad was the best salad I've had in a long time. Of course the photo doesn't quite do it justice (still haven't learned how to get great food photos on the fly at these events. Especially when hosting.)

For our main dish we turned to Rick Bayless. We admit to being fully predictable loyal in choosing a Bayless inspired recipe. We found a contemporary red mole recipe in his Mexico One Plate at a Time cookbook that just sounded like the perfect canvas to weave our ingredients into. We made Roasted Cornish Hens with Pear-Hazelnut Mole. (more about this recipe to come.)

We served the hens with some Roasted Squash with a Honey-Cayenne Glaze. 

Lastly, Lisa & Derek served an AMAZING dessert. Pear Clafoutis with Phyllo Crisps -Cider Sauce and Chocolate Sorbet. Oh yes, it was just as decadent and wonderfully over the top as the title sounds. And they plated with true Chopped food styling skill. Our entire group was impressed with the beauty.

We had such a great meal and a great time together. 

As we usually do.

We all enjoyed the Chopped theme idea and were excited how well the flavors all complemented each other. 

Looking forward to our November gathering.