The wait is over! The big day is finally here! The smack talk has been ramping up for days and the teams are ready to go. It’s Chopped Challenge 2014.

First, we’ll introduce this year’s line up:

For The Cleaver’s (points to those who get the play on words) its Kristy and Mr. N; and for Team Number Won it’s Mike and Miss A.

Which team will reign supreme? And which team will be Chopped? Let’s get cooking to find out!

We’ll start the day with our Appetizer Basket. Teams will have to use the ingredients from this year’s winning basket and with 35% of the votes comes to us from Mr. N and Miss A, and those ingredients are:

Now since this is a live blogging event, make sure to check back throughout the day. We’ll post photos and updates throughout the day for each course as well as the results. This year we’re also going to try to keep up with a photo stream on our Instagram account (eatplayloveblog) which will also post to our Twitter feed @eatplayloveblog. Getting a bit more high tech this year! Once again thanks for your participation and for following along.

Here’s to a great day of cooking and eating! Let’s get it on!

Well, Team Number Won is off to an early lead after commandeering the kitchen.

They’ve got some kind of sesame oil and ume plum vinegar mixture going on in there.

The Cleaver’s have their bacon going,

and some other mascarpone concoction,

but is the pressure already driving Kristy to the brink???

Thankfully Mr. N is staying focused for The Cleavers.

It looks like they’re hand-stuffing Won-Ton wrappers to make their own tortellini–impressive.

Well, folks, the appetizer round is complete. Team Number Won created a tortellini salad featuring apples, pears, bacon and an Asian-inspired dressing; and the Cleavers came up with a homemade tortellini (using won ton wrappers) which were deep fried and served with a mascarpone cream sauce.

The salad, which was entirely Miss A’s idea, was a tasty combination. Yet while all the pieces worked in concept, the execution was a bit lacking (which Miss A blames on her teammate – is there dissension in the ranks?). The sesame oil in the dressing was a little too over-powering making the dish a bit too salty. Still the bites with apple, tortellini and bacon were quite good and might do better with a more Italian inspired vinaigrette. This dish came in with 2 spoons from Kristy and Mike, 1-1/2 spoons from Mr. N and 0 spoons from the chef that created the dish!

That means – the winner for this round is THE CLEAVERS! The tortellini was made using won ton wrappers (thanks to a post from Chicago John Kristy remembered from last spring) and stuffed with a mixture of ricotta, bacon, basil and apples. After the tortellini were cooked, they were dredged in flour, egg and panko before being deep fried to perfection. (Recipe to come in following weeks.) The crispy tortellini were served alongside a mascarpone cream sauce for dipping. Mr. N and Miss A came in with 4 spoons each while Mike and Kristy gave the dish a 3 spoon ranking. It’s hard to beat a deep fried appetizer folks, especially with two kids at the judging table!

Now it’s time to clean the kitchen from round one. We’ll be back shortly to post the winning main course basket! Stay tuned…

The first round of cleaning is done and we’re on to the main course! This year’s winning basket with 32% of the vote comes to us from Vanyadhanya:

And the cooking is already underway with a garam masala sachet in the works for Team Number Won.

The Cleavers are again late to the kitchen, we hope they’re not getting too cocky – it’s still anyone’s game! Although they do seem to have soaked some cashews…another cream perhaps?
It took us a little while to track down Mr. N and Miss A for Round 2. They kinda vanished for the cleaning phase of the contest. Fortunately we had a good idea where to look.

Team Number Won is mixing up some potatoes, cilantro and flour. Gnocchi, perhaps? Not quite.

Mike and Kristy seem to be sharing the counter space nicely. Wonder how long that will last?

Everyone is on a roll. Lots of cooking is underway. All four burners are in use, the oven, a food processor and a blender. Too bad this isn’t the real chopped kitchen – these teams have to wash dishes in between use! So what is everyone up to? Let’s check back in…Team Number One is rolling something into balls. Looks like it’s potatoes flour and cilantro.

Once the balls were rolled, they were dropped into boiling water? Looks like they’re going for some sort of dumpling. The Cleavers are mixing their potatoes, carrots and onions with a cashew cream. Wonder what that’s going to be…

A casserole???

Nope – a pot pie! Oh, the pressure is on now Team Number One!

Team Number Won needed a victory in round two of the challenge, and they brought out deep fried potato dumplings in a cashew cream sauce with whole Garam Masala spice infusion and the secret ingredient. They were up against a vegan pot pie with potatoes, carrots, cashews and pumpkin inside, and quite a bit of heat from their own liberal use of the garam masala.

Mr. N was ready to call this one for Team Number Won even before tasting (he did know what the secret ingredient was), but once we actually sat down, it was clear this was going to be a tough call. The pot pie was boldly flavored, with plenty of kick and the pumpkin and creamy cashew mix gave it a great texture.

Mike had just a bit of nervousness as we tasted his team’s dish. He had spent most of the past 24 hours chirping about “the sweet, sweet taste of victory,” which came wrapped up in a small black grocery bag from the little Indian grocery store nearby. After the pot pie, he needed to deliver. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a dish that was going to score big on presentation.

But oh, that secret ingredient–Paneer! Even Kristy had to acknowledge that the thick chunks of paneer in the sauce put it over the top. The Pot Pie got 4 spoons from Mike and Miss A, 3 spoons from Kristy and Mr. N. The dumplings got 4 spoons from Mike, Kristy and Miss A and 3 spoons from Mr. N, though Miss A only liked the paneer in the sauce and didn’t give the dumpling much of a chance.

We head to the dessert round all tied up at a round apiece, though I have a feeling the pot pie may be one of those things that we eat a lot of, even though it didn’t win. We’d better, Kristy made enough to freeze three big casserole dishes full. But before we get to dessert, it’s cleanup time. You’d never know we cleaned up about halfway through this round.

And as the evening draws to a close and all the natural light has disappeared, it’s time for the final round of Chopped Challenge 2014. So with a title riding on this round, what basket do we have in store for Team Number Won and the Cleaver’s? Well, with 39% of the vote, it was Charles’ basket from Five Euro Food!

The teams are in the kitchen – except for Miss A. She is now providing entertainment for the wary chefs who are going on nine hours of cooking, eating and cleaning!

It’s time for a dessert basket update. What are our super chefs up to now? Team Number Won appears to be slicing mango,

and rolling out something under some parchment paper.

As for the Cleaver’s they seem to be conspiring over near the stove.

As we go in for a closer look, it appears to be something rather familiar.

But wait? What about the mangoes?

The Cleaver’s have some dried mangoes chopped up, for what remains unclear; and Team Number Won has some simmering on the stove. This could be an interesting round!

Alright fans and friends, the results are in for the third and final round. Let’s see what our teams came up with for dessert this year.

The Cleaver’s created a No Bake Cookie Pop. It’s a cookie with quinoa, chocolate and peanut butter and it looks like they’ve sprinkled it with dried mangoes . Team Number Won opted for a similar concoction, but came up with granola bars and a mango syrup. So who was the winner of the dessert round (and ultimately this year’s title)?

The Cleaver’s No Bake Cookie Cake Pops took the lead with 3 spoons each from Kristy and Mike and 4 spoons for each of the kids. Some might call this the easy way out, going with a tried and true recipe and not a chocolate quinoa cake or quinoa chocolate chip cookie, but there are exactly two things that bring about a gag reflex in Kristy – beets and chocolate. Oddly enough, this is the only recipe with chocolate that Kristy enjoys. And frankly it remains the one and only!

Knowing Kristy’s abnormal distaste for chocolate, Team Number Won tried to craft a dessert similar to the no bake cookie in hopes of winning over the chocolate hater. Unfortunately their choice of dark chocolate didn’t do the trick. The Quinoa Choco-oat Bars came in with 3 spoons from Mike and 2 spoons from the rest of the judges.

And there you have it, folks, the 2014 Chopped Challenge Champion is The Cleaver’s!

Despite Kristy’s three-peat at the annual event (and her victory in this year’s Super Bowl pool), there are no hard feelings at Eat, Play, Love.

Or are there?!

Don’t worry, it’s still giggles and laughter all around. It was a game well played by all. Thank you to everyone that participated by providing our basket ingredients, voting and of course following along. It’s a marathon of a day – 11 hours for 2014 – but one of our favorites each year. It’s a tradition we hope will last many more years to come.

Now it’s time to tuck the sous chefs into bed, kick up our feet and enjoy a glass of celebratory Champagne. Thank you all! We’ll be back in the next few weeks with recipes for our winning dishes. Cheers!

Oh – and yes – the cleaning is all done now too. 🙂