As seems par for the course this year, I concluded 2017 finding myself running behind. Sigh. However, my New Year’s resolution for 2018 is to be more patient. Even with myself. Maybe especially with myself. So even though December is now a full week in the past, I’m going to finish my soup project. I have my notes, I have my plan; I just need a little more time to unpack and regroup.

Meanwhile, I can reveal to you my project for 2018. I had a lot of trouble coming up with this one – I auditioned a number of ideas and nothing felt quite right – and then N. hit on the perfect idea during our drive home from northern California this past weekend: a monthly Chopped challenge. If you aren’t familiar, Chopped is a competition cooking show on Food Network. The contestants have a set amount of time (mostly 30 minutes) during which they must cook and plate either an appetizer, an entrée, or a dessert featuring 3 or 4 “mystery basket ingredients” which can range from items as banal as halibut fillets or carrots to as mystifying or repulsive as gummy bears, kelp noodles, or the much maligned “chicken in a can.” The contestant who makes the least successful dish each round is “chopped,” leaving one winner at the end who takes home a cash prize.

I am mildly obsessed with this show. I yell at the contestants, I pause at the moment the basket ingredients are revealed to announce what dish I would make, and a year or so ago I created the hashtag #ChoppedConsultant, which I used to tweet dos and do nots while watching episodes (“don’t make bread pudding!” “don’t cook rice in the appetizer round!”). As I’ve mentioned previously, N. and I sometimes play the game of imagining what dishes we would make with a set of ingredients while we are waiting around somewhere or on a long drive. I have, on occasion, deemed a set of assigned ingredients “easy” and rattled off something immediately. Now, he’s suggesting I take my bragging to the stove and share the results. This sounded like fun.

Here’s how the challenge will work: once a month, N. will give me a “basket” of ingredients, and specify whether they are to be used in an appetizer, entrée, or dessert.  We aren’t going to require a time limit, at least not at first (and maybe not ever), in part to make it feel doable for me, and in part because, as N. commented, he doesn’t want to do the dishes it would take for me to complete a full dish in X amount of time. For extra fun and some audience participation, if you will, the day before I post the results, I’ll reveal the “mystery basket” here, including which part of the meal it applies to. Then, if you want, you can envision what you would make with these ingredients and post your idea in the comments!

I can’t promise all of these posts will present dishes you’ll want to try yourself. This is a bit of a departure from previous annual challenges I’ve assigned myself in that I’m not looking to learn a new skill or master a type of cookery. It’s really more… well, fun. And if the completed dish is a little odd, then so be it. We can still get some enjoyment out of imagining what we would make, and in laughing or smacking our lips over what results.