Clever Creations "Chopped" Theme First Street Ice Cream Party Smart & Final

My family loves to watch Cooking shows, especially the ones that have competition in them. My husband worked as a chef when we first met and I am always trying to prove I make better food than him. We enjoy watching the show Chopped the most. Its a cooking competition where the chefs are given specific items that must be included in their dish and they can use the on site kitchen for other ingredients. They have to make a certain food such as appetizer, main course or dessert using the selected ingredients. I thought it would be a great idea for a Ice Cream Party theme. We like to make wild dishes with flavors that might not go together just to be experimental with food and we love Ice Cream, sounds like a perfect combination.

We shopped at Smart&Final for our supplies for our Clever Creations "Chopped" Party. We purchased First Street brand items since they are always a great deal.

For our required ingredients for our Ice Cream creations we have Bacon, Cayenne powder, Applesauce and Oranges. The creations made by each team must include all four ingredients in their dish for it to be complete. We were able to use other items we had in the kitchen to make our creations. I also had the First Street Products I purchased at Smart&Final along with a few other First Street brand items I already had in my cupboards.

We used a coin to flip heads or tails for who would cook first and get the pick of Vanilla or Chocolate Ice Cream for their dish. The men went first and selected Vanilla and planned out their creation. They decided on a Vanilla Tropical theme.

Their plan was to make a Vanilla Shake served in a Orange peel bowl topped with Cayenne Bacon.

Cayenne powdered Bacon for the topping

The shake included 3 scoops Vanilla Bean First Street Ice Cream, 1/2 cup Applesauce, 1 banana, 3 Oranges (saving the peel as a cup to be served in. Place in the freezer while making other items) 3 pinches of First Street Shredded Coconut, cinnamon and the juice from 2 additional oranges.

Blend the mixture on high for several minutes until there are no chunks

One of the Orange Peel cups did not have a flat enough bottom. Maybe next time we will cut just a bit off the bottoms to make it level.

Team #1 Finished First Street Ice Cream Creation Vanilla Tropical

The second team, the women, we used First Street Chocolate Ice Cream. We were creating a more rich dish with lots of chocolate and Cayenne powder. The original plan was to make bacon cups but the muffin tins had been used in the backyard for mud pies then tossed out so I had to quickly rethink my plan. We decided to make little bacon pedestals for the ice cream to sit on.

For the Chocolate Bacon Ice Cream Creation we decided to make a sauce to go over our chocolate ice cream served on a bacon pedestal. The sauce included 1/2 cup Applesauce, 1/4 cup First Street Chocolate Syrup, the juice from two Oranges, and 1 tablespoon of Cayenne powder. ( We added chocolate and cayenne dashes as it cooked for flavor adjustments.)

I placed the just cooked bacon in little cups to make the circle shapes. Do this fast or it will break.

Needed more chocolate as I tasted it. The aroma was great, like a chocolate orange candy mixed with Mexican Hot Coco.

The finished sweet and spicy Chocolate sauce

Next we plated our dish to be tasted against the other team's First Street Ice Cream Creation. I so wanted my team of the women to win so I could have bragging rights!

Chocolate Bacon with Sweet and Spicy Sauce topped with First Street Slivered Almonds

The two finished Smart&Final First Street Ice Cream Clever Creations "Chopped" Party dishes. Each dish had to include Bacon, Cayenne powder, Apple Sauce, Oranges and one flavor of First Street Ice Cream. The taste test started and we were impressed by the competition. Each team went a different direction with the flavors making it a tough call on the winner. Most of the kids did not like the spicy sauce on the Chocolate Bacon Dish but did love the Tropical Vanilla Shake Mixture. The adults agreed the Chocolate Bacon one was rich, spicy and a great use of the ingredients. But the sweetness of the Tropical Vanilla shake on the Cayenne Bacon was awesome!

The women were officially "chopped" from this competition. The winner ended up being the men's for the overall dish but we all agreed the women did have the best use of the flavors for the Chocolate Sweet and Spicy sauce.

A face covered in Ice Cream is always a sign of a great Ice Cream Party #IceCreamTreat

You can read my Google+ Story about my shopping trip to Smart & Final for First Street Ice Cream and other supplies for our "Chopped" Clever Creations Ice Cream Party.

*This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias.
All opinions expressed in this shop are my own and your experience may vary. #Cbias #IceCreamTreat