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

My #JudyMoodySleepover Movie Party

Last weekend I hosted a Judy Moody Sleepover party to celebrate the DVD release of Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer. We had so much fun! I decorated the house, made dinner of pizza and hot dogs and dessert of ice cream. I made the kids each a goodie bag with a cool backpack, sleep mask, mood rings and lots of candy.

After we all ate dinner it was time to watch the movie. We were all very excited to see this movie, adults included! Having small children we all don't make it to the movies as often as we would like so watching a movie at home on DVD is perfect. Before the movie started I handed out the goodie bags and gave the activity booklet that came with the DVD to the oldest child that attend so she could count along the points that Judy was making in the movie. It was a cute idea to keep the kids and parent engaged.

The movie was cute. I think it is perfect for kids ages 7 to 11. It had kid friendly action such as Judy walking a log tight rope, Judy playing on the beach and many more fun activities that had points for the tally we were keeping. The party got a little wild at times, the kids were having a blast! There were balloon fights, dancing times and lots of candy being eaten. We had fun watching the kids feel like this was their night to be free and enjoy themselves. And if things were wild enough after the movie I decide to let them all have ice cream!!

I thought the movie was fun even for adults. Its sweet to see how Judy over comes her obstacles and ends up having a great summer! All the adults laughed when we saw Urkle was the school teacher. Of course our kids have no clue who he is but I thought it was funny. After the movie the kids got out their Halloween costumes they had purchased before arriving to the party. After a few hours of running around having fun the kids all got in their pjs, grabbed their pillow pets and happy nappers and fell fast asleep.

Overall we had a great time and it was a blast to host a movie party!

You can read my other post about how we Planned for our Judy Moody Sleepover Party a few days before the party.

* I was not paid for this post. I was sent a gift pack to host this party that included a DVD, party supplies and a gift card. All opinions in this post are mine and may vary from your experience.