WALTON COUNTY, Ga. — A Georgia family decided to get creative while following shelter-in-place guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Timms family loves the Food Network show 'Chopped,' and decided to create their own version of the show at their Walton County home last Saturday.
They call it “Chopped: Family Edition.”
“We’re pretty competitive, so we like to play games and stuff like that. So it was fun to do something altogether,” Abigail Timms said.
Abigail, her sister, Emma, and her father Michael were all given a bag of ingredients and told to make a dish while her mother, Wendy judged. Wendy’s mother-in-law helped with judging as well.
“We also put pictures on Facebook and Instagram and let our friends kind of give an overall score and those were bonus points,” Wendy said.
Wendy says each family member’s skill level was reflected in their assigned round. Emma is known to be the chef of the family, so she was given the entrée round.
“We tried to follow the show a little bit – how well they used certain basket ingredients, of course, taste and creativity, how it looked,” Wendy said.
Emma ended up taking the win with her Ramen-crusted chicken, butternut squash puree, and lemon-herb potatoes, while Michael and Abigail were chopped.
“I knew what I was up against. She really helps mom cook, and she’s really good at baking, too,” Abigail said. “I knew she’d be a tough competition to beat. I had hopes, but she was really good.”
Abigail prepared Hawaiian inside-out hand pies with a pineapple glaze and Michael made chocolate-covered strawberry pop-tart ice cream pie. Michael says he didn’t win the competition, but he thought he won over the internet with his presentation.
“I thought I had it in the bag,” Michael said.
Wendy says although Emma was the clear winner, all family members did a great job.
“I was pretty proud of them,” she said.
The competition lasted the entire day.
“I have big kids. They’re not little kids anymore and you think, ‘Well, you don’t have to entertain them, but you still want to have time together as a family,” Wendy said. “So, it got everybody in the same place working toward the same goal, so that was fun.
Abigail says they're very close and have been working to have fun while staying together during the pandemic.
“We’re just focusing on day-by-day and last Saturday, it was ingredient-by-ingredient,” Michael said.
The Timms say they are going to try to recreate another one of their favorite shows, Spring Baking Championship, next.
“You can only play Monopoly so much,” Michael said.
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