One basket, four ingredients, 60 minutes to make an amazing dish…this is Foodie Friday “Chopped” edition.

As a foodie, not only do I have a huge need to eat different kinds of food, I also have the need to be challenged beyond my limits in my own kitchen.

There’s a show called “Chopped” that comes on Food Network. An idea I found online as a date night recommendation was to mimic the basic premise of the show and have a fun date inspired by the thrill of making a dish with ingredients picked by your date.

My husband went to the store and chose 4 ingredients for me to transform into one amazing dish.

I had to use ground bison, broccolini, green plantains, and olive oil balsamic salad dressing. He allowed me one hour to figure out what to prepare and another hour to actually cook it and put it on a plate.

I ended up going a Dominican route with a dish called Albóndigas de Res which means Dominican meatballs. I made juicy bison meatballs covered in a savory red sauce.

The red sauce had bell pepper, onion, roasted red tomatoes, garlic, and oregano. The meatballs (which ended up being my favorite of the dish) had onions, garlic, tomato paste and cilantro. I didn’t even measure the ingredients so I was very happy to have a tasty meatball.

As an accompaniment I used the plantains to make oven baked tostones. I utilized the dressing with the plantains as well, lightly basting them and dusting with cayenne for a spicy kick.

The hardest thing to incorporate was the broccolini. I ended up roasting it and sprinkling with salt to keep it very simple.

Overall I think the dish was a success. And my hubby judge gave me some very “Chopped” appropriate criticism, but at the end of the night I won the round (cause let’s face it, he’s not going to chop his wife 😝).

I definitely recommend this as a date night event. It gives an opportunity to be creative and eat some good food!

Next week is my turn to make his basket so we shall see what surprises I have in store. ‘Til next week, happy eating 😋