If you were the ingredients picker on Chopped, what 4 items would you put in the baskets for the contestants?

If you’ve never seen Chopped, it’s a TV show on the Food Network, in which four contestants are competing against each other to win $10,000. They have to cook an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert, but the catch is that they have to use all (a little or a lot) of the ingredients in the mystery baskets that are given to them (each contestant gets the same basket of mystery ingredients so they’re on a level playing field) and they allowed to use any other ingredients from the Chopped kitchen (so pretty much anything they want to use is OK).

Most of the time, the basket includes both delicious and meal-appropriate items, and then some things that don’t seem to go with the other items, and/or things that most people have never heard of. So the contestants might get saddled with diver scallops, jarred white pickled asparagus, Lucky Charms cereal, and chocolate covered almonds.

If you were the basket packer, what would you pack?

Keep in mind that the contestants must present each of their meals to the three judges who will be judging their dishes based on presentation, taste, and creativity in using of all four of the ingredients. So don’t just purposely choose disgusting things for the contestants, because I’ll be judging you guys on your creativity too.

Have fun!