My Own Chopped Challenge at Home: Using Leftovers and the Pantry

If you are a fan of The Food Network and Chopped you may be familiar with the Chopped Challenge at Home happening on Instragram and Twitter during this quarantine. The Chopped judges have been challenged to take food from their pantries and make a meal and also have encouraged others to post their meals . You can learn about it here.

I decided to do my own personal Chopped Challenge at home today with leftovers and pantry items. I am just posting it here and not entering the competition. This is what I found in my "basket":

Leftover sausage gravy from when I prepared biscuits and gravy

left over Manwich Sloppy Joe meat and sauce

whipped cream cheese that needed to be used

From my pantry  I used part of a jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce, 

and a dry herb mix.I mixed it all together and let it simmer on the stove.

From the pantry and fridge I cooked penne pasta, topped the pasta with parmesan cheese, and served it with a Caesar salad in the bag. 

Here was the final presentation.

"The ingredients in this dish sounded disgusting, but you know what? I really liked it".Chris Santos

"It was like sausage gravy and Manwich had a baby and it was enhanced with cream cheese. Great use of the basket ingredients" Alex Guarnaschelli

" Your pasta was cooked perfectly! I can't stop eating it." Scott Conant

" Not too shabby!" guest judge Everett Jolley

What did I think? The sauce was tasty. It reminded me of Campbell's tomato soup that you added cream instead of milk or water. I will probably never be able to duplicate it, but I used up lots of  leftovers and food that needed to be eaten.