foodtvandme.com is the unofficial food network fansite with news, reviews, and my attempts at those great recipes you see on tv.

According to Richard Johnson of the New York Post, the Food Network has crowed a new queen.  Due to Rachael Ray’s recent network TV fame, Paula Deen has stepped into the royal footsteps and became the queen of the Food Network.  Funny, I don’t remember a coronation? 

I agree that Rachael has a lot on her plate right now, and that Paula seems to have stepped into the spotlight, but Paula doesn’t scream regal to me.  I guess neither does Rachel.  I say we have a vote. Don’t we live in America?  I think Giada would make a lovelier queen than either of those guys.  Her food is prettier, too.  What do you think?  Who’s the Food Network Queen in your opinion?

In an interview from ModernMom.com, writer Lolita Carrico, asks Iron Chef, Cat Cora, about balancing a career and motherhood. 

Lolita: What’s your definition of a Modern Mom?
 
Cat: The modern mom is a great multi-tasker, versatile, sophisticated yet fun. She is interested in ways to stay healthy and active and she’s knowledgeable about cooking, entertaining, style trends as well as kids’ trends.  She works hard to make sure she keeps balance in her life and her family’s life.

I admire Cat Cora for being an Iron Chef.  The almost all boys club needs more estrogen and Cora is paving the way.  In an upcomming battle taking place on November 12th, the battle we have all been waiting for, Giada De Laurenttiis and Rachael Ray duke it out in the ring.  One of them will take home the Italian-American Superstar Iron Chef title.  This unprecidented battle wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the beautiful Cat Cora.

For the whole interview on ModernMom.com, please click here.

The spooking season is upon us.  It’s time to ply those kids with sugar and make some crazy cupcakes.  Can’t bake?  No problem!  The Food Network is gearing up for this scary time of year by releasing a number of specials that will help turn your quaint country cottage into a haunted mansion.

Emeril kick’s off this Halloween season with a Bam!  He’s airing special episodes all week for “Sweets and Treats” week.  Those episodes include Shrunken Heads and Graveyard Pudding.

Sandra Lee has a special Semi-Homemade Halloween like only Sandra could do.  In this special, she shows us how to candy our own apples and make a spooky pizza.  I caught a glimpse of this episode last weekend and she dresses up in different costumes for every segment.  Doesn’t everybody wear ten different costumes in one evening?  I will defend her multiple outfit changes by saying that it could concieveably give someone an idea or two about what to dress up as, but in true Sandra Lee fashion, her outfits are very over-the-top just like her tablescapes.  If you want to spend a couple of hundred dollars on your costume, by all means, take a page from the book of Sandra Lee’s costume catalog.  Her special airs October 28th at 5pm ET/PT, or October 29th at 7pm ET/PT. 

Lastly, if you ever wondered where your favorite trick or treat candies came from, then check out Spooky Treats Unwrapped.  Marc Summers takes you through the world of candy making and explores the manufacturing of scary treats like wax fangs and ghost shaped Peeps.  He also throws in some classics like Mike and Ikes and the ever so scary Pez.  AHHHH! PEZ!!! Flee for your lives!  Just kidding.  Sadly he doesn’t explore the tiny chocolate bars that were always my favorite treat to be plopped into my pillowcase for Halloween.  I guess Unwrapped has explored the world of chocolate so many times that the show felt another chocolate segment would be over kill, but I say, you can never have too much chocolate.  This special airs October 28 at 4pm ET/PT, and October 29th at 2pm ET/PT.

For the Food Network Halloween page click here.  This page has a lot of helpful Halloween party tips for any of you last minute party planners.  It has costume ideas, decoration plans and, of course, delicious spooky recipes.

Fellow Rachael Ray fan, Madeline, has a new look for her Everything Rachael Ray blog.  It’s a beautiful new site.  If you get the chance, click over to it and check it out. 

Her latest posts include an interview with her for Food Candy and the Manifesto of a Grudging Rachael Ray Fan.  In the Manifesto, she bites her tongue as she summarizes a recent article where a writer criticizes Rachael Ray.  I agree with Madeline when she says:

“Rachael’s demystification of meal preparation is exactly what helped me try cooking that very first time.”

You’re not the only one, Madeline.  She helped me, too.  Without Rachael, there probably wouldn’t even be a FoodTv and Me blog, and how sad would that be?

Check out her newly remodeled site.  You might just learn something new about Rachael, and you’ll definitley be entertained.  Keep up the good work, Madeline!

This week’s recipe attempt wasn’t actually attempted by me.  My friend, Valerie, decided to take on a recipe from last weekend’s Nigella Feasts episode.  Her recipe was a more adventurous attempt than my usual attempt (she’s a bit more skilled than I am at cooking and I hate to admit it, but I have to give her credit.)  This is also a fish dish, which is nice for everyone who likes fish, unfortunatley, I’m not one of them.  So here is a treat for all of you out there.  The following is Valerie’s attempt at a salmon dish from Nigella.  The commentary on the dish is also hers.  Enjoy!

Weekly recipe attempt: Sake Salmon and Rice
Valerie writes:
I am completely new to Nigella Lawson, but I’m already hooked.  On Sunday, she made salmon look so delicious I was ready to try it.  Salmon isn’t even a favorite of mine.  Truthfully, I rarely eat fish.  I think her accent and semantics makes her recipes extra inviting.  Due to a power outage,  I was able to invite two coworkers over for lunch.  The main course was Sake Salmon and Rice.  I only changed one thing in the recipe.  I tried, but couldn’t find English Mustard and didn’t want to use wasabi paste, so I used ordinary spicy brown mustard.  The cardamom gave the rice a nice aromatic flavor.  I think I’ll always put cardamom in my rice now.  If you have a rice cooker, this is the simplest recipe ever.  It’s great to entertain with because you aren’t slaving over a hot stove.  I think the English mustard or wasabi would have really kicked the flavor up a notch, but I was quite satisfied the way I made it.

I give it an 8 on taste and a 9 on the easy factor.  I have a salmon recipe!

I was watching the Barefoot Contessa this evening and caught the episode where Ina makes a ton of different cocktails.  It was a nice little episode, but I caught something strange.  She rimmed one of the cocktails by dipping the glass into a beaten egg white.  She never explains why she does this.  I’m used to glasses being rimmed in lemon juice and then dipped into sugar.  Am I in the minority?  Does everyone do this?  I don’t think I can bring myself to crack a whole egg open to merely rim a glass.  Please find a moment of your time to maybe explain to me the reasoning behind this egg white thing.  I beg you.

If you want to see the recipes from this show, one of which is Linguini with Shrimp that looks delicious, feel free to click here.

I’ve caught a couple of glimpses of the Food Network Challenges every chanel surf or so, and I must say, how boring!  This week, the Food Network has devoted its “Food Netwok Challenge” show to breaking world records.  Among the shows, we have, Popcorn Giants, Fastest Foods, Sugar Skyscrapers, and Pizza Champions. 

I’ve never been a fan of the challenges in the first place, but this time they are taking things to a new boring low.  A popcorn sculpture?  I’d never even heard of such a thing, until now.  OK, the world’s largest pizza sounds cool, but pretty much all I need to see is the finished product for about ten seconds and I think the marvel is over.  I do have to admit, I paused a bit on the onion chopping in the “Fastest Foods” episode, mostly because they were using big knives and chopping at lightning quick speeds through the fast forming tears.  It was kind of like watching someone on a balance beam.  You watch in horror that something tragic just might happen.

I worry that these episodes will be played over and over and over again for the next couple of months.  That’s what Food Netowrk tends to do with these shows.  I’ve passed through the Gingerbread Mansion episode countless times in the past couple of weeks and I would just rather watch someone cook. 

Don’t take my word for this, folks.  If you love the challenges, let me know why.  Also, if you’ve caught any of the World Record breaker episodes, and think that a certain moment might change my mind about the challenges, let me know what moment.   I’m sure it will be on TV a hundred or so times next week and I’ll try to catch it. 

You can catch glimpses of these challenges on the Food Network Website.

And so did the food network addict.  I, unlike jrs, caught some of Nigella’s previous shows from the land across the pond.  I agree that the constant conversions could sort of make your head spin, and deter you from wanting to make the dish, but you can’t blame her for trying to make the amounts accessible to us yankees.  In “Nigella Bites,” her previous cooking show, she used the metric system, while a conversion scrolled along the bottom.  I think I liked that method better as opposed to the lovely Nigella breaking the flow and saying a second measurment.

Apart from the measuring weirdness, I thought the show was a nice little show.  There are a whole lot of close ups that take a bit for me to register what I’m looking at, but after I see what it is, the angle makes things more artistic.  I like the rustic feel, but doubt I’ll ever pluck up the courage to make any of the dishes.  So far, they’ve seemed complicated and heavy.  More artsy than practical.  She’s definitley no Sandra Lee or Rachael Ray.  It’s a lot like the Barefoot Contessa or Giada.  You feel like you’re in her kitchen chatting with her while she makes some dinner.  It’s nice.  I also appreciate how she has some curves.  I actually feel that she eats the food she makes.  It’s a nice change of pace from, say, Giada.  I love Giada and all, but I think that one bite she takes for the camera is the only actual bite she takes. 

I think Nigella’s a keeper.  For more from the Food Network Addict, click here.

Food Network thought so.  Adam from the Giada Fan site reports a new show in the works for the beautiful Giada. This new show called ”Giada’s Weekend Getaways” will premiere on Friday, January 12 at 9:30pm, according to Adam.

This new show seems to be a lot like another traveling cook’s show, Rachael Ray’s “Tasty Travels.”  Adam also comes to the same conclusion and also makes another interesting point, “I see this possibly going the way of Rachael Ray. Before her daytime talk show, she was in at least 4 shows on the food network, mostly about travelling and finding great deals and great food like in Tasty Travels or $40 a day Sound familiar?”

Yes, it does sound familiar, Adam.  I hope we don’t get bombarded with Giada now that Rachael has her own network talk show to worry about.  I still love her, but I might get sick of her, like I did with Rachael.  I’ll cross my fingers.

For more on this new show and more from Adam, please check out his blog, Giada Fan. 

I picked this week’s recipe for a variety of reasons.  I was going to pick one of Nigella’s recipies as a kick off to her new show, but they were both kind of heavy: chili with cornbread and a trifle with whipped cream and other bad-for-you yumminess.  For the next few weeks, due to an upcoming wedding where I have to squeeze myself into a tight fitting bride’s maid’s dress, I am going to try to eat a bit healthier.  Therefore, I will try to pick slimmer recipes or modify recipes to cut some calories.  That having been said, this week’s recipe came from the queen of quickness herself, Rachael Ray.

Weekly Recipe Attempt: Chicken in Tarragon Cream Sauce, White and Wild Rice with Walnuts

First off, I love chicken.  It is by far the thing that I cook the most and what attracted me the most to this recipe.  So I took that building block and followed the recipe pretty much to a tee.  After the pot roast disaster (click here to read about the pot roast that ate Orange County), I had to return to my tried and true roots of poultry. 

While the chicken cooked, instead of rice (to make things a bit lighter) I oven roasted some green beans.  I would like to thank Emeril for this idea.  I don’t really like his show, but this was one great idea.  It made the beans all crispy and yummy.  If you have a hard time choking down vegtables, or getting the little ones to eat their green beans, try the oven roasted trick and tell them the beans are actually green french fries.  Just stick the beans in a 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes with some olive oil, salt and pepper.

It then came to the cream part.  I used some fat free half and half (yes there is such as thing.)  I found mine at Trader Joe’s.  If you don’t have a Trader Joes, or if you can’t find it at your supermarket, try fat free sour cream.  I used what I had on hand.  If you don’t have a bride’s maid’s dress to fit into, by all means use the full fat stuff. 

It was good.  I’m not a huge fan of tomato-type sauces with my chicken, but the balsamic vinegar definitley helped take away some of the tomato flavor.  Go lighter on the vingear than you would think.  When this stuff concentrates, the aroma can hit you in the face like a sucker punch.  Just wanted to warn you.

All in all I give this recipe an 8 1/2.  It doesn’t get a 9, but I think with fat free sour cream instead of half and half, it would.  If anyone out there tries this with the rice, let me know how that turns out.