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

Thanksgiving is a little more than a week away, I should, therefore have a handle on the planning, right?  Unfortunatly, I am going to be out of town for a few days busy being a bridesmaid for one of my friend’s weddings.  I need help.  I love to cook the Thanksgiving meal, so I, therefore, volunteered for the task to cook this huge meal for my family months ago and I’m happy to do it.  However… 

I’m getting a little nervous.  I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to plan for the meal itself.  I looked at Food Network’s Thanksgiving site and found a couple of recipes that I’m going to try.  If you’re a bit panicked, too feel free to check out the site.  You might find somethings helpful, or you might not.  

But before I leave, I would like to ask for all of you to help me, too.  What timesaving tricks do you use for Thanksgiving?  I could use all the help that you can give me.  I like to keep things simple.  My family eats simple food and we all have varying levels of pickyness.  My brother only eats turkey and bread.  My mom doesn’t like vegtables.  And, as I’ve said before, I don’t like fish.  My dad will eat almost anything, so no problems with him, but I’m not going to make oyster stuffing just for him.  Sorry dad. 

So if you, also, have run into the problem of picky eaters, and have simple crowd pleasing recipes that you think my picky family might like, those would be most helpful as well. 

When I get back from the wedding, this blog better be full of ideas.  Please.  I need help.  And thanks in advance.

Madeline over at Everthing Rachael Ray tagged me for a meme.  The first thing I had to do was look up what “tagged” meant, and the second was to look up what a “meme” was.  If you are like me, and are new to the whole meme thing, click on this helpful link which was provided in Madeline’s post. 

The question posed was this:  Which menu would you serve to blogging friends for a welcome dinner upon their first visit to your home?

Excellent question.  A little ambitious, but excellent nonetheless.  I first have to point out, that if I have people over, I probably won’t make a dinner with five parts to it, like Madeline.  In fact, my dinners usually consist of about three things, a bread/rice dish, a meat (usually chicken), and a vegetable.

But, in keeping with the 5 part theme, I will answer with some recipes that I have posted in weekly recipe attempts and fill in the gaps with other Food Network chef recipes.  When I cook for people, I want to impress them.  In order to impress someone with my cooking, it has to be easy and attempted before hand to ensure minimum screw ups.  Here goes nothing.

Appetizer: Black Pepper-Basil Farmer’s Cheese Bruschetta with Tomato from Bobby Flay’s Boy Meets Grill.  It’s really tasty.  Looks impressive.  And it’s pretty simple to make.

Salad: I’m sorry.  I have to break the recipe pattern with this one.  My salads usually come out of whatever ingredients I have left on hand once I make the rest of the meal.  It would be a salad with romaine lettuce and leftover vegtables.  That’s just how I do salads.

Entree:  Chicken Francese from Tyler Florence’s Food 911.  I made this one last week, and I loved it.  It also think it would go well with the bruschetta, and, again, it looks impressive.

Side Dish:  Oven Roasted Green Beans from Emeril.  I love these things and cook them all the time.  I like to use them in place of rice or potatoes when I’m trying to watch my girlish figure.

Dessert:  Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti from Giada’s Everyday Italian.  I haven’t actually made this one yet, but I think the best way to end any type of gathering is with a cup of coffee and a delicious treat.  What goes better with coffee than biscotti?

Here’s who I’m tagging:

• Adam at Giada Fan
• Geneve at Geneve’s Kitchen
• Dan at The Hungover Gourmet
• Mike at TV Food Fan

I’m so jealous.  Tyler Florence, the sexiest chef on television today, just happened to be in San Diego demonstrating how spectacular his new line of cookware is at Macy’s (click here to browse his pretty, yet pricey cookware.  It’s actually on sale right now if you are shopping early for the holidays.  I could use a gravy boat if you’re feeling generous.)  He is also promoting his new cook book that was released in September, Tyler’s Ultimate. 

So, back to my jealousy.  My friend, Valerie, happens to reside in San Diego and happened to score some tickets to his cooking demo.  She managed to meet the man himself, and break my heart by reporting to me that he is engaged with a baby on the way.  Oh well.  He’s still pretty to look at.  She was also able to snap a picture and get her copy of his cook book signed. 

Here is the photo.  They both look so happy.  I’m even more jealous. 

Valerie writes: Here I am with Tyler Florence after his cooking class in San Diego.  I waited in line for 90 minutes and was lucky enough to get into the class.  Tyler gave me the pasta dish he fixed during class.  Yum!

As an amateur cook, I’m always on the look out for easy meals to fix for company, especially easy meals that look complicated.  I’ve found the perfect easy, company food care of Food Network’s most attractive chef, in my opinion, Tyler Florence. 

Weekly recipe attempt: Chicken Francese

Tyler coins this meal as part of the perfect first date menu.  I kind of agree. This meal, especially this recipe, is fairly easy to manufacture, and looks pretty on the plate.  I, however, don’t really think that a meal cooked at home is particularly proper for a first date.  After watching the disaster of Dave Lieberman’s blind date from Dave Does (click here for my post and the link to the Aphrodesiacs episode) the thought of cooking for a complete stranger at your home can be a little creepy especially if you try too hard.  Cooking is more of a third date thing in my opinion, so I recommend this for a third date as opposed to date number one.  But I digress.

I made the chicken without too many screw ups.  The one thing I should mention about the chicken is that you should definitely try to pound it as thin as you can get it.  I didn’t pound mine thin enough, partly because I don’t own a malet, and partly because the chicken breast I had was from a mutant chicken that had a breast the size of a turkey’s.  This led to the chicken taking a bit longer to cook, which if you have company, is a bad thing.  Once the chicken was finally done, I placed it on a bed of green beans for color.  All of it went so well together.  I think I used a touch too much lemon juice in the sauce so be careful.  Half a lemon goes a long way, especially when the sauce cooks down and concentrates. 

All in all, I give this recipe a 9 out of 10.  I admit I may be adding half a point because I like to look at Tyler while he cooks this, but the recipe is really good, especially for that special someone. 

This year I have the happy task of putting together a delicious Thanksgiving meal for my family.  I’m genuinly excited and to get everybody else in the mood and as excited as me, here is a little tid bit from Ham on the Street’s, George Duran.  He puts a funny spin on one of Thanksgiving’s biggest fears, losing things in the turkey while stuffing it.  This hasn’t happened to me, yet, but then again, I’ve only made turkey once before.  Hopefully I’ll remember to remove my silver bracelet before stuffing something.  Enjoy!

Ham on Turkey airs November 14th at 9pm ET/PT as part of Food Network’s “Let’s Talk Turkey” week.

Mike over at TV Food Fan pointed me in the direction of a lovely little blurb about the quick cooking Rachael Ray.  The blurb is from the Village Voice has comments about Rachael and features a picture from FHM magazine.  Please click here and take a look at this thing.  My focus for this comment is the picture.

Firstly, I never saw Rachael Ray as a sexual icon and I was a little shocked at what I saw.  Once I clicked on the link, it looked like they stuck Rachael’s head on someone else’s body.  Not that I don’t believe that the slim, toned, body is Rachael Ray’s, because I do.  But the pose is so absurd.  She has her typical Rachael Ray smile in all it’s big teeth glory, and then she is sitting on the kitchen counter covered in bubbles.  If you are reading this and haven’t yet clicked on the picture, I’m sure you’re thinking, “Wow!  That’s hot!”  So please click here. To me it’s just odd looking.  The concept of Rachael Ray even being in FHM Magazine never even crossed my mind as a possibility and frankly, I’m not sure that I like it.  Kudos to the Burger Queen for putting herself out there as a sexy person, but I can’t help it if it made me uneasy.

I’m all for sexy chefs and cooks.  I’m a huge fan of having people see all sides of you, but she have to smile like that?  She kind of looks like she is surprised to be there herself.  Like she is laughing at the fact that someone wants this picture.  I just don’t see it.  She doesn’t look sexy to me in this picture.  Please let me know if you disagree.  Tell me the appeal of this pose. Is it the cleaning the dishes thing?  Tell me.  I beg you.