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

For all you Duff Goldman fans out there, Ace of Cakes is having its season finale this Thursday, April 26th at 10pm.  That’s a bit late for me, so may I suggest, for any of you out there who are early birds like me, another showing?  In true Food Network fashion, the finale will air multiple times in addition to the April 26th airing.  Here are the complete times:

• April 26 @ 10pm
• May 8 @ 10pm
•  May 12 @ 2pm
• May 13 @ 5pm

Can Duff and his crew create a football themed cake that’s massive even by Charm City Cake’s standards?  Tune in to find out. 

First off, I have to apologize.  I made this recipe for my family at Easter and I was going to post this immediatley after that, but I couldn’t.  You see, I started a new job last week, and at my new job I actually have a pretty full day.  This isn’t much of an excuse, but it’s better late than never, right?  Now onto the Easter (or I guess we can call it Sunday Supper) recipe.

Weekly Recipe Attempt: Cheese Scalloped Potatoes

I know the picture looks like a big pot of goo, but it tasted absolutley delectable.  It was a bit like goo (I added extra cheese) but it was delicious goo nonetheless.  I usually take the Sandra Lee approach to all recipes, but this time, I decided my scalloped potatoes were going to be from scratch, as opposed to a box.  The jury’s still out as to which one is better.  The ones from the box are pretty darn good.

Emeril’s recipe in particular caught my eye because of the short list of ingredients.  Seven.  Seven things go into a pot and they bake in the oven.  Pretty simple.  Even I couldn’t screw this up, and I didn’t.  I would, if I were you, I didn’t so let’s not be lemmings, follow the directions when they tell you to put the potato layers into a flat baking dish.  I had just bought a new cooking pot thing (red receptacle in the picture) as a present to myself for my new job and really wanted to use it.  This caused the goo to be more gooey as opposed to the usual little crunchy topped scalloped potatoes that you usually get with these types of dishes. 

All in all, I give this recipe an 8 out of 10.  It was good, and accompanied the ham very well, but it wasn’t great.   It was easy, but I still had to slice a whole lot of potatoes without a mandolin.

I’ve been nominated for a blogger’s choice award!

If you’d like to participate in the fun, and think that I might deserve your vote (no, I’m not above shameless begging)

Click here!

Food TV lovers of the world unite!  Cook the planet!

The latest poll has everyone craving Alton Brown’s velcro herb canisters and extensivley labled tupperware.  I love Alton, and apparently, everyone else loves his kitchen.  I think I’d like his kitchen, too, if he came with it.

Giada De Laurentiis came in a close second with her pretty and hip kitchen.  In all honestly, I’d love to cook in her kitchen, probably more then Alton’s.  It seems so lovely, but not so girly that you expect Martha Stewart to be making homemade baby food in the next room.

As for the final tally, here are all the results:

1. Alton Brown’s quirky and practical kitchen wins with 28 % of the votes.
2. Giada De Laurentiis’ pretty and hip pad comes in second with 27% of the votes.
3. Ina Garten’s clean and colonial kitchen sits comfortably in the middle with 19% of the votes.
4. Tyler Florence’s homey yet masculine digs beat a couple of others with 11% of the votes.
5. Sandra Lee’s matchy matchy cooking spot ties with Rachael Ray’s funky color swatch with 7% of the votesrounding out the bottom.

Didn’t see your favorite chef’s kitchen on the list?  Tell me about it and why you’d love to slave over dinner in it.

I caught this episode last weekend on the Food Network.  The lovely Nigella made “trashy” food.  I’m all for trashy food and cook it on a regular basis, but somehow this British beauty still looked sexy even while cooking Elvis’s favorite dish, the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.  I remember watching her eat this food-type concoction on her white couch and cringing every time she took a bite.  Not because of the sandwich, but because she eats like no one is looking and I was sure that at any moment a huge glob would come squirting out the side of the sandwich and fall right onto the white couch. It didn’t, but I was worried the whole time.

Anyway, on the the more fascinating, pertinent recipe of the show.  Since Easter is coming up, there was a trashy-style ham on the show.  It was a ham baked in Coca Cola, if you can imagine.  Tracey over at Foodie Obsessed saw this ham recipe as well.  She found the actual recipe for this ham on the Style Network’s website.  Please click here for her take on the recipe and the recipe itself.  I thought the ham looked delicious, but I’m still sticking to my pre-cooked ham that comes with the glaze in little baggie that you add later.  I know it’s tragic, but it’s family tradition.  I take more liberties with the sides any way.

According to EarthTimes.org, Good Eats has won a Peabody Award.  The 66th Annual Peabody Awards rewarded excellence in electronic media for 2006.  Good Eats won it’s first Peabody Award this year.  George Foster writes, Good Eats is, ”a deliriously inventive series for Food Network in which Alton Brown educates viewers about food, science, history and culture.”

I think that that’s pretty excellent.  As you all may or may not know, Alton is my favorite male chef on the Food Network.  I used to watch Mr. Wizard as a kid and Alton brings cooking to us in that kind of style.  Not only does he tell me how to cube a steak, but he shows me why you want to cube it by using gelatin with holes poked in it.  It’s like science class meets home economics.  What could be more fun than that? 

Congrats Alton, and the rest of the Good Eats team for this wonderful honor!

OK that was a bit of an overstatment, but the quick cooking queen, Rachael Ray, is doing a little extra to help keep our planet a greener place.  The Post Chronicle has reported a Page Six bit of information that states “Ray insists on not only driving a Prius, but being driven around in one.”  Ray uses a car service, Ozo Car, that only utilizes hybrid cars such as the Toyota Prius.

I don’t know why, but I kind of expected Rachael Ray to drive her own car until I read this.  I know she is made of oodles of money, now, but she seems so down to earth.  A little high strung maybe, but still too grounded to be driven around.  I kind of picture her in some Cadillac convertible from the sixites, not a Prius.  But at least she isn’t riding around in a gas guzzling limo.  That’s something.

Want to travel, but don’t know where to start?  Just follow your stomach.  With a little guidance from FoodNetwork.com you can make your travels exciting and tasty with the prep work already done for you.

According to FoodNetwork.com The top five places on the list to travel for food are:

1. Barcelona:  It has “everything from local tapas bars to exotic and experimental restaurants inspired by Spain’s famous, trendsetting chef Ferran Adria.”  For more on Barcelona click here.
2. Biarritz:  Has a ”good blend of French, Southwestern, and the more local, Basque cuisine.”  For more on Biarritz click here.
3. Cape Town: Has cusine where “various European influences blend with African ingredients and Eastern traditions brought by slaves to this South African city.” For more on Cape Town click here.
4. Dublin: “Dining in Dublin has dramatically improved in recent years making it comparable to other international spots.” For more on Dublin click here.
5. Edinburgh: Even though this cuisine is “full of ethnically diverse dining options, it is proud of its roots.”  For more on Edinburgh click here.

For the remaining five places, check out FoodNetwork.com