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Ina Garten, Reader Submitted Posts »

32

Ridiculous Food Network Recipe of the Week: Ina Garten’s Iced Coffee
Posted on August 26th 2011

Surely the Barefoot Contessa has a recipe for good iced coffee. Well, not really.

One reviewer summed Ina’s “recipe” up well: Pour cold coffee over ice. Is there anyone on this earth that needs Ina Garten to tell them that pouring a liquid over ice will make it cold? Better remind them that putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher will clean them and that touching a hot pan will burn them.

One reviewer, named canasialo, offered more useful advice than Ina’s recipe:

It’s best to sweeten with a simple syrup; I brew mine at double strength and cool it in the fridge. You can go with a classic simple syrup, or try making a flavored one that will enhance the flavor of your coffee. You could make an orange or lemon simple syrup to put in African coffees from Kenya (my favorites for iced coffee. You can add any milk you want, and then put it in a cocktail shaker if you have one. If not, just stir well and enjoy!

Sorry, Ina, but it’s definitely time to go BACK TO BASICS with this one!

[Adapted from an email sent in by FNH reader Randy]

Bobby Flay, Reader Submitted Posts »

15

Meanwhile… On Throwdown With Bobby Flay…
Posted on July 26th 2011

[Ed. note: Written and submitted by FNH reader Stephen]

Last week, Bobby Flay challenged a Chicago pizzeria to a deep dish throw-down. Of course he ruined the pizza by putting a salad inside of it. The worst part? When he and his crew arrive they park in a handicap spot! THE HORROR!

(Thanks for the submission Stephen! Did you see something stupid on the Food Network? Snap a photo and send it in!)

General: Food Network, Reader Submitted Posts »

46

My Experience on “Chopped”
Posted on July 20th 2011

[This was written and submitted by the hilarious Joe Cristalli. To read more of his work, hit him up at his blog Rejecting Sobriety.]

Recently, I was a contestant on the television show Chopped. Chopped is that show on Food Network where chefs have to make dishes with crazy ingredients. If you succeed without getting Chopped in the appetizer, entrée and dessert courses, you win ten thousand dollars!

I wanted to share my experience with all of you.

Ted Allen, the host of the show, welcomes me and my three competitors and tells us to open up our mystery baskets. As I open the basket I hear Ted proclaim, “Today’s mystery ingredients include: bosc pears, arugula, white wine vinegar, and a human foot. You have 20 minutes and your time starts, now!”

Whoa! I was not expecting this in the first basket. Not only are pears not really in my wheelhouse, but how the heck was I going to combine them with white wine vinegar? This is shaping up to be…. wait a second. Did he say a human foot?

That can’t be right. I quickly look left and right and all three of my competitors are furiously working. Two of them have taken to chopping up the foot while the third seems to be sautéing it. I start to panic. Just breathe, Cristalli…you can do this.

I decide I’m going to make a salad for the appetizer course. I love a good summer salad and I think the bosc pears matched with some walnuts and Gorgonzola would work really nicely with the arugula base. I’ll reduce the white wine vinegar and make a nice vinaigrette for the salad. OK, OK, I have a plan. I’m fine.

Oh wait, I’m not fine. I have to include a freaking foot! How am I going to incorporate a human foot in an imaginative way? Maybe I could cook some sole-food. Ha-ha… no time for jokes! There’s ten thousand dollars on the line!

As I’m freaking out, Ted walks by and asks if this basket is keeping me on my toes. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with the foot, but politely laugh at Ted’s joke.

Ted announces there are three minutes left. How the F did that happen? It’s fine, I’m fine. The arugula’s been tossed with the vinaigrette and the pears are chopped. The Gorgonzola is cut and the walnuts are giving the entire dish a nice crunch. Now the foot. I’m just not sure how I can incorporate it without…

Just then Ted yells out that we have ten seconds left. Oh. My. God! This foot needs to get on my plate now! I throw the foot down as time expires.

I did it! I finished my dish! I can’t believe it. I came on this show with very little experience and almost no credentials. I’m so elated! Not only did I finish, but I made something I’m proud to serve. I’m in such a state of euphoria that absolutely nothing could bring me down off this high.

We bring our plates to the judges who immediately decide that I’m the loser.

Damnit! I really thought I nailed my foot salad. As I fight to hold back tears, the judges give their critiques of my dish…

“While I appreciated the bold flavors, I could not overlook the fact that you decided to leave the toenails on. That’s an unacceptable mistake. Your technique was poor and it was a messy execution overall. Also, are you aware that you didn’t use hot sauce at all? That is unacceptable.” – Aaron Sanchez
“I don’t want to sound like a dick, but your salad tastes like a foot. Did you even attempt to season it? I’m actually fine with all this blood, because it gives the dish a much needed acidity, but you should have combated that acidity with something a little sweet. Also, it seems like Aaron got more foot than I did. I barely have any foot on this plate. I’m not happy.” – Scott Conant
“This foot is out of bounds! You just gave me a one way ticket to flavor country! This thing is crazy good!” -Guy Fieri

Frankly, I had a fantastic time on the show. Even though I didn’t win, I’m definitely going to use what I learned to help build my culinary chops. Besides, I never would have made it through the next two rounds. In the entree round the ingredients were: lamb chops, a dozen eggs, rosemary and an apple iPod. Ridiculous. And if that wasn’t tough, the dessert course featured: chocolate beer, purple potatoes, ketchup and a vile of the HIV virus. I mean, seriously? How in the heck would I have made a dessert with ketchup?

Ha-ha, no I’m kidding. It’s probably way harder to cook with AIDS.

General: Food Network, Reader Submitted Posts »

50

Paula Deen Gets Visitors
Posted on July 14th 2011

[This is a fictional piece written and submitted by FNH reader Carey O'Donnell, a recent graduate of Franklin and Marshall College with a creative writing major. Take it away, Carey!]

PAULA DEEN GETS VISITORS

PAULA: Hey, y’all, hope everyone’s day is as good as mine.

Paula takes a sip from a very large glass with a pink substance in it.

PAULA: This afternoon we’re gonna try a recipe for a snack my mama taught me how to make as a girl, before her arteries popped. It’s great for any occasion you feel like noshing.

She rummages beneath her and stands up, holding a silver bowl and ladle.

PAULA: It’s a perfect little late afternoon dish my family likes to call “Tempura turkey wrapped in pig flesh”. First thing you need is a dead pig and then a dead turkey!!

She bends down off screen and stands up holding a tray with a dead pig, and then another with a turkey.

PAULA: WHOOOOWEEE, aren’t these some gems?

ENTER INA GARTEN

PAULA: Well, shit! Look who decided to drop by my kitchen!!

Paula extends her arm and wraps it around Ina’s shoulder.

INA (cupping her hands together and looking all around her): Hello, Paula, I was lost—you see—I was on my way to market, picking up some fresh parsley for this quiche I’m making Jeffrey. And I, I don’t know how I got here.

She looks ahead for a moment.

INA: It’s just I’ve, I’ve become so forgetful lately.

PAULA: Don’t even worry bout it, hun, get a little vermouth in me and I’ll be wandering around your yard in the middle of the night looking for a man to call my gimp hound!! Come on and help me out here.

Paula leads Ina over to the dead animals on the counter.

INA: Oh, I—I really shouldn’t. I’m expecting Jeffrey any moment. He’s only home one night a week now; he’ll be wanting his meal.

PAULA: Here, babycakes, when I’m feeling kind of stressed I do this to get a little of that “zen” thing those Asian people and Gwyneth Paltrow always talk about.

She takes out a bottle of Hershey’s chocolate sauce and lathers it all over her face and hands the bottle over to Ina when she’s done.

PAULA: Try it.

INA: Oh, dear.

She takes a little bit and puts it on her index finger, applying it to her lips; she shivers.

INA: Oh, my, that was—that was nice.

PAULA: OH COME ON YA SLUT AND RUB IT ALL ON.

Paula takes the bottle and pours it all over Ina’s face.

INA (nervously giggling): Thank you, Paula.

PAULA: It’s all right, sweetie. Now, first, we’re gonna get the pig’s skin off—you want to cut it open?

Hands her a large butcher’s knife.

INA: My God—I haven’t cut an animal since that time in the Hamptons when Jeffrey made me cut out a deer from the windshield with a shovel.

She looks at Paula.

INA: I didn’t want to cut it anyway—he made me do it. He always makes me do the dirty work.

Ina plunges the knife in with gusto.

INA: I—I’ve forgotten how good that feels.

PAULA: So, for you folks at home, make sure you really dig the blade in like Ina here just did.

Ina continues to stab the pig.

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Ina Garten, Reader Submitted Posts »

44

FNH RECIPE: Ina Garten’s “Better Than Yours” Cake
Posted on June 30th 2011

Looking to make something tasty tonight? Try this totally fake Ina Garten recipe, written and contributed by FNH reader Eric J. Salonis!

Here’s a completely fake page out of her new recipe book, How Easy Is That:

INA GARTEN’S BETTER-THAN-YOURS CAKE

I just love summertime in the Hamptons. On particularly gorgeous days, Geoffrey and I like to drive up and down the coast line, descending on unsuspecting gay vacationers with fun little “ninja” picnics. “Eat, damn it,” I always love to exclaim. (When Geoffrey’s out of town, I bring Sock Puppet Geoffrey. How easy is that?) One time in the middle of a sultry July mid-early-ish-afternoon, I took some pictures of one of the fabulous gay orgies going on in this little cove near Southhampton that I sometimes stalk. That gave me the inspiration for a new recipe! There’s sex, and then there’s cake, and then there’s Better Than Sex Cake. But I thought it could use a little more kick. Here’s my Better-Than-Yours Cake! GOOD LUCK!!!

INGREDIENTS:

  • 4 cups “unspun” flour (that’s flour made from the type of wheat that is normally spun into gold in fairy tales)
  • 1 cup Golden Showers honey
  • 2 Tbs. good olive oil
  • 5/36 tsp. cloves (measure carefully)
  • 2 eggs, left at room temperature overnight (I like to pass the night in between smoking a bowl and playing with my Gotta-Catch-‘Em-All Poké-MAN toys)
  • 2 sticks of good, unsalted, untainted butter, made from an unsuckled newly mothered cow
  • 10 lbs white truffles
  • 1 tsp. bad vanilla (good vanilla will overpower the cake when combined with the honey, in this case!)
  • ¼ cup blood of a hen
  • At least 37 clandestine pictures taken from cove-set fabu-gay orgy
  • 1 gallon bottle of preserved nervous giggles from fabu-gay orgy
  • Crème fraiche, for serving

First, I really don’t think you’ll ever get this cake to come out right. I hope that helps.

Now that that’s out of the way, combine your flour, Golden Showers honey and good olive oil in a nice, BIGASS mixer. Turn that shit on, and let your Latin theme music take care of it.

When the unspun flour turns into actual gold dust, add the cloves (DON’T YOU FUCKIN’ DARE TURN OFF THAT MIXER!!!!!!!!), the eggs and the butter.

NOTE: your eggs absolutely MUST have been left at room temperature overnight, or all the lands will be covered in a second darkness. Meanwhile, stuff your mouth with the truffles and “go to town”. When you’re done eating the first five pounds, breathe their aromatic essence into the mixing bowl. You should see the batter start to spark and bubble, and you will occasionally see shapes in the mix, hideous forms, the faces of the Unnamable. That means the batter has begun to transcend. Let it simmer down a bit, then begin eating/breathing more truffles into the batter, a few fistfuls at a time (much like adding chicken stock to risotto). Reserve 1 pound of the truffles.

Your batter should now resemble God. Before you are turned to stone, quickly add the bad vanilla to diffuse the spirits in the batter, and return it to its normal, battery-goodness state. Pour all that goodness into two cake pans. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

While the cakes are baking, drink the hen’s blood and immediately begin rubbing fabu-gay orgy pictures all over your denim-clad body, reciting the Creed of Baal. Once the souls trapped within the photos begin to fade, open the jar of nervous giggles and dance, dance, DAAAAAANCCCEE!!!!! Eat remaining 1 pound of truffles and breathe into the empty jar. Plug jar back up, and you should begin to see the souls of the gays appear in the jar, floating like so many trapped pickles (tee hee!). Refrigerate bottle for 4 hours. (NOTE: Do NOT open your refrigerator at ANY POINT during the 4-hour reuinification process.)

Remove cakes from oven and allow to cool on a wire rack. Once your 4-hour soul-reunification process is complete, open the fridge. You should now have a big bottle of delicious, fabulous gay frosting.

Frost cake. Serve with crème fraiche.

~Eric J. Salonis

(Also be sure to check out Ina Garten’s Summer Squash Imbued With Unicorn Magic!)


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