A Sandra Lee classic

I was looking up a butternut squash soup recipe on the foodnetwork cite (A Barefoot Contessa recipe) and noticed that Sandra Lee of Semi-Homemade fame had one. You gotta love the first listed ingredient for her butternut squash soup:

2 (18.3-ounce) boxes butternut squash soup (recommended:
Campbell's Select)

The recipe calls for adding:

1 cup cinnamon applesauce
2 tablespoons ketchup
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
Plain yogurt or sour cream

To which one reviewer commented:

A waste of good boxed soup.


Jonah

If she boozes it up as much as it seems on that show, I'm not surprised that these are the types of recipes she's coming up with.

Nothing can surpass the epic grandeur that is the Kwanzaa Cake.

Set your TiVos for December 9th!

ketchup?


ketchup?


I mean....really?

whiskeybent wrote:Nothing can surpass the epic grandeur that is the Kwanzaa Cake.

Good Call. Even with the low bar she sets each week, this one is a train wreck extraordinaire. Applesause and corn nuts. Yum-O! It has occurred to me more than once that this show may really be a joke concocted by the writers at The Onion. A parody of a cooking show that was mistook for the real thing.

Also, paging through one of her cookbooks in Costco (purely for the entertainment value mind you) I noticed that Wolfgang Puck had written the forward to one of them. Has he really sold himself out that far? Crappy canned soup is one thing, but Sandra Lee? That guy needs a new agent.

At least she could be using his soup to make soup.

Mike G wrote:At least she could be using his soup to make soup.

I hear it doesn't pair well with ketchup.

Okay . . . This recipe has soup which is already spiced + cinnamon applesauce + pumpkin pie spice + curry powder + ketchup?! Apparently, less is more has no meaning to SL.

Watching her show is like watching a train wreck -- you can't take your eyes away. During the last show I watched, she was making a package of turkey burgers + applesauce + maple syrup + "real"
bacon bits . . . I was horrified each time she threw in some additional pantry item without any regard to texture or the final product. I think she even suggested serving this with "regular" burger condiments which would be ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickles and onions. I agree that this show is got to be a joke because who would ever think some of this stuff would taste good.

I really think that this is the first time I've ever seen a recipe call for the final product of the recipe as the first ingredient.

Anyone up for Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes with Beef Coffee Gravy?

What I love about the Kwanzaa cake is that one of the steps is to take vanilla frosting and mix it with cocoa powder to make . . . chocolate frosting. I can only assume that this was done so there was actually an element of "cooking" involved, as just buying chocolate frosting would require some sort of admission that this is just a store-bought angel food cake that you are frosting and then topping with corn nuts and canned apple pie filling.

NEWFLASH!!

The Kwanzaa Cake. is back for a second round. This time as the Harvest Cake.

An identical recipie down to the pumpkin seeds and corn nuts except that the harvest cake includes 8 chocolate leaves in place of the half cup of popcorn garnish on the Kwanzaa Cake. She must be running low on ideas. Or alternately, when you have an idea this good, might as well make the most out of it. Add a little ketchup, and you have the Halloween cake!

aschie30 wrote:Anyone up for Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes with Beef Coffee Gravy?

I thought you were kidding.

How sad is it that I find myself thinking, at least the goat cheese mashed potatoes recipe is at least an actual *recipe*. She doesn't say, "Open box of potato buds. mix with water. add Sandra Lee Brand (TM) goat cheese powder. Stir." I mean, yes, anyone should be able to make mashed potatoes, but that isn't always true. I sort of think of that recipe as the exact sort of thing her target audience (completely clueless in the kitchen) could use to get started in the kitchen.

...minus the instant coffee and beef granule gravy.

sweetsalty wrote:How sad is it that I find myself thinking, at least the goat cheese mashed potatoes recipe is at least an actual *recipe*. She doesn't say, "Open box of potato buds. mix with water. add Sandra Lee Brand (TM) goat cheese powder. Stir." I mean, yes, anyone should be able to make mashed potatoes, but that isn't always true. I sort of think of that recipe as the exact sort of thing her target audience (completely clueless in the kitchen) could use to get started in the kitchen.

...minus the instant coffee and beef granule gravy.

I have said before that the original Sandra Lee, when she first started her show, would have done exactly what you said - proudly pulled out a box of Idaho's best potato flakes and had at it. But I think SL has gotten more "gourmand" in recent years - hey, she's making mashed potatoes from scratch! -- and she uses a chef's knife (albeit clumsily)!

But before you get too excited about what she may teach her "target audience," here is what "Betty from Davenport, IA," commented online about this recipe:

TOO MUCH WORK
11/01/2006 at 03:24pm
User: Betty from Davenport, IA User Rating:
Making mashed potatoes and gravy from scratch like this is just too much work. I bought some "spuds in a tub" and added some goat cheese after I microwaved them. I added a Tablespoon of espresso powder to a jar of preprared gravy (if you only use a teaspoonj you'll never even taste it). The subtle hint of coffee was nice, but I think it would go better with another kind of cheese. The potatoes and gravy together weren't that good.

The amazingness continues:

Single Layer Birthday Cake: If you can explain away the need for the last "ingredient," you're winner in my book.

The Macaroni & Cheese series:
Mexican
Italian
Broccoli

Baked Potato Ice Cream: the trippiest thing I've seen in a long while

And my personal favorite: Sensuous Chocolate Truffles


Bwa ha ha ha!

I wish I had my PhD so I could understand this. A master's degree just isn't enough.

shoes wrote:The amazingness continues:

Single Layer Birthday Cake: If you can explain away the need for the last "ingredient," you're winner in my book.

The Macaroni & Cheese series:
Mexican
Italian
Broccoli

Baked Potato Ice Cream: the trippiest thing I've seen in a long while

And my personal favorite: Sensuous Chocolate Truffles


Bwa ha ha ha!

Excellent synopsis on Sandra Lee. I had forgotten about the baked potato which is, indeed, trippy.

If someone served me those turd-piles of canned frosting and called them "truffles", I think I'd respond with violence.

This crazy person needs to be stopped.

I liked this pair of comments:

Sensuous Chocolate Truffles go to Church
06/01/2006 at 06:18pm
User: Patty from Chicago, IL User Rating:
I made these truffles for our Palm Sunday bake sale at Holy Rosary Catholic Church. I wrapped the truffles in pretty colored plastic wrap packages (6 per package) and tied with raffia. They were a hit and sold out immediately! They are so rich and delicious, they were eaten on the spot! (Probably so they wouldn't have to share them at home!)

WWJD?
07/05/2006 at 01:50pm
User: Anonymous User Rating:
I am pretty certain that he would not sell blobs of canned frosting disguised as "candy" to unsuspecting Christians.

eatchicago wrote:This crazy person needs to be stopped.

This must count as a crime against, say, humanity - aren't there laws against this - purity laws, nomenclature laws, common sense laws?
It is hard to believe any of this is real and Sandra Lee is not some elaborate hoax, like the "recipes".

shoes wrote:The amazingness continues:

Single Layer Birthday Cake: If you can explain away the need for the last "ingredient," you're winner in my book.

The Macaroni & Cheese series:
Mexican
Italian
Broccoli

Baked Potato Ice Cream: the trippiest thing I've seen in a long while

And my personal favorite: Sensuous Chocolate Truffles


Bwa ha ha ha!

She has to be screwing some executive at Food Network, right?

Some of the comments on the "Baked Potato" Ice Cream are funny:

life is too short
05/11/2007 at 01:12pm
User: DEBBIE from ROCHESTER, NY User Rating:
to waste on this, ice cream melted and refrozen tastes awful and i never ever wondered what other use there was for my butter dish,as it was being used to cover the......butter. frozen canned frosting is more disgusting than regular canned frosting.

So Sad. This was Not Eaten.
03/20/2007 at 10:35am
User: Tiffnee from Detroit, MI User Rating:
My little granddaughter and her Brownie Troop just got their nature badges. Time for a celebration!! Unfortunately, they mistook the Baked Potato Ice Cream I made for them for a huge poisonous puffball mushroom and refused to eat it.

Oh my. I have gotten sucked into reading these recipes and the reviews. My favorite thus far is this review for her Sausage Cheese Croissant recipe:

These are a neat way to get your kids to put down the fatty junk food and eat something healthy for a change.

The "healthy" recipe calls for:

1 package pre-cooked sausage patties
1 (8-ounce) can crescent shaped rolls
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 dash hot sauce
Lemon juice
4 slices American cheese

These have got to be some huge prank, right?

Apparently if you make it at home it's now healthy and no longer fatty junk food! I'll remember that the next time I make clam dip and nachos.

It's funny - I've been reading this thread simultaneously with the "I Hate to Cook Book" series - it's amazing how far we've fallen culturally.

For instance, to contrast with all the above chocolate frosting recipes, the Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book offers (I summarized, but didn't quote except where indicated):

Pot-De-Chocolat
In a blender, blend
1 cup chocolate chips
1 1/4 cups hot scalded half-and-half
2 egg yolks
3 tbsp brandy or rum
Blend on high "until the racket stops" Divide into 6-8 demitasse and chill for 3 hours. Serve.

Not much more difficult than blending chocolate frosting - but I think I'll try it tomorrow and see how much better it tastes.

YourPalWill wrote:She has to be screwing some executive at Food Network, right?

One can only hope.

It's pretty easy to see what happened here - she probably had 10 or 12 recipes and a good back story that caught the eye of a producer somewhere, and now they have to fill a 1/2 hour slot 5 days a week. If your cooking expertise is limited to jell-o, tubed refrigerator breads, cake mix and canned frosting one can easily assume that your reportoire is limited.

YourPalWill wrote:She has to be screwing some executive at Food Network, right?

nah ... she was just doing some other rich guy, who enabled her idiocy. They divorced in 2006.

I'm gonna bet that he had a private chef when he was married to her. Jello rings and boxed angel food cakes don't seem like the kinds of things that he would serve to his business clients for dinner at his house.

I don't know if you watched the Food Network Thanksgiving Special. Frankly, I find the entire network too painful to watch these days. But, for some reason, I topped on this special while channel surfing one night last week.

All of the other personalities refer to her as "my friend, Sandra Lee".

Is that because the Food TV execs have instructed them to talk her up and they can't think of anything professionally complimentary to say about her?

I did note that of the eight "personalities" on this year's special, only two have experience in a professional kitchen, Tyler Florence and Bam himself. That's a statement as to where the network once graced by the work of John Ash, Dean Fearing, David Rosengarten and the two Hot Tamales has ventured.