Chicken thighs roasted in butter, Lawry’s salt and teriyaki.
Kraft Mac 'N Cheese with cut-up wieners.
Lasagna that can be assembled and baked in 90 minutes or less.
Rice-y and veggie things I don’t have to measure/cut/process to make.
Burgers
And stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, I love this channel and have stolen some memorable recipes, but come on. Who works 10-11 hour days, does laundry, feeds the cats and then makes these things?
If the Food Network were programmed by me it would look something like this:
6:00am Good Eats
6:30am Good Eats
7:00am Good Eats
7:30am Good Eats
8:00am Nigella
8:30am Nigella
9:00am Good Eats
9:30am Good Eats
and so on.
It does seem that lately most of the chefs on the Food Network have been going really over the top with either incredibly complicated recipes or really crazy flavor combinations that sound so wretched that I would never want to look at it in person much less taste it. The other half of the shows are better suited for the Travel Channel.
I have been really disappointed with The Food Network lately.
ETA: You want burgers? Watch Rachel Ray. That seems to be what she makes on most of 30 Minute Meals.
I agree they need to show more simple-to-prepare recipes. That aren’t burgers or sandwiches or “pasta jumbles.”
I’m making a crockpot one by Sandra Lee tonight though, that I changed up a bit. Chicken thighs seasoned with herbes de provence, sliced carrots and mushrooms, canned diced tomatoes, cannelini beans, cream of potato soup, a bit of dijon, a bit of tomato paste, and a few tablespoons of sherry. Crock it and serve it over rice. Yum!
That new Latina girl has some interesting looking stuff, but when you look at the ingredient list - whoa! Star anise? Too many ingredients, and too exotic to boot. At least for this girl!
I still watch it though. I’m tired of the stupid “challenges” on the weekends. Show me recipes, dammit!
Oh, I don’t know. A couple of weeks ago Nigella did a “dinner for one” show and one of the recipes was a small roasted lamb shank and some sides. It was nice, simple, basic, and looked absolutely fabulous. Nothing over the top, no crazy flavor combinations. It inspired me and I made myself a lamb shank last week - it was terrific.
I think there is plenty out there. I am not against a signature or a twist, but there is a lot of room between “twist”, “surpise”, “playing with traditional flavors” and “WTF are you thinking?” Some of the things they are putting together lately just seem so, I don’t know, random I guess.
Just this weekend BusKid and I made one of her pasta jumbles - shells with ricotta/basil/pesto. Wasn’t bad, though I have noticed that the leftovers have been leftalone.
:eek: Somebody made a Sandra Lee recipie? And ate it??? Gag.
That Latina with the cinched-up breasts comes across as another Sandra Lee wannabe. More “tablescapes”? no thanks.
My wish list:
Sandra Lee, Bobby Flay, and Emril all get dropped into an oversized meat grinder. Drop the challenges and food-history shows, no more stupid “Next Blahblahblah whatever” shows, dump the travel-and-eat stuff. More Nigella, bring back Molto Mario, bring back Sara Moulton. And re-run Julia Child and Jacques Pepin and Martha Stuart cooking shows. Their shows may be old; their recipies and techniques are not.
Diners, Drive-ins and Dives is one of our favorite shows. It’s the only show on that whole channel my husband is willing to watch, and I end up crying over the beauty of a hamburger or something during almost every episode. So I’d expand that show to two hours a night and show a ton of Good Eats. I’d cancel the Semi-Ho and The Next Food Network Star, because that’s not even about food. I’d bring back Ready, Set, Cook because I feel like it. Like others suggested, I would air a bunch of classic cooking shows like Julia Child’s. I would give Christopher Walken the cooking show he has often said he’d like to do. Somewhere online there’s a video of him demonstrating how to roast a chicken and it’s very nice – he’s obviously very comfortable in the kitchen and I think that would be a fun show.
Julia Child
Yan Can Cook
Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives
Good Eats
Unwrapped
Molto Mario
and the occasional Dinner: Impossible
If there’s an episode of Emeril Live where he gets seasoned with his goddamn Essence and barbecued and then is devoured by hyenas, I’d air that, but otherwise, his show would never get airtime. Ditto Bobby Flay.
What about Iron Chef? I love that show, but I’d want to restrict some of the secret ingrediants to things more people eat and try to get more chefs from around the country to participate.
Iron Chef has always gotten a big meh out of me. I don’t think it plays up the “chef vs. chef” aspect as well as it could. I would prefer they named specific dishes in addition to secret ingredients, and then compared how each chef prepared that dish and incorporated the secret ingredient.
I also think the secret ingredients should be kept secret until they are unveiled on camera. I would love to see some panic-stricken, “WTF am I supposed to do with that??” looks on the chefs’ faces.
