Congratulations Amy!

I thought it would be fun to try Amy’s "Eggs en Cocotte" since she was the big winner. I scaled it down to one egg, even though I like eggs, I’m generally a one egg person. I cross-referenced Joy of Cooking’s recipe and baked it at 350° F for 15 minutes. It was kind of hard to tell if it was done. I learned that the cream stays liquid, which is sort of deceptive (when trying to figure out if the white is cooked). Anyway, the final consistency was sort of that of a soft-boiled egg. I didn’t make the piperade, just ate it with homemade sourdough toast. Very tasty for something so simple. The only thing I didn’t like, which is a personal preference, is that the white stays sort of slimy. This would be a great dish when you have to cook eggs for a group of people. Everyone can eat at the same time, instead of trying to cook a few eggs at a time at the stove and serving in shifts.

One of the variations in "Joy" that sounded decadent was to line the ramekin with a lightly cooked piece of bacon.

I enjoyed seeing both Amy’s and Rory’s home lives last night. I was a little disappointed that there was no mention of Amy’s French husband. She reminded me of how I grew up, living in the same place all her life, and having lots of family around. Rory’s small town in Texas looks even smaller than where I live. I thought her restaurant looked cute and the food definitely looked great, but couldn’t help but wonder how it will do in the long run. Maybe her fame will help and out-of-towners will make an effort to stop there. It seems like new restaurants come and go very quickly, specially in a place where there’s a small population. Where I live, people are willing to spend $5 on a burger combo meal at the fast-food joint yet are hesitant to pay $10+ for an entree at a sit-down restaurant.

Less Than An Hour To Go!

I’m sitting here with an hour to go before the big finale of the "Next Food Network Star." I watched some of the reruns today and found them interesting now that we know more about the people. I’m especially intrigued by everyday things like what do chefs eat when they have to cook for themselves. I’ve seen a lot of cereal. Amy made lattes at least twice, and cleaned up after herself. On Top Chef, one of the chefs (I think it’s the one from Dallas) eats a lot of sandwiches, but they look like they’re from a deli.

The whole chef thing is intriguing. Do they make blue box macaroni & cheese for their kids? Or is it from scratch? What is it with the knives? Where do they get them and what makes them different than the Wustof’s I have in my kitchen. Why do so many of them claim to have sophisticated palates, yet they are smokers? Can people with sophisticated palates enjoy a meal at McDonalds? (By the way, the "Top Chef" episode on Bravo where they prepared a tasting dinner for a "club" of people with "sophisticated palates" made me think, give me a break…but I guess that’s why I’m not a chef.)

Anyway…this past week I’ve been going through my pantry and using some items I originally bought to have on hand as emergency dinner staples. One was a can of Rotel that had a use by date of June. I had forgotten I had it. So that made me look through what else I had and I found a can of sweetened condensed milk. I ended up making Spanish Rice and a pudding pie with those ingredients. My latest project is to try to use up some of the staples so that I can rotate and buy new items. I have a short attention span when it comes to planning meals. Sometimes I’ll think of something and buy the ingredients, then forget about it and move on to something else. This week’s project will be cooking up green beans (which can’t be put off since they’re fresh, unless I can them). Hubby likes them Southern-style, cooked to death with bacon and onions. I also have a surplus of tomatoes and basil. With that, I want to make either a panzanella or the Orzo Salad I saw on a recent "Everyday Italian" episode.

I’m kicking myself that I didn’t go out yesterday and buy the Harry Potter book. I went online and saw that my local library is getting it so I put a hold on it, but who knows how long that will take. I could be reading it right now!

Next Food Network Star - Vote Now!

We have until Tuesday 7/17, 9am/8c, to vote for the Next Food Network Star. Go to www.foodnetwork.com/star to vote.

I'm thrilled that the winner will be a woman. I'm rooting for Amy, she seems like a classy person and down-to-earth. I love Paris, and hope that she is somehow able to bring that in without coming off as too pretentious.

Really, it's hard to choose, I like Rory too. No matter who wins, I'll be thrilled for the winner and disappointed for the other person. I like Rory's personality, plus she's transplanted to Texas like me. I looked up Vega on the map and it's just west of Amarillo. I wonder how she came to live there. That part of the state seems to have the extreme weather, when it's hot, it's HOT and when it's cold, it's freezing.

I received a Food Network newsletter today that mentions an "Open House" show on Saturday 8 central, that shows Rachael's new kitchen. I watched a new episode of "30 Minute Meals" this weekend and saw it. I like the colors but not how much of it there is. It looks too institutional for my taste. I like a more homey feel.

Cupcakes

I finally got around to making Nigella’s cupcakes. They’re very simple, flour, sugar, butter, leavening, egg, vanilla and milk all mixed together in a food processor. When I took the top off, the batter smelled divine (tasted good too). On TV she said it would probably look like you don’t have enough batter but not to worry. You can see from the photo that it only fills the cups about half full. When they bake, though, they puffed up in the center.

Instead of the Royal Icing from the recipe, which uses raw egg whites, I made a 7-Minute frosting. That’s egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar, a smidge of corn syrup and water. It’s mixed in a double boiler for 5 minutes, then 2 minutes off heat to cool. I added some coconut, inspired by an episode of "Good Eats" earlier this week about coconut cake.

The cake had an angel food taste but denser texture. It’s simple yet not lacking in flavor one bit. One of those recipes that make you swear off using boxed cake mix, it's so simple.

Baked Jalapeno Poppers

Last week Rachael made baked jalapeno poppers on her show. Jalapenos are one of the few produce items here that are very inexpensive. I liked the idea that they are baked and not fried, and have spices to flavor them up. Most of the pre-fab ones I’ve tried are pretty much just plain cream cheese inside, with the pepper providing the kick & flavor.

These have cream cheese with manchego (no way I can find that here so I used a Mexican cheese blend), the chopped up tops, green olives, and some spices. They were great, the flavor of the peppers really came through. This was a good example of what a difference fresh ingredients makes. The only thing I’d do differently is cut off less of the top so that the filling is more contained, to prevent it from oozing out the sides. I had a few leftover and I put them on a black bean veggie burger. Delish!!!

Root Beer Floats

Sometimes the shows on the Food Network have something look so good that you have to have it. That’s what happened to me with the Wisconsin episode of "Road Tasted," when Bobby & Jamie went to the Sprecher Brewery. The root beer floats they had looked scrumptious.

I looked at root beer when I was grocery shopping that weekend. I didn’t want to buy a 12-pack (it was 4th of July weekend and it was on sale for about $3) just for a couple root beer floats. I ended up going to another store (since the Walmart I went to does not carry the Dallas paper...that's another story in itself), and they had Sprecher’s! It was a splurge, 4 16-ounce bottles cost over $4. In the scheme of things, though, it wasn’t that expensive.

Anyway, yesterday we ran some errands and came home hot and tired. A root beer float sounded like the perfect refreshment. It sure hit the spot. The root beer was OK, I can’t say that I’m a connoisseur. I did like the fact that it has honey in it and natural flavors. It was an easy and fun "recipe" to try.