Kitchen Time is Back!

Hey there! Well, I say kitchen time is back, like it left ... but it really never does. I'm referring to getting into the test kitchen for another run of Cooking for Real episodes. The pattern is, cook, write, test at home, plan menus, pitch, write more, test at kitchens, edit, plan, tape, edit, watch. That's the bare bones, leaving out some details. I'm currently in the "test at kitchens" segment of the process. Not everyone one has the same order, this is just the way we do it and it's made for a pretty smooth taping process.

Ok, where to start ... something colorful.
This is in a future show filled with hints of winter and spring ... hence the obvious in season item, the pomegranate seeds. I have to tell you, I went into testing with a completely different salad dressing recipe and there was also another green in there, but after tasting the dressing and making use of an ingredient that was just sitting around, I decided to simplify the recipe even more by removing the missing green. Anyway, I ended up with a better dressing and better salad. Now I have two similar, but very different salad recipes just 2 ingredients apart. I'm going with the one pictured for the show and will tuck away the other for another time. Side note, don't you hate it when your crisper acts up?!

Speaking of kitchen inspirations. This next pic is something we played with in our heads and then spent a day or two figuring out the mechanics. It again was another recipe to begin with and then the servings were too small for the theme of the show and the steps involved were too long. So, I decided to change it and I think egg lovers will really like this. The key is how to make everything crisp, when to add the egg, when to add the toppings, how long, what temp and most importantly, how to make sure the yolk was still nice and ooozy. (totally not a word)

I team this up with some other brunch ideas, but really to me it's a meal on it's own. Only missing a veggie and I can always sprinkle on some parsley or cilantro, eh? :-)

We tape 13 episodes and there are anywhere from 3-4 recipes per episode, so given the numbers and only a few days to test, we run through things pretty fast. That's plenty of cooking and tasting! A few minutes into testing yesterday a camera crew came by to tape us working as part of a tour video. Here's all the fuss around us trying to cook.
The big guy with the brace is Klaus. He's a steady cam operator and actually happens to be my steady cam guy for Cooking for Real. It's always nice to run into co-workers when you aren't scheduled to work together. Klaus is has a crazy resume of work, but one of my fave is he did the steady cam work for a Beastie Boys concert intro. One that I saw before I met him, so pretty neat to work with him and boy do we have fun on set! I'll let you know if the tour video becomes available online, there are some really neat parts of the tour and Joe, the host, knows so much about not only Food Network, but the history of the building and little known facts about Food Network shows. It's neat to see how everything comes together.

Here's a pic of something familiar ...
This is something that will never get old to me, making onion rings. I know I talk plenty about places I grew up and the different cuisines I was privy to as a child, but nothing beats my first paying job at Sonic in San Antonio, TX where I fought to work in the male dominated kitchen. Even still, they wouldn't let me get close to the grill top, I was stuck in prep. Which really wasn't bad. There's a zen-mode you can get into. Plus, skating in a skirt was fun for a day or two and tips were fine, but making onion rings, for some reason never got old. This batter is fool proof and sooooooooooooo flavor-laden -- no ketchup needed. Really. Then I grilled up some ham chops ...
They're sweet, they're sour, they're spicy, they're fast! Have you ever worked with a ham chop? May take a bit of looking, but any ham would work here. I just really love the chop cut. There's a really nice salad recipe in this menu along with one of my popover recipes I hope you give a try if you like to bake.

And I guess I'll end on a sweet note again, but before I do ... stick around for more kitchen pics and last time Santos and I had a Sear-Off ... this time around, it's another challenge and you won't believe the results! Ok, the sweets ...
This is a cookie I called The Best of Both Worlds cookie when I developed it while at HOT 97. It was right after the crazy R. Kelly and Jay-Z stuff that went down at Madison Square Garden, so I had some literal ingredients like nuts, because one of them was craaazy. And chocolate for the obvious reasons. I had a portion of the website just for recipes even back then, so it's nice to pull from my very earliest recipes and use it for the show. Since then, the recipe has grown into so much more and now it's migrated into a completely different cookie. This tastes like trail mix, but it isn't as healthy ... the butter and sugar see to that :-). Here's one ready for it's close up ...

Ok , check back in for more pics and maybe a lil trivia ...