New Cooking for Real Saturday!! Fun with the Fam

Hey there! Just in case you haven't noticed, I've begun to link the main page for the episode to the title of the blog post. If you ever watch a show and want all the recipes, just click on the title of the blog post above and it will take you to the Food Network page for that episode, which has all the recipe links. :-)

Ok, I'm excited to share with you more recipes and fun in the next episode of Cooking for Real! I call it Fun with the Fam because I have a crew of guys aka stomachs, that I call Fam. They aren't related, but they come over and eat like family and hang out like family, so why not call them that? Sometimes the hardest thing during recipe testing is having an abundance of food you can't possibly eat without calling in for back up. I'm thankful to have eating partners, because otherwise it could feel wasteful! So, for this episode, I invited two people that I consider friends, but have actually never come over to eat! Imagine that! The first is my girl Betsy Karetnick. She co-hosts a show on Martha Stewart's Sirius/XM channel. It's called Morning Living and I've been on a few times and I think Betsy is so funny and witty and just fun to be around. We all went out to eat last night for a girl's night out and had such a great time! Ok, then the next guest is my friend 9th Wonder, he does so much. Runs Jamla Records (warning-music plays on click), he produces music and is also a professor at Duke University. Tune in tomorrow to hear who he's worked with, it's quite an impressive list!

Ok, so for the show I put together a menu you can make for you and your "Fam" as well, related or not :-). Especially with football season kicking in, it's time to think about good food for stuff like that, even for the US Open watchers. I've been catching it a bit and if you are throwing watching parties at home for anything, these are some good ideas to add to the menu. First, I share my newest favorite and I mean it, I LOVE this recipe (pictured above). They are my BBQ Chip Wings. So, sometimes I am happy that my brain is just totally devoted to thinking about food sometimes because it was on one of my food daydreams that I cooked up this idea. I was eating chips and licking my fingers, sorry. I sometimes think the best part of the bag is the very end with the little bits and the flavor crystals all stuck on the side. It's a bonanza for me! I admit to sometimes crushing some of the bigger chips down to bits to further increase the excitement of this moment. Silly, yes, but it's true and that's when I thought "boy, it's finger lickin' good". Because I was raised when that was actually a slogan that was used my brain immediately thought, chicken. Then I thought ... what if I could get a chicken wing to taste like the end of a bag of BBQ chips?!?!? And then I immediately got my notepad out and started to write down flavors I tasted, spices, heat, sweet, etc. I had a working idea of what I wanted to use, then I just went to work. Trial and error, got me something I am reeeeeeeally happy with. If you love the way the powder tastes at the end of a bag of chips, if you like dry wings with out all kinds of sauce, this is something you really should try!! When I got the flavors where I wanted them I shared them at various gatherings at my house and every time someone left with a few. Who takes home wings?! I'm tryin to tell ya! lol, ok then ...
That's my Peas and Pasta Salad. I make variations of this throughout the year. The key here is admitting that sometimes I like Miracle Whip, this is not an advertisement. I actually like both that and mayo. Time and place for everything. Plus, this dressing has some flavor from Worcestershire sauce and my mom used to always have chunks of cheese in her mac salad growing up. I make it easier with just adding shredded cheese. It's worth a try! My secret to always having pasta salad as an option at home is sometimes I take a whole pound of pasta and boil it al dente. Then I drain it, cool it on a baking sheet, then store it in the refrigerator in an air-tight container. The pasta lasts for a week and I end up having fast pasta salads and quick hot dishes as well. I'll make a quick sauce and throw in the pasta and be done in half the time. Think about it if you have 12 minutes one day, boil some pasta and put it in the fridge ... saves time!

Then, when I have guests over it's only right to offer a drink. This time around I share what I call a Spa-ocktail. Can you see the big game on in the back ground of the picture? I really love to serve this at a game party! Every time I've ever been to a spa, they offer a drink of something that faintly tastes like what they say it is. Like if they say cucumber water, it's as if they just waved a piece of cucumber over the pitcher of water and it smells more like cucumber than tastes like it. This is not a complaint, sometimes I actually like it when your palate has to work for the flavor instead of being bombarded with it. So, this drink is in honor of that. It's light and crisp like at the spa, but then I decided to ahem, make it adult like a cocktail. Hence the name. So there's some tequila. I know, I know, you're thinking all of that crisp and light talk and then you add tequila?!?! I balance it out nicely and it really ends up being one of those drinks with a light touch. Give it a try if you like to play with drinks at home. I do!

Ok, set your DVR!!! Go to sleep tonight with Food Network on so you only have one button to push in the morning :-). It's going to be easy, fun and tasty!

Cooking for Real - Fun with the Fam - Saturday September 3rd, 10am eastern! Food Network!! Season 10 @ 10!!

If you miss it or want to catch it again because you don't have DVR, reruns air Mondays at 3pm eastern!