+1

LMAO! They have to be corn nuts right?

Part of my dislike (not hate) is that fact that she, and others (including a fair number of magazines and cook books) are dumbing down food prep. I am SO sick of reading 'Take a store bought pie crust' or 'Take one store bought vanilla cake' etc. Really, does anyone think a basic pie crust or cake are rocket surgery??? People seem suddenly scared of baking, or making something as simple as pastry. Sure, by all means, buy pre-made puff or filo, because they are more fiddly and time consuming. But a pie crust? In a pie dish, where small tears bumps etc are not going to be noticed? This is cookery 101 stuff, not haute cuisine!

You know what's one of the easiest things in the world to make? Marinara sauce. But that doesn't mean it isn't smart to have some jarred marinara on hand for those times when you just don't have the time. Same for pie crust, cake mix, canned soup, pizza dough, pesto, etc. etc. etc.

People like to get on their high horse and put people like Sandra down but I guarantee you she doesn't always cook "semi-homemade" at home. Sometimes she makes things from scratch. And I guarantee you that Ina Garten doesn't cook from scratch all the time but instead breaks out that store bought hummus when she needs to.

Has anyone ever seen the Next Food Network Star? One of the things FN pushes the contestants to come up with is their "niche" or "theme" or "message". They are always encouraged to stick to the thing they came up with that defines their potential show. Their established celebrity chefs are no different.

It's just TV cooking people. No reason to take it so seriously. Something Anthony Bourdain would do well to remember.

I agree. I don't 'hate' her, really. I do often get a good laugh of how ridiculous her recipes often are. To the previous comment, yes, I imagine more people cook like her by a landslide. And they'll cook that way after watching her. Most of her recipes look like something off the side of a box or crescent roll carton. IMO, what's the point? She'll have a clever idea once every blue moon, but I really don't see how she does much to educate or improve the skills of her viewers.

It wouldn't bother me so much if the Food Network didn't go through an across the board dumbfication. I used to like that channel, when they used to actually, you know, cook food. I can't remember the last time I watched it now. Whats the point?

Actually, upon further review, i have a better answer to " i don't understand why people hate Sandra Lee so much".

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/s...ipe/index.html

Need anyone say more?

Watch the Cooking Channel if you get it. That's where all the real cooking is going on. My current favorite is David Rocco.

Her take on a Croque-en-bouche? How very sad.

You're giving her too much credit!


And yes, I have watched cooking channel. Good stuff, I should check it out more often.

Marinara is simple to make, but it is also much more time consuming (blanching the tomatoes, peeling them, etc) than using jarred. I do keep canned tomatoes around to make a quick pasta sauce (and on that one, mainly because the cans of tomatoes are often 1/3 of the price of the same things, with a few herbs in, and called sauce, so I prefer to make my own, both from a cost perspective, and also because I will add some other bits and bobs to a store bought sauce in any case to make it taste better).

On the flip side, it takes fractionally more time to measure the ingredients for a cake than to tip the pre-measured ingredients in to a bowl - really, maybe 30 seconds more to weigh the flour, sugar etc - and you still have to add the egg / oil, mix together, put in the tin etc. Cake mixes are one of the most absurd cooking thing I have ever come across. I hadn't heard of them until I moved to Canada, and was intrigued, thinking they must be really good - I bought a few packets, and they were nasty tasting (well, in fairness, tasteless may be a better description) and the texture was funky compared to a cake made from scratch. Ina Garten absolutely uses short cuts, I've seen her do so on her TV show - mayonnaise is one I recall, puff pastry another. But anything she does on her show to promote cooking more from ingredients is completely undermined by the fact she sells cake mixes etc!


Pie crust is in the same bracket, 30 seconds to measure the stuff out, pop in the mixer, and it is a ball in moments, then you just have to roll it out into the dish. If you don't have a mixer / processer, yes, it will take longer, but even using the breadcrumb method (as I did when I first moved here and didn't have a mixer) it only takes a couple of minutes. You normally have to defrost a frozen pie shell for 15 minutes or so anyway, so the make it yourself method overall is quicker!

Pizza dough is better from a pizza maker IMO - I guess they have the starters, which give a much better flavour than packet yeast, so if I am making pizza that I want to be like pizza I buy the dough fresh. If I am making something that simply needs a bread base, I do something like a foccacia base, which does take some time, absolutely, but it isn't 'hands on' time.

Pesto, fresh tastes so so so much better, so in season, yes, I will make it with fresh basil from the garden. In winter, jarred will probably taste better than stuff made with out of season chilled supermarket pack basil.

It takes more than 30 seconds just to take the ingredients for a pie crust out of the cupboard so your time estimate is a bit off. Not to mention the extra time to do the dishes. The time it takes for a pie crust to defrost is time that doesn't involve you because you're probably not there watching it defrost but doing something else (playing with your kids, helping them with homework, paying bills -yuck!).

Look, I'm a fiend about making things from scratch. I don't like to take shortcuts because I enjoy cooking immensely and being a single person with no kids allows me time to do it. But I don't look down on people who need to take shortcuts (for whatever reason) or the TV cooks who help people (sometimes people who have no idea how to cook and would be bringing home a bucket of KFC otherwise) by giving easy recipes that can involve things such as pre-made pie crusts.

I don't know your family situation but I come home from work as does my wife with our 20 month old son. We make a simple dinner while we are feeding him. Something like enchiladas from scratch with a salad or rice. We don't often have the time to make a pie crust from scratch or take a few hours to make homemade tomato sauce.

Sandra Lee appeals to a certain demographic and Michael Symon or another fine chef to another. I can't say I ever cook Chef Symon's meals but I do cook Claire Robinson's easy recipes or something similar.

For a basic pie crust, the only thing I measure is the flour - cup into jar, tip into mixer. 10 seconds? Then unwrap the butter, cut into 4 with a knife, toss it in, another 10 seconds. Pinch of salt, splash of cold water, another 10 seconds, and switch the mixer on. As I acknowledged, you do have to roll it out, but that is pretty quick too. Extra washing up, 1 mixing bowl and blade (the measuring cup and knife go in the dishwasher, as does the pie plate). Maybe it is because I grew up like this, and this is how my friends cook (situation normal to pop over to see a friend, they throw the mixer on to make pastry for a quiche, say, while I open and pour the wine - and it probably takes the same amount of time). I also think kids should learn to cook - so time spent playing with your kids is a bit of a cop out - they can help to cook which is just as much quality time together doing an activity.

I genuinely think that people are a bit afraid of things like pastry, and baking cakes, in part because they see TV chefs using pre-made items, so assume it must be hard. As a 5 year old child, we baked pastry (jam tarts) and buns (uniced cupcakes) in school cookery - I had beaver scouts doing similar - the mixing and rolling of pastry being absolutely safe, as opposed to anything requiring heat, cutting etc. I think it is about as basic as you get. If someone doesn't want to make it, that's another issue, but it is hardly rocket science to say I'll use a pre-made one, if the recipe lists the pie crust step separately. The trouble is they don't, their immediate instruction is to go to the ready made solution. I have a secondary cook book that I keep in my kitchen that has recipes for the basics (some I don't need to look up, like plain pastry, or a vanilla cake, others, like egg pasta that I make less often, I do) because so many recipe books don't give measures / cooking times / standing times for the whole recipe.