FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee: 1-1: "Desserts and Drinks"

at wrote on 8/26/05 10:30 AM:

>> Sandra claims that her rum raspberry trifle that she made with
>> twinkies, rum + strawberry jam and a pudding cup "tastes like
>> scratch"
>
> See, that's the problem I have with Sandra, and to some degree with
> Rachael Ray:
>
> No matter how much you pretend, pudding cups taste like CRAP. Cook
> with crap and you end up with crap.
>
> When you invite people over for dinner, they expect homemade food --
> not "semi-homemade." If somebody served me a trifle made of Twinkies
> and a pudding cup I'd think they had mental problems, and I'd never
> accept an invitation from them again. (Which happened with a friend
> who made spaghetti with catsup sauce.) If they prefaced the invitation
> with something like, "I'm short on cash and time so I'm just going to
> serve crap," it'd be cool -- that way I'd know to eat beforehand -- but
> I'm guessing Sandra doesn't warn people about her cooking.
>

I do agree that I would be embarrassed to serve company the types of dishes
that Sandra Lee comes up. Especially that "trifle" with the pudding cups.
Ick. But in fairness to her, I watched that show on Monday. The trifle was
NOT made from Twinkies--it was made from pound cake, and not even Sara Lee
poundcake, which isn't very good--It looked like it came in the sort of
plastic "bubble" container that one finds at the supermarket bakery. In
other words, it was a decent pound cake. It looked like a good pound cake,
anyway.

I liked the idea of that trifle...the raspberry sauce made from jam wouldn't
be bad, if it was a good jam. If it's a cheap store brand that's more corn
syrup than fruit, then no, it's not good. The addition of the rum is
nice--so far so good. The pudding cup ruined it for me. I would have gone
the extra effort of mixing up a package of Jello Vanilla Pudding--and maybe
put the rum in that rather than the jam sauce. But that's me.

Think about it--trifle basically IS semi-homemade, anyway. It was a way to
use up stale cake or lady fingers so they wouldn't go to waste. Soak the
stale cake in enough booze, jam and custard, no one will know they are
stale, ya know? Same as tiramisu.

And the apple-berry cobbler with the cookie dough crust--that actually
didn't look half bad.

But most of her recipes really do not impress me. She made some sort of
fruit salsa once, out of "tropical fruit cocktail" and I honestly would be
embarrassed to serve that.

The idea of "semi-homemade" is a good one. Taking advantage of some modern
conveniences to save time can have wonderful results. For example, I have
bought sliced roast beef (good quality) from the deli, and a jar of Heinz
gravy....sauteed onions, mushrooms and garlic in a pan, added a splash of
red wine, some herbs and seasonings....poured in the jar of gravy and served
that over the roast beef with nuked potatoes and a hot veggie..it's not what
I'd call "company" fare, but I wouldn't be embarrassed to serve it to
friends, either.

She just takes it a little bit too far by using inferior products in her
recipes---which, as they say, garbage in, garbage out.

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