‘Mexican Made Easy’ - COLD Butter In A Crumb Crust(!) Storing Breadcrumbs (Urgent Information) And Cutting Onions

Mexican Made Easy with Marcela Valladolid

Cuddle Cuisine

Butternut Squash Soup with Chipotle Cream

Chile Crusted Rack of Lamb

Sweet Strawberry Tartlets

Marcela Valladolid seems to have a sound culinary background, but, I’m being honest here, she seems so darned young and so lacking in authority that I have to wonder why the FN chose HER to give a show to. Oh wait, is that WHY? Because she IS so darned young?

I never thought I’d say this, but I actually felt kind of sorry for Ingrid Hoffmann after watching an episode of Marcela's new show Mexican Made Easy.

Does this mean that the Food Network thought that Ingrid was just too old to do the Latin thing on their network? I’d like to think that Ingrid’s show didn’t survive (I’m not even sure if it was officially cancelled), because viewers thought it was just too much of a mish-mash of culinary traditions, and that simply adding lime juice to something doesn’t makes it Hispanic. But Ingrid WAS very accomplished as a television host. Let’s see how Marcela does...

The first sentence from Marcela - “You have to make sure the butter is RALLY RALLY cold.” Actually, she only said Rally once, but it sounded like a cross between a Valley Girl’s singsong cadence and…well, actually, THAT IS what it sounded like – a version of Valspeak. Her Spanish, incidentally, is absolutely beautiful.

Okay, let’s get to the cooking. I missed the first show, but in the second show she starts with strawberry tarts, and Marcela, thankfully, makes her own pastry – hence the “rally” cold butter. Oh wait, she’s using it for a CRUMB crust. Why wouldn’t she just have melted the butter? That is RALLY different.

Have you ever NOT used melted butter in a crumb crust? Hers actually didn’t look any different than a usual one. Hmm, I looked at over a dozen crumb crust recipes from books and online and NOT ONE used cold butter. Every single one, whether it used graham crackers, ginger snaps, vanilla OR chocolate wafers, all used melted butter. What could possibly be the reason for using cold butter in a crumb crust?

That’s not the only query in my mind as I watch her. Marcela reminds me of someone, some young actress that if I could only think of who she is, you would instantly get what she’s like.

I remember now. Oh! This isn’t good. Remember on Entourage, the stalker-type, kind of obnoxious, too-thin girl that E was involved with? The character’s name is Ashley. I haven’t seen most of this season, so I don’t know if he finally dumped her, but I guess she must have been a very good actress, because I couldn’t stand her!

Anyway, THAT’S who poor, sweet Marcela reminds me of and I find it hard to watch her now. THIS is who I’m talking about. That really is unfair of me. I have to shake that off right now!

Oh boy, I made the mistake of looking at Marcela’s blog and NOW I think just the opposite. She seems absolutely darling, even if she does have on too much eye make-up. She’s making me go all over the place. I think I’ll stick to the cooking and forget the Valspeak and Maybelline.

Marcela is making individual strawberry tarts with that crumb crust. She likes to use Maria biscuits, but you can substitute graham crackers with no problem, she says.

Marcela loves her mother’s idea of adding a bit of sugar to the strawberries, so they make their own juice. (I wish MY daughter would give ME credit for ideas that have been around since the beginning of time.)

The filling for the tarts is cream cheese, sour cream, sugar and her mother’s SECRET addition. Oh good, I have a feeling her mother is this awesome Mexican cook, turning out fresh chalupas at the drop of a sombrero.

I wonder what the secret ingredient could be. Hmm, Maybe a bit of Tequila? THAT would be different. Mexican vanilla? Too obvious. Oh I know!!! She probably adds Mexican crema, which is a Mexican version of crème fraiche or sour cream. Let’s see what it is.

WHAT??!! The secret ingredient is…POWDERED WHIPPED TOPPING! I don’t even know what that is. Cool Whip in powdered form, maybe? You’ve got to be kidding me.

Marcela says when asked how she gets the pie to be so fluffy and airy, her mother says she just whips it for an extra 5 minutes.

Sorry, but that white powder sprinkled over the cream cheese and sour cream looks really suspect as she beats everything together. Marcela folds in the strawberries and some of their magical juice. She spoons the filling on the tart shell and tops it with a fresh strawberry.

Next she’s making butternut soup. I wonder if some Knorr soup mix will go in at the end.

She roasts a halved butternut on a baking sheet with a bit of oil, salt and pepper for 45 minutes at 400º F. Meanwhile, she chops an onion, coarsely, and adds it to chopped carrots, celery and garlic with salt and pepper. She cooks it for not very long then adds the scooped out flesh of the butternut. She adds enough chicken stock to cover the vegetables, stirs well and the recipe says to cook it for 30 minutes until the vegetables are very soft.

I would prefer to completely soften the vegetables before the stock and squash goes in. The onions are incomparably sweeter that way.

Marcela makes a Chipotle Crema to go with the soup. See? I guess I mentioned crema a bit early. Marcela dices one chipotle very finely and mixes it with sour cream, salt and pepper. She purées the soup with an immersion blender and then seasons it (without tasting).

Marcela serves the soup with the chipotle crema and some pumpkin seeds. She tastes it and approves. Where’s Mama, anyway? That’s what we need. Ingrid’s show only became bearable with Mama.

Marcela starts her lamb main course by dissing her sister, saying if SHE can make this, then anyone can.

I shouldn’t get up in arms about that. I talk smack about other people’s cooking abilities ALL the time. No member of my family will step foot in my kitchen while I’m there. Too bad, they could really learn something. ;-)

Anyway, apparently her sister didn’t inherit the cooking gene. Marcela grabs her own homemade bread crumbs from the pantry. Hold on! Fungi Alert!

That’s great that she made the bread crumbs from scratch, but I would NEVER make bread crumbs in advance and keep them in the cupboard. Commercial ones have “secret” things added to them, so they don’t go off, but homemade breadcrumbs are a potential breeding ground for mold. You can bag them up and store them in the freezer or just make them and use them.

BTW, this chef has some thoughtful reasoning about why you shouldn’t use the CRUST in your homemade bread crumbs.

Back to the lamb, Marcela starts the crust that will go on the outside. She chops her shallots beautifully. That tells me a lot, but I don’t want to repeat my chopping-onions-the-classic-way-got-me-my-first-restaurant-cooking-job story. THIS is what I have to say about THAT. (Use Control-F to find the paragraph right after “I want to digress just a sec.”)

Marcela adds the chopped shallots to butter in a sauté pan. She says the trick to instantly stop crying from onions is to stick your head in the freezer. That’s great, but I have a bottom freezer now and by the time I cleaned out all the bread (and breadcrumbs), nuts, butter and ice packs, the crying would be long over.

You can also try a tiny dribble of water from the faucet. (Catch it in a pot, so you don’t waste it.) Apparently the acid from the onion is attracted to the moistest thing around, including your tear ducts. BUT if you have a faucet running, it’ll go to that. I still think the BEST way to cut down on crying is to keep your onions in the fridge. There’s a bucket full of tears difference between chopping a room temperature onion and a cold one.

I like that Marcela makes clear not to brown the butter as she sautés her shallots. She adds the fresh bread crumbs from that airtight container. I’m SO worried about those breadcrumbs. I can feel a few mold spores around the edges that she hasn’t caught. PROMISE ME that you won’t keep your freshly made breadcrumbs in the pantry.

Marcela stirs the breadcrumbs around in the butter to brown them. Then she adds ancho chile powder. Thank you Food Network, for telling us that this is “Ground Up Poblano Peppers”. I actually mean it (THIS time), I think it’s good they told us something useful for once.

I know Marcela is the Mexican cooking expert (supposedly), but I absolutely would have handled the ancho chile powder differently. I would have softened the shallots, THEN added the chile powder and cooked it on low, low, low for 2 to 3 minutes and THEN added the breadcrumbs. The mixture would be evenly ancho-ed, and there would be a more rounded, rich flavor with less rawness. THAT is how to treat warm spices – cumin, coriander, curry, turmeric, chile powder – in any sautéing situation.

Marcela stirs in a bit of fresh thyme and adds salt and pepper. She gets the crumbs golden brown, but not TOO browned, because they’re going in the oven. Good point.

She takes the breadcrumbs out of the sauté pan and sets them aside. Then in the same pan, she adds oil to brown the lamb. She heats the oil to “RALLY hot”. She seasons her rack (I couldn’t resist) with salt and pepper and sears the skin side of the lamb to a nice brown.

Marcela gives a nice explanation that searing the meat before it goes into the oven allows the meat to form a crust. That keeps the juices inside and the result will be “ONE JUICY RACK” of lamb.

Marcela spreads a layer of Dijon over the lamb and “packs on” the bread crumbs. She pours out the extra oil from the pan and put the rack back in, crumb side up, and puts the pan in the oven at 400º F for 25 minutes.

Commercial for Minute Rice. I can’t decide if the “Have you heard?” commercial is like a really bad sitcom or a really pathetic informercial. Office co-workers are sitting around a lunch table discussing the benefits of healthy eating, targeting one pudgy guy in particular who’s trying to lose weight for his wedding.

Great, but WHY would you buy brown rice in an over-packaged high-priced microwavable container (I NEVER microwave in plastic) when you could make a pot of brown rice at the beginning of the week and just pack it up separately. How about in these little Pyrex dishes with lids? But I still wouldn’t put the plastic lid in the microwave. Rice doesn’t need a lid to reheat anyway.

Back to Marcela…She takes the lamb out of the oven, exclaiming, “That, TO ME, looks like love at first sight.” Oh, this is supposed to be a romantic dinner, by the way. She sets it down to rest while she makes a mint sauce.

Eww, she mixes mint jelly and beef broth and a few sprigs of fresh mint. She heats up half a can of beef broth with some mint jelly. She chops up the mint and adds it at the last minute with salt and pepper. That really looks awful. Don’t ruin that nice lamb with that. She slices the lamb and dips a chop right into the sauce.

I would get a GOOD mint jelly, just serve that and make a little reduction from the juices in the pan for a sauce.

I would have reserved just a bit of that shallot and sautéed it around in the pan in which the lamb was cooked. And how about a sprinkle of that wonderful ancho chile powder? (I would have cooked it for 2 minutes on low, low, low, of course.) Then just a splash of some wine, brandy, even orange juice or balsamic vinegar…bring it the boil and scrape up all the stuff in the bottom of the pan. THEN add a bit of stock, reduce and voila, no minty, jellified sauce necessary.

I was going to write about all 3 of Marcela’s shows, but lookie here, she gave me too much to write about. I love when that happens. My next post about Marcela will include her Chocoflan recipe, which looks really interesting and seems to have quite a few problems based on its reviews on the Food Network website. Adiós por ahora.

Cute Curtis, Adorable Tyler,

Oh, And Ingrid Was There Too

Why can't Top Chef truncate their challenges to less than half an hour, like Oprah did on her latest show? The last half of her show was dedicated to a Sandwich Showdown. 3 viewers competed to come up with winning sandwich entries.

This competition was the aftermath to a feature with Gayle going around the country tasting great sandwiches everywich (get it?) where. I must say she does wrap her mouth (and teeth) around a sandwich in a not at all unattractive way. And that can't be easy.

During the Sandwich Showdown, the 3 contestants were surprised when their favorite celebrity chefs - Curtis, Tyler and Ingrid - came out to help them. They were all warm and wonderful. Yes, Ingrid too.

Curtis was flirtatious, Tyler was a big hugging machine and Ingrid was genuinely enthusiastic with her gal. One of the provisos, which was kind of pointless, was that they had to make a sandwich that they had never made before. Who was going to be the judge of that?

They showed some funny stuff as the teams went shopping at Whole Foods. Ingrid was about to punch out the fish guy for giving all the lobster to Curtis. Curtis was more interested in playing with the melons and dropping things than shopping. Tyler was pretty much on task.

The judges were Oprah, Gayle and Padma. And they only wasted a little time with Gayle doing some very short interviews with the participants as they finished their tasks.

The best part was the chowing-down. Oprah tasted the first sandwich and was starting to rave about how marvelous it was. Then she remembered she was supposed to have a poker face. With her cheeks full of pot roast, she stopped smiling and tried to look serious. It happened with each sandwich.

The actual sandwiches all looked good. It seemed pretty clear it was all up to the chefs and the ladies were just there for the fabulous prize. The winner was to win tons of Kenmore appliances and pots and stuff.

They gave the win to Tyler. (I wasn’t surprised. His WAS awesome.) But then they gave the prize (worth $7000) to EACH of them. There was jubilation all around.

Oprah had Padma explain in technical terms why Tyler won – lots of different flavors in the same sandwich. Oprah and Gayle said they just liked it A LOT.

I like a food show with lots of hugging and mugging. And, Gayle, keep up those jaw stretching exercises. They’re obviously serving you well.

Ingrid Sighting

Ingrid was on The Today Show this morning, promoting her new book. Al introduced her as “a Latin Sensation”, which makes sense because there really is nothing nice to say about her cooking. She immediately began stroking Al’s…...ego and complimenting him on his attire.

She is showing him pulled pork. She boils a pork loin for 45 minutes. How about BRAISING, instead of boiling, for a bit more flavor? Oh well, if she doesn’t care, why should I? (To braise, the meat is seared first and then cooked in JUST enough nicely seasoned liquid to barely cover and kept at a gently simmer. Boiling is boiling.) She barely bothers to sauté chorizo and then she adds the pork, which had been pre-pulled. A bunch of other ingredients - potatoes, tomatoes, chipotle, herbs and vinegar – get stirred in.

She leads Al to the other demonstration counter where the meat mixture has already been put into a tortilla. It is not a terrible presentation - it’s wrapped up in brown paper and tied with a scallion(?). It might have been nice to see Ingrid do something, but that would have taken time away from flirting with Al.

She used the expression “Chica Tip”, which I loathe, and Al was practically foaming at the mouth. She had him just where she wanted him. Then, rather abruptly I thought, she hands him a margarita, which they both down (alright maybe they were taking tiny sips), as they salsa out of the segment.

It was all kinda dumb. So much had been done in advance that Ingrid basically cooked nothing, which maybe, after all, isn’t such a bad thing.

Ingrid Lite

Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffmann

Spa Day
Yellow Quinoa
Yummy Avocado Sopita
Grilled Mahi-Mahi with Black Bean Salsa
Roasted Pineapple with Whipped Cream

Good, they cut the frozen-friend business at the beginning. And Ingrid seems a bit toned down, as well. Less makeup, no cleavage, less-blond hair. Interesting. I like it actually. She's doing a lighter menu to give herself and her friends a spa day, beginning with avocado soup.

She tells us her trick of freezing an onion for 30 minutes before chopping it to avoid the tears. She slices it and adds it to a pan with...butter? Huh? I thought this was a light menu. Not that you can't use butter if you're watching things, but it's probably not the first choice. She adds salt, pepper, 2 smashed garlic cloves and a big hunk of dill. She cooks the mixture for 5 to 7 minutes until "nice and soft". If you actually want them "nice and soft", you'll need to cook them longer.

She adds avocados to the blender with 2 1/2 cups of 2% milk. WHY is she using milk in the first place? Why is she using TWO percent milk? And why isn't she just using calorie and fat-free stock? I guess I could see adding a half cup or so of milk, if she wanted to give the soup a smoother feel without cream, but ONLY milk. I don't think so. I guess her new look isn't affecting her lousy recipes.

She adds the cooked vegetables to the blender mixture and blends it until completely smooth. She refrigerates it in the BLENDER. Well, that's something new. I have NEVER done that or even seen it done.

She's cooking quinoa. If she says the word quinoa (pronounced Keen-Wah) one more time, I'll scream. She adds 2 1/2 cups water and salt to 1 cup of quinoa and cooks it for 20 minutes.

Next she makes a marinade for mahi-mahi. She mixes 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup ketchup, a tablespoon of honey and fresh oregano in a plastic baggie that she has sitting in a measuring cup. Not a bad idea, I've done that...She adds chopped basil, garlic and lime juice and mixes it all together. She adds 4 pieces of 7 to 8 oz mahi-mahi.

Then we watch Ingrid wash her hands. (Well, it's better than watching her NOT wash her hands.) She puts it in the fridge for no longer than 45 minutes she says, because the acid could cook the fish. My rule is 30 minutes.

For a salsa type dish, Ingrid chops cherry tomatoes and scallions. She adds lime juice, salt pepper and cilantro. She gives canned black beans "a shower", so "WE control the sodium, not the can."

She chops a jalapeno, telling us to get rid of the veins and the seeds, where all the heat lies. (Uh-oh. I know someone who would have an issue with that.) She mixes the black beans in with the tomatoes and scallions, covers it and leaves it at room temperature.

She shows us the cooked quinoa.

Commercial break. Note to Food Network folks - Having a commercial for a toilet cleaner does not enhance the experience of watching food tv.

Ingrid drinks water into which she's infused cucumbers. Ick. She chops an onion and adds it to a pan with olive oil and butter (again?). She "finely juliennes" a green pepper...well, not exactly...and adds that. She stirs in 1 tablespoon of her homemade adobo spice. The ingredients include parsley flakes. Yeah, nothing says fresh like powdery parsley flakes. She adds garlic, canned green chilies and parsley, fresh this time. She stirs in the quinoa with a wooden spoon. NO, don't use that. It will mash it. Use a fork or metal spoon.

Ingrid removes the mahi-mahi fillets from the marinade. She brushes them with oil and puts them on a hot grill...for 12 minutes.

She sautés rock shrimp in olive oil as a garnish for the soup. She tells us her trick for knowing when they're done. They form the shape of a C for cooked. O means overcooked. She pours soup in pretty green bowls, oh, and just to make it even healthier, she pours over MORE olive oil. That's some spa she's getting these recipes from. She sprinkles over toasted sesame seeds and little basil leaves along with the shrimp. It looks good, but particularly light?...I don't think so.

She flips the fish.

Oh, good, no toilet brush commercial, just a graphic one for acne cream. What ever happened to RR shilling crackers?

She serves the soup and the mahi-mahi with black bean salsa. Her gal pals are impressed.

She goes back into the kitchen (hey, Tracy, just like Ina) to prepare dessert. She sprays "buttered flavored spray" into a baking dish. No, I'm not kidding. She arranges bought pineapple slices over and rubs browns sugar on both sides. She puts them on a hot grill. (I hope she cleaned off the fish really well.) She whips 1 cup heavy cream with HALF A CUP of confectioner's sugar. Whah???!! What about that is spa-like? Nothing! She adds 2 tablespoons of rum (to boost its curative powers perhaps?). She serves the girls, offering more whipped cream at the end.

Well, Ingrid did seem a bit less wacky than usual, but avocado soup and whipped cream for dessert aren't exactly the way I would have gone for spa cuisine. But I guess if it got rid of some her Ingrid-isms, it was worth it.

Ingrid - Simply The Wrong Menu

Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffmann

Comfort Food
Plantain Soup
Mini Cuban Burgers (Fritas)
Potato Chips with Chica Comfort Sauce
Peachy Mint Shake

To get the recipes:
Click here

Ooh boy, Ingrid's at the gym on a treadmill making up for overdoing it in the kitchen. Snap. Dances around.

She's back in the kitchen with a show about comfort food.

We're all about to go into the kitchen and not emerge for 6 days after having cooked and eaten and wrapped up and reheated and eaten again enough high calorie high fat food to last us until next Thanksgiving or Christmas at least.

But let's have a show about comfort food, because that's what we're craving. NOT!!!

Ingrid starts with mini-burgers. She grabs an onion that's been in the freezer for 15 minutes - her little trick for not crying. She grates the whole thing. Did she even peel it? She puts it in a bowl with 3 cloves of chopped garlic. She soaks 1 1/2 cups store-bought bread crumbs in 1/4 cup milk. Ewww...

She adds an egg, pepper, paprika, ketchup and the soggy bread crumbs to the onion. Then she goes into a little riff about how lime juice always adds a Latin flavor, which means that she'll add it to anything, no matter how inappropriate. Yup...lime juice goes in.

Uh oh, she has her ground meat right on the counter. She puts it down on her cutting board - the wooden one where she does all her prep. She opens it up and puts it into the other ingredients. She tells us not overmix. Okay, I won't overmix, if you don't spatter raw ground beef over the entire kitchen. Oh, but you already have...

She forms little patties and freezes the extras. She goes into an elaborate demonstration of HOW she freezes them. She lines a baking pan with foil and waxed paper and readies a piece of plastic wrap the length of the pan. The little patties go on.

She does some folding and twisting and turning, so that no hamburger touches another. Basically, what she's left with is a 2 foot long skinny roll of miniature hamburgers that will be a real trick to get into your freezer and will have sticky yucky wax paper stuck to them. Just open freeze them for 2 hours and then pack them into a plastic bag. Done!

Ingrid goes on to a savory plantain soup from her childhood. She cuts celery on the same board on which she unwrapped her raw ground beef. She struggles with the carrots. She actually does not know how to chop. Oh, she does better with the garlic.

She adds 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil to a fine looking stainless steel saucier type pot. (I looked all over for it, but I couldn't find the same one.) She chops onions into "squares" and adds them to the pot with cumin and salt and pepper.

Ingrid cuts off the ends of two green plantains and slices through the skin all the way down and cuts it off with her knife. She slices the plantains thickly and adds them to the soup. She roughly chops cilantro and puts it into the pot with 1 quart of chicken stock. It simmers for 45 minutes.

Next Ingrid is making a "decadent dip". She mixes 1/2 cup sour cream with 1/2 cup of mayonnaise. (For Ina, that would be a drop in the bucket.) She mixes in wooshter-she-eye-her sauce, lemon juice, salt and pepper and calls that a dip.

There doesn't seem to be too much (as in flavor) to this dip. There's a similar Joy of Cooking dip recipe that's actually good. It has soy sauce, chopped ginger, lots of chopped scallions, parsley and cilantro and chopped water chestnuts. IT is tasty. Ingrid accompanies her dip with an enormous bowl of potato chips into which she's sprinkles clumps of cilantro.

She checks on the soup. She thickens it up by blending 2 cups of it until smooth, and then adding back to the soup.

Now HERE is a good tip. Get ready...Before she blends the hot soup, she takes out the center thingie of the blender's lid and covers the hole with a dish cloth. That allows the hot steam to escape, so the mixture doesn't whoosh up and you don't burn yourself because of the dish cloth. (Actually, that's the only time I use my silicone pot holders. I think they're weird to use in the oven, but they're great on a hot blender. If they do get stuff on them, you can just rinse them off.)

She adds the puréed mixture back into the soup. She tells us she loves playing with her food. "It's a love affair between two cultures." If only...The Food Network could certainly use a show like that.

Ingrid heats her grill pan and put the mini burgers on.

She moves on to make "minty water". She boils one cup of water with one stalk of mint...can she spare it? She flips the burgers after 5 minutes. Judging by their appearance, YOU better make it FOUR minutes. She puts the burgers on some kind of strange looking stunted bread. Oh, it's the bottom half of little challah type rolls. They get topped with the other half of the roll.

She serves the soup after removing the bay leaf. I'm glad it SMELLS good, because it certainly wouldn't win any beauty contests.

She puts 1/2 cup of minty water in a blender with the boiled mint leaves. She adds 1 cup of frozen peach slices and 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream. Then a few scoops of ice go in. She blends it all together.

It's not really blending that well. She stops to add more minty water. Blends again. It still isn't getting smooth. I guess she just gives up, because she pours into the glass, chunky pieces of ice and all. She actually comments on its texture. Yeah, I would too, it's awful.

Lime juice goes in soup. She places all the stuff on a tray and goes and sits next to her admittedly adorable dog (it's not her fault who her mother is) to chow down. Enjoy Ingrid. I might not have waited until the next day at the gym to get rid of that awful food...and it might not have been at the gym.

Ingrid Hoffman - She Actually Made Two Good Points

But May I Be Frank? The Rest Was Crap

Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffman

Sunday Dinner
Coffee and Cola Pork Loin
String Beans in Vinaigrette
Spicy, Smoky Cauliflower Mash
Cheesecake Flan

To get the recipes:
Click here

Oh my! Dare I admit it? I kind of missed Ingrid while they were showing repeats...not enough to watch a show that I had already suffered through, but my snark meter was getting rusty. Not to worry. Today's show had enough to complain about to take me through an entire season of reruns.

She's making dinner for her family. At least her adorable mother is there, but alas, she remains frozen (how dumb is that?) while Ingrid cooks the meal by herself.

Ingrid starts with a pork loin. She makes a brine to soak it in. She mixes one cup of warm water with 1/2 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons salt. She eyeballs it. That's probably not a good idea. She stirs it to dissolve the salt and sugar, then adds COLD water to bring down the temperature of the brine. She doesn't want the pork loin to begin cooking in an overly hot brine. Wow, she almost sounds as if she's making sense. She places the pork loin in a big plastic bag and pours in the brine. The whole thing goes in a glass dish and into the fridge. She makes a big point of washing her hands.

Next Ingrid is making a combination of 2 different desserts in one - a flan and a cheesecake. She starts the caramel with 1/4 cup of water and 2 cups of sugar. She doesn't measure. What is it with people who can't cook who refuse to measure. How hard is it to pick up a measuring cup and just use it?

Ingrid is using one and half packages of cream cheese. Do we really need to see her opening the packets? I think next time maybe we could skip that step. She adds 3 eggs, all at once and beats them in. Then she beats in 14 oz of condensed milk, 1 can of evaporated milk, plus 1 1/2 cups of room temperature whole milk with 1 tsp vanilla.

Ok, I see where this is going. She taking the best qualities of the flan and the cheesecake and flinging them out the window and making an institutional version of both: incorporating the overly sweet, gooey taste of condensed milk with evaporated milk, which "has a slightly caramelized, 'canned' flavor that is not appreciated by all who taste it". That's putting it lightly...

The caramel does look good. She spoons it into the bottom of her ramekins, without issuing adequate warnings, however. She spoons in her industrial filling and places the ramekins in a baking dish that she's lined with a dishtowel. She pours hot water over, covers it with foil and bakes it at 325 for 30 minutes.

I have to say that Ingrid actually sounds like she knows what she's talking about. She tells us that the dishtowel prevents the ramekins from moving around in the dish AND insulates them from the heat of the oven. Wow, that's twice in one episode that she's said stuff that makes sense.

For the next dish, Ingrid steams cauliflower for 15 to 20 minutes until completely soft. She takes the pork out of the brine. She grinds together 1/4 cup of coffee beans with 3 star anise (hate 'em!), brown sugar, cinnamon and peppercorns.

She turns on a skillet, adds 1 tablespoon SALTED butter (she WOULD) with 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. She gets it really hot. She pats the pork loin dry and rubs the spices on really well. It goes into the hot pan and Ingrid washes her hands. I do think that's great, but why was there such a complete lack of hygiene on her first couple of shows? She browns it for 3 minutes on each side. She takes out the ramekins and puts the pork loin in the 350 degree oven for one hour.

Ingrid freezes bacon for one hour before chopping it. (She freezes the whole package to use half a pound?) She washes her hands. She puts the bacon in a cold skillet, telling us it will make it cook more evenly.

She drains the cauliflower and puts it in a blender. Huh? She adds 1 cup of packaged pre-shredded mozzarella (to add to the rubbery mouth feel of the dish, I guess) with 1/2 cup of whole milk, 3 tablespoons of sour cream and salt and pepper.

Okay, let's take a minute here to discuss the merits of a blender compared to a food processor. It's not really that complicated and you would think that someone with a "cooking" show on the Food Network would know this already.

Mixtures that are basically liquid - soups, drinks - do better in a blender. They get much smoother than in a food processor. Mixtures that are predominately solids - puréed vegetables, meat loaf-y type of things - should go in a food processor.

The blender needs a certain amount of liquid to do its job. It's pointless to fight with it and to have to keep scraping at the mixture to get the solids to the top and the thinner stuff to the bottom. A food processor can do the job of puréeing effortlessly.

There is one huge food processor caveat: NEVER use a food processor for puréeing potatoes or any vegetable mixture with potatoes in it. They come out like glue. But that's doesn't apply here and WHY Ingrid is using a blender for the cauliflower is completely beyond me. There is absolutely no reason to.

She adds the juice of one lime and a tablespoon of chopped chipotle to give the cauliflower a smoky flavor. The recipe says to use just the adobo sauce and it doesn't say you get that from a can of chipotles. She blends that all together and puts the over-liquidy mass into a serving bowl. If she had been using a food processor, she could have cut down on the amount of liquid and the resulting dish would have had a more attractive texture.

Back to the bacon pan, Ingrid blots the actual pan with a paper towel to remove some of the fat and then she pours in 1 cup of cola with 1 cup of red wine and 1/2 cup of pre-made demi-glace sauce. She says you can substitute brown gravy mix. (The recipe says you can use a packaged demi-glace mix, whatever that is.) Why not just use gravy out of a can?

Honestly, please tell me do people really cook like this? I guess that's a bit of a disingenuous question, knowing, as I do, the popularity of certain FN hosts. She adds 1/2 cup of pineapple "tidbits". Where's the Red Food Coloring 2G?

She boils the green beans for 5 minutes. Frankly, I would STEAM the green beans and BOIL the cauliflower, but what do I know? I thought it was dumb to put a bunch of gloppy solids into a blender and, instead of soda and dried mixes, I usually cook with stock and real ingredients...

Back to the table, why are there framed pictures ON the dinner plates? Maybe they're the first course. Ingrid lets the pork loin rest. She has cooked the cola sauce for 30 minutes. It looks burned and bitter.

She drains the green beans. "It's almost dummy-proof." The operative word here is ALMOST. She thickly slices shallots and mixes them with mustard, sherry vinegar and salt and pepper. She adds the green beans and THEN the olive oil. Why the oil goes in AFTER the beans will remain an enduring mystery. Most likely, she has no idea what she's doing...They go on a platter.

She slices the pork, is that too pink? But, remember, I thought the flawless Ina had undercooked something or other. She "scoops" up the sauce and puts it on top of the pork loin.

For her table setting, she's using "granny chic", uniting different napkins by using the same napkin rings. Great, thanks Ingrid.

She gives them about 2 seconds to eat, before flinging the flan in front of them. They like it. Well, what are they going to say? The cameras are on and Mom is always gracious. Seeing her for 2 seconds was the best part of the show, oh, and getting my nettles up is always good to get the blood flowing again...

Breakfast In Bed WITH Ingrid Would Have Been More Entertaining

Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffmann

Breakfast in Bed
Eggs Benedict with Chipotle Hollandaise
Old-fashioned Avena Oatmeal Breakfast Smoothies
Berry Mint Salad

To get the recipes:
Click here

Ingrid brings a tray into a sleeping friend. "Sunshine on a plate coming right to you." Oh, please, GAG me. Why is there a piece of trash on the tray with flowers sticking out of it? Plus a chilled oatmeal(!) drink?

Snap, kick and we're in the kitchen with lock-extensioned Ingrid and plenty of cleavage. (At breakfast?!) She's making Latin Eggs Benedict. Should I be hopeful? I LOVE Eggs Benedict and I've had many different versions, my favorite being a black beans and avocado enhanced Benedict, southwest style. Let's see what she does.

She starts with a stick of SALTED butter. Oh, I should have known we'd have trouble. With something as delicate as an Hollandaise sauce, you really want to be able to control the amount of salt. You don't want to abdicate that power to anyone.

Actually, there is one place and one place only for salted butter...on hot toast. Frankly, this never even occurred to me, but in conversation with a friend, I was convinced that this a valid use of salted butter, actually the ONLY valid use. (Ok, so WHAT if I talk to my friends about the pros and cons of different kinds of butter. What SHOULD we be talking about?) Anyway, I guess I shouldn't be surprised at Ingrid. After all she puts raisins in her ceviche.

Oh, lookie here! The folks that are writing her recipes on the FN website know better than she does. It says UNSALTED butter. Of course it does, because that's what you use. Aaaarggghhh! I won't even mention that she doesn't clarify the butter. Julia doesn't actually SAY to clarify the butter in Mastering. But she does say to melt the butter and then add it, leaving behind "the milky residue at the bottom of the butter pan", in effect CLARIFYING the butter.

Where we we? Oh yes, Ingrid is melting her salt-laden butter. And she also says she's saving the butter paper for later. Remember the breakfast tray. Maybe she's adding that to the decoration.

She moves on to the avena, an oatmeal and milk smoothie. She says it's very Colombian. Finally, something authentic. She heats 3 cups of whole milk with 1/2 cup of old-fashioned oats and cooks it on low heat for 10 minutes.

The butter (remember the salty butter) is melted. Ingrid turns it off. She squeezes half a lemon...and not all that easily, it must be said. She separates 4 eggs and puts the yolks in the top of a double boiler and whisks them. What? No Chica Tip about freezing the whites?

She tells us this will be a Latin Hollandaise, because she's adding chipotle sauce. 1 tablespoon of lemon juice is whisked into the yolks. She adds a pinch of salt and puts the top of the double boiler over boiling water. She whisks in the butter. The sauce is actually thickening nicely.

From a can of chipotles, she stirs in 1 tablespoon of the adobo sauce. She continues to whisk and cooks the Hollandaise for a total of 4 minutes, telling us it should have the consistency of thick pancake batter. She's very excited to show us that she's using the butter paper to cover the sauce. Wow, that's some great plan!

Ingrid looks in on her friend, admitting that she can't believe she's still sleeping after all the noise she (Ingrid) has made. Yeah, that's true. Ingrid, could you pipe down and let me get back to my nap?

She adds a stick of cinnamon and some sugar to the oatmeal. It looks like incredibly runny oatmeal.

She's making a fruit salad. She tells us to wash the berries "really, really good." She chops the strawberries (who CHOPS strawberries?) with an ENORMOUS knife.

She adds raspberries and blueberries and a bit of maple syrup. She squeezes over orange juice and adds a bit of vanilla extract. I mean, this is not gobsmackingly horrible. But do we really like the idea of maple syrup, orange juice, strawberries, vanilla, oh and mint? How about picking a flavor profile and sticking to it, instead of going all over the map?

Ingrid actually knows to roll up the mint leaves very tightly and then slice them, albeit not terribly thinly. She adds the mint and covers the fruit with plastic.

Ingrid pours the completed oatmeal thing into a bowl. She adds vanilla. Oh, she knew not to add it while it was cooking. That's good...at least.

She prepares Canadian bacon for cooking by sprinkling it with a mixture of oregano and paprika. She likes Canadian bacon, because you get all the flavor without the fat. I was trying to think of something lewd to say about Canadian hockey players, but I don't know enough about hockey...not that I usually let that stop me.

She tells us she's going to use newspaper to decorate her tray. Oh, that must have been that monstrosity I saw at the beginning on the tray.

We come back from a commercial and...a cleavage alert! What exactly happened while we were gone? She fries the bacon in a non-stick pan with no fat. She takes out arepas to use a base. She turns the bacon with overly large (for the task) scratchy "THONGS". Ok, we're so over that. At least she has completely given up "baby".

She cuts the arepas with a biscuit cutter and tells us we can also use English muffins. She takes out the bacon and adds the arepas to warm through.

For her eggs, Ingrid breaks each one into a separate bowl. She adds white vinegar to boiling water. I'm impressed she knew that. It sets the white instantly. She creates a swirl of water with a slotted spoon and drops in an egg. She repeats that with the other eggs. I can't fault her technique, but she didn't have the water boiling quite enough, so the whites look like they kind of congealed in long strandy bits, instead of taking a more rounded form as a protector to the yolks.

She assembles the Benedicts. The arepas go on a plate. The Canadian bacon goes on top of that. She removes the eggs from the pot and blots them on a tea towel and lays them on top of the bacon. Ok, those are not the same eggs. These are perfectly formed with no strings of white hanging off the sides. She pours over the Hollandaise.

The eggs don't look bad at all. She garnishes them with parsley and then DECORATES AN EMPTY JUICE BOTTLE WITH NEWSPAPER and puts a flower in it. Who does that? Honestly, it looks like a crumpled bunch of newspaper in the corner of the tray.

She adds a banana to the fruit salad and takes time dishing it into a ramekin. Umm...Ingrid...you should have done this FIRST. Nothing gets colder faster than eggs.

She strains the avena. Maybe this is a cult thing or something. It looks like...strained oatmeal liquid. She pours it into a glass. I'd be willing to go with it, if I knew for sure that it was an authentic Colombian recipe. But with Ingrid, it could have come from Costco as easily as Colombia.

She takes the tray in. Her friend is snapped back to life. She has a tray for herself too. Now, I must say I do like THAT idea, so the bedded person has someone to eat with. But as for the rest...it was an ok menu with a few serious lapses and again, I learned nothing and I wasn't particularly entertained. Where's Mama when you need her?

Ingrid's Still On? Never Mind, Let's Talk Onions...Plus A Little Rant

Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffmann

Coco Loco
Caribbean Salmon with Guava Barbecue Sauce and Mango Veggie Salsa
Best Basic White Rice
Coconut Popsicles
Pineapple Mojitos

To get the recipes:
Click here

HEY!!! INGRID, YOU'RE STILL HERE?

I guess so.

Ingrid begins the show by telling us that she loves barbecue sauce and she makes a Spanglish version of it. She gives us her favorite Chica Tip - she puts onions in the fridge for 10 minutes before she is going to use them.

To tell you the truth, this is legitimate advice, but Ingrid would never tell you WHY. There are sulfur compounds in onions, which get released when you cut into them. These compounds are attracted to water...in your eyes, for example, and are converted to acids. That causes the stinging we feel when chopping onions. Chilling them seems to prevent this toxic chemical reaction.

But there are other solutions out there too. If you run water, supposedly the sulfur compounds are attracted to THAT, instead of your eyes. (I've never found that to work too well.)

"They" also say you can stop the crying if you put something between the onions and your eyes - a piece of bread in your mouth, or stick out your tongue. The bread I don't exactly get, but the tongue kind of makes sense. The chemicals will be attracted to the moisture in your tongue, instead of your eyes.

One place suggested using a wet knife and wet cutting board. I haven't tried that one yet. OR WEAR GOGGLES OR A SNORKELLING MASK!!! Ummm... You know what? I think I'll just go with the tears.

There is one onion-related thing I've noticed in my long years of cooking. I wonder if you have too. Summer onions almost never make me cry, but in January or February, I'm bawling. I just thought it was because the summer onions were younger and after they're stored for the winter, they get stronger. That's sort of right. It turns out that the onions that we're using in the winter are called "storage onions" and the fact that they have a larger amount of sulfuric compounds than the younger summer onions is what makes them last longer.

I actually keep my onions in the fridge, but I go through them pretty quickly. They can go bad and get mushy if you don't get to them. I guess chilling them is the best answer, but I kind of like the idea of someone wearing goggles, sticking out her tongue and chopping her onions perhaps in a bathtub full of water. (The goggles will come in handy.)

Oh, darn, Ingrid's still here. She's chopping 2 of the largest onions I've ever seen, with nary a goggle in sight, and cooking them in vegetable oil.

She gets guava paste from the cupboard. She really likes its "tarty", lemony flavor. (Don't say it.) She slices two-thirds of it and adds it to the onions. Then she adds star anise.

There are basically only 2 things I hate in the world of food...the first is tarragon, the second is star anise.

She adds 1/2 teaspoon of allspice plus 1/4 teaspoon of curry powder. Really, why bother? Plus, she should have added that to the onions and cooked it for three minutes over super low heat. Then she adds apple cider and dark rum. Bluh! I was with her on the guava paste, but dark rum? The last thing to go in is tomato paste. That cooks for 15 minutes.

She sprays a foil lined baking sheet with Pam and puts a piece of salmon on it. Then Ingrid washes her hands incredibly well. The kitchen police must have really been on her from that first completely unsanitary episode.

She rolls 2 limes on the board and squeezes the juice into the barbecue sauce. She takes out the star anise. She spoons quite a lot of barbecue sauce on the salmon and lets it sit for 15 minutes, which she doesn't mention in the recipe.

Now she starts on the salsa by peeling two cloves of garlic. "I'll be pasting them"??! Ingrid, we actually call that CRUSHING the garlic, but whatever. She mashes the garlic into the salt on the board, really smashing the garlic to work it until it's fine. She whisks olive oil with 2 limes worth of juice and the salty garlic and sets it aside in the fridge.

"It's time to play with my peppers and serrano chiles." Ingrid cuts the tops and bottoms off the peppers and pushes the insides out in one piece. She's very proud of herself, except that she wastes an awful lot of the pepper that way. She chops the serrano chile after removing the seeds and veins. She even washes her hands after. Then Ingrid chops her (refrigerated) half a red onion. "Time to tango with a mango." Well, baby, I'd love to see you tango, much more than cook. Hey, have you noticed that she hasn't said baby in an episode or two? Do you think the folks at the FN told her to knock it off? Probably not. Maybe Mom did.

Ok, this is her dealing with a mango in a weird way again. She did it on another show, as well. She peels the mango with a potato peeler and then cuts them off in large slices and then dices them. I'm not sure what the advantage is of doing it that way.

Then she chops her fav, cilantro, but not nearly enough and adds black beans to her salsa. "It's all about seasoning your layers." I would agree with her there, except for one thing...SHE DIDN'T. She seasoned the whole thing together when it was in the bowl. That's kind of funny, I just checked the recipe. NOPE, not there either.

Ingrid, do you even know what you're talking about? Seasoning "your layers" is dealing with each ingredient separately, sometimes with just salt and pepper or with other herbs and spices and flavorings.

For example, in a ratatouille, I always sauté each ingredient separately. For the zucchini, I might flavor the oil first with garlic and then add salt and pepper as I sauté. For the eggplant, I would toss that in advance in some olive oil and add garlic just at the end of the sautéing time. The peppers gets a quick bath of olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and then go on a high heat for a very short time. Then I put it all together for a final simmering with tomatoes. But the point is each ingredient would taste great on its own. In Ingrid's case, she just threw everything together, which is fine, but then don't say YOU'RE LAYERING THE FLAVORS! Where am I? Oh, back in the kitchen with Ms. Hoochie Coochie, wait, that was Charo, wasn't it?

Next Ingrid shows us how to make rice. She mixes 2 cups of long grain white rice with 4 cups of chicken stock, butter and oil. She brings it to the boil and puts her overly large scraps of peppers in. Instead of adding garbage to her rice, why doesn't she cut the peppers properly in the first place and make less waste?

We're onto the mojitos, gosh, do I need one! She muddles (at least she uses the right word) together mint leaves, sugar and wedges of lime. Then she mixes ice with white rum, soda and...get ready for the big finish here...PINEAPPLE JUICE. She pours that over the muddled mixture and pours it into glasses. She adds a sugar cane stick to each glass and garnishes with a giant wadge (yes, I said WADGE, not wedge...wedge implies some thought went into its cutting) of pineapple, which she hasn't bothered to peel. That's just what I like when I drink a mojito - a big thorny piece of pineapple skin hitting me in the face.

Ingrid broils the salmon for 12 minutes and takes it out. Now, you may be surprised by my opinion of her apparent laziness in only broiling one side of the salmon. It is actually ok not to turn it. The heat from the top will cook it through. Usually, we're used to turning things when we broil or grill, but as long as you get the top nice and charry brown, it'll be ok. If you think about it, it makes sense. When you bake a piece of fish, you don't turn it over. Here, as long as one side is nicely browned, you're fine.

Oh, now it's time for the dressing to "marry" the salsa. "The time has come for this amazing wedding." She mixes it together. Whoa! That WAS hot. NOT!

Then she gets all excited because it's "time to build (her) tiny tower of rice." She sprays the inside of the top of the can of Pam and spoons the cooked rice in. She unmolds it on the plate. Everybody knows you can do that, right? The rice can even have been sitting on the back of the stove for a half hour. Of course, I don't use a can top, I use a little pyrex bowl, which needs no Pam.

She spoons the salsa on the plate and cuts a big piece of fish (not terribly cleanly) and lays it on there. She throws on some cilantro and a little more barbecue sauce. "Food done. Party on." She serves each plate individually. They look ok, but not like she needs her own television show to show us this.

Oh joy, there's still dessert. She dips popsicles, yup, I said popsicles, in rum and then dips the edges in demerara sugar. Chopped nuts would have made more sense.

Was anything really terrible? No. Did she enlighten me at all? No, I can't say she did. Did she entertain me? Not really. Educate me? Nah, definitely not.

Here we have another wasted opportunity to spread the word about how exciting and complex Latin food can be.

Send Ingrid Home And Give Mom Her Own Show

Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffman

Mommy & Me
Sancocho with Aji
Plantain Chips Patacones
Arroz con Leche

To get the recipes:
Click here


Mom is here, helping Ingrid in the kitchen. Oh, no. There is no way I'm going to say anything mean about Ingrid, when her mother's standing right there, for cryin' out loud. That was a good strategy. Ingrid still insists on kicking her leg at us in the opening sequence, though.

Ingrid soaks the rice in water for a rice pudding and add spices, while she has Mom chopping scallions for the salsa, which goes with the main course. Ingrid's not really letting Mom get a word in edgewise, but she seems like a sweet lady.
Ingrid takes cares of the tomato, onion and hot pepper chopping, explaining that the seeds are the hottest part of the Scotch bonnet. She calls it "feery". I guess she means "fiery". Why is Mom's English so much better than Ingrid's anyway? Plus, Mom is a much better chopper. She's on to the cilantro and she's making nice work of it, where Ingrid leaves it looking like grass clippings.

For this Aji salsa, Mom squeezes limes, telling us to look for limes that are smooth and shiny. To complete the Aji, Ingrid adds water. Now why is she doing that? The lime juice should be enough liquid. Mom, have a word with your diluting-loving daughter! On the show, Ingrid says to use 1/4 cup water. The recipe says 3/4 cup!!! No way do you need that much. I would leave it out entirely.

Ingrid explains that Sancocho is a cross between a soup and stew. Uh-oh, we're in dangerous territory now. I don't want to hear about any "stoups". Ingrid instructs Mom to heat up the pot, while she chops the garlic. "There's nothing better for me than cooking with my mother." Thanks for reminding those of us that don't have our mothers around anymore of what we're missing.
Now, I'm getting into a funk of missing my own dear mother, who was a fine cook, plus she was enthusiastic and positive about MY cooking. Sorry if it's mean of me to begrudge someone else her mother. Actually, from the looks of it, I'd much rather spend time cooking with Ingrid's Mom than Ingrid herself. 

Ingrid gets out another board just for the chicken. (NOW, she's showing off for Mom. But it is a relief that she won't be giving the poor woman salmonella.) She's using skinless chicken thighs and short ribs. She salts and peppers ONE side only - Mom, step in here - and she puts them in the big pot together with the chopped tomatoes. No browning? Apparently, she's already sautéed onions and garlic in that pot, which I must have missed.

Ingrid offers "a great chica tip" (it's not in the recipe) for peeling green plantains more easily. She soaks them in salt water for awhile, so you don't have to fight to get the skins off. 

Mom will take care of slicing them and Ingrid shows us a calabaza. (You can substitute butternut squash.) Poor Mom has to take out the seeds, but Ingrid tells us not to peel it and just to leave it in big chunks. Then you peel it when it's cooked. That's kind of odd to fish out an ingredient from a stew and peel it at the end.

The calabaza goes into the Sanchocho pot with 14(!?) cups of chicken broth and potatoes. Mom tells us to be sure to cook the short ribs very slowly.
Next we see mother and daughter setting the table. I NEVER allowed my mother to set the table if I was there. I figured she did that enough for me and now it was my turn.

Ingrid sets about finishing the rice pudding. It's already been cooking to evaporate most of the water. She beats an egg with 4 cups of whole milk and stirs that into the rice with one can of sweetened condensed milk. This seems like an awful lot of liquid. Up to 6 times the amount of liquid to rice is common, but this is over 8 cups of different liquids (including the water at the beginning) to 1 cup of rice. Mom wouldn't let her go wrong, I guess. Oh, wait, a big boo-boo has just been committed. Ingrid added the vanilla extract BEFORE she cooked the rice pudding for another 25 minutes. 

Let's review this one more time: In order for its flavor not to dissipate, vanilla extract should be added to cooked mixtures after they've been briefly cooled.
Meanwhile, Mommy is skimming the stew and preparing the corn and cilantro. She making a giant bouquet of cilantro that can be added to the stew and then easily removed at the end of cooking time. Mom also digs out the chicken and sets it aside so the short ribs can cook longer. I hope she counted the pieces of chicken she started with. There might be a rogue one hiding in the bottom of the pot.

Ingrid's tells us about using frozen yucca. It's almost impossible to peel, she says, so she uses the peeled frozen variety.

For a side dish, Ingrid and Mom are frying green plantains. This is getting a bit confusing. They've put green AND ripe ones in the stew, but she's frying just the green ones for her Patacones. 

The ripe ones have a black skin and Ingrid says the taste is somewhere between a sweet potato and a banana. Good description. Her mother obviously brings out the best in her.

Okay, so the green plantains get peeled (after soaking in salt water) and cut into 2 inch pieces. Ingrid fries them in one cup of vegetable oil, heated over medium high heat. She leaves them for one minute, just until lightly browned and turns them over until barely golden and drains them on paper towels. "This is something that requires babysitting." 

Mom tastes the soup and is pleased. She and Ingrid look at family albums. That's what I always like to do, too, when I'm in the middle of a big greasy frying situation.
 
Mom fishes out the cilantro and bay leaves from the stew, while Ingrid takes the rice pudding off the heat and add the raisins. Why not add them DURING the cooking and let them plump up? Or why not soak them in some rum, baby, and then add them. Oh, that's not nice, she's not letting Mom taste any. Brat! I JUST NOTICED SOMETHING! She hasn't said BABY once. Yay for Mom! Stick around... please.

Now, this next part is actually interesting. Ingrid flattens the once-fried plantains with a plantain press.








Mom puts hers in a plastic baggie and uses a big pot to flatten it. 






Okay, finally we see something really Latin and totally cool. The Leftover Queen suggested this way of cooking plantains a while back, after seeing Michael Chiarello do it. 

The flattened plantains get refried in the same oil for 4 to 6 minutes. They are looking good.

Mom and Ingrid get all the food together. They serve the aji salsa with slices of limes. They take the "drier" ingredients out of the stew and put them in piles. To be honest, it looks hearty, but not beautiful.



The brothy stuff goes into a big earthenware bowl. Mom takes out the plantains and immediately salts them. Ingrid chops some last minute cilantro. (Mom did it better.) Everything gets taken to the table, which appears to be covered with...garbage bags. Ok, not an attractive option. (Aren't garbage bags totally not food-safe?) Plus it's never explained WHY they're using garbage bags. It's not a clambake, after all.

They eat. Mom likes it. Ingrid serves the rice pudding and, for once, she has attractively garnished it with cinnamon sugar and cinnamon stick. 




Well. At last, a decent show. The recipes seemed authentic. We got a little plantain lesson. We saw a nifty plantain press. AND where Ingrid is annoying, her mother is adorable.

Mom, could you maybe take Ingrid aside and tell her to cool it with the jello shots and "baby, baby"? Better yet, move in and take over. I suspect you're much too nice a person to do that, but I'm not. In this case, could it be that the apple DOES fall far from the tree? 

Sorry, Ingrid's Mom, I'll try to be nice. If YOU promise that you'll show up again on Ingrid's next (and every) show, I promise to TRY to be nice.