SemiHomemade with Sandra Lee: Take out 2

SLop comes into her faux pantry and my, it looks like they really smeared the Vaseline thick today. She's carrying an overflowing shopping bag of paper products, and promises to show us how to make the best take out in we've ever seen. Yeah, right. She itemizes the lineup and heads to the kitchen before the makeup that is caked on her face falls off.

During the opening credits, I just noticed that when SLop describes how she's been cooking and entertaining for years, the way her grandma taught her, it is accompanied by a shot of her emptying beer into a pitcher. Hee!

SLop enters the kitchen stage right. Oh. My. Gawd! Her kitchen has been redone in red, white, and pink, and she's wearing an inappropriate and unfortunate tight flower print shirt. And what the hell is that french maid apron hanging on her oven door?

She begins by making a faux croissandwhich with a zip lock bag of frozen "pre cooked" sausage. She puts them onto a baking sheet and puts them onto the counter to "set up". Since she likes them realllly cheesy, she tops them with a slice of Kraft singles and lets them melt while making the sauce, but first she makes the croissants out of a roll a crescent roll dough. Hmm, it appears the cardboard tube was pre-opened... She reveals that the trick to making the rolls is to pinch two sheets together, roll it up, and then twist it into a pretezel-like shape. As she puts it on the baking sheet, she tells us it'll look like it just came out of a professional bakery. Yeah, right. She adds this is a great project for kids, marking this as suitable for any future "Cooking with your Kids" week Food Network does in the future. She butters them before putting them into the oven. Suddenly, she's back at the counter top and grabbing some of the finished product that MV handed off to her from her hiding spot underneath the camera lens. SLop then starts to talk about the sauce that everyone makes, but I have no clue about which she speaks since I have no recollection of ever having a special sauce put onto my croissandwhich. She starts off by mixing some mayo, and I suddenly realize that the special sauce she gets on her sandwiches is only special in the "made with extra lovin'" way, if you get my drift. Anyhow, she squeezes in some lemon juice from a plastic lemon while instructing us it can be fresh and then quickly adding that it can also be bottled, and pours in a little hot sauce, warning us that a little goes a long way so be careful. This from a woman who thinks bell peppers are "spicy". Her boobs oscillate as she mixes the sauce in earnest and tells us we would be SURPRISED at how simple they are to make from things out of our refrigerator. I'm surprised you don't recognize the origins of that "special one in the palm of her hand and sawing it with a huge serrated knife towards her palm. I am SO hoping she has a Dan Acroyd Julia Child moment, but I am not lucky. SLop tempts fate by doing it again, but no dice. She puts a little sauce on the bun, then a sausage patty, then nukes it. As she nukes it, she says these are great for premaking and saving them in the fridge. Hmm, why is she nuking these anyway? Is she heating up the sauce to body temperature? She recommends giving this to the kids on the way to the school bus and tells us not to put the sauce on if they go into the fridge for some reason. SLop tempts fate a third time and then tries to wrap it in wax paper. She grabs the

We return from commercial for the pork wantons and I sudden get this odd sense of deja vu as she tells us the bamboo steamer in her wok filled with water is ready for the wontons and shares how she uses Napa cabbage leaves to keep them from sticking to the steamer. Oh yes, she's repeating a recipe from the "pooty Wok" ep! She starts off by dumping a can of water chestnuts she got Miss Stephanie to pilfer from Rachel Ray's set into a strainer (instead of decanting it into the sink) and then onto a chopping board, catching most of them before they fall off and onto the floor. As she slices them up, she tells us they look like little tiny potatoes but are crunchy and make any Asian dish authentic, whatever that means. After mashing them up, she dumps them into a bowl and adds scallions. She mentions she normally would use her food processor but cannot find it. What the hell was that about? Who loses his food processor? With a gleeful "Me washie handsies! Me washie handsies!", she washes her hands for some reason before adding a packet of oriental sesame seasoning (from the salad dressing section of the supermarket), an egg, a tablespoon of ginger, garlic (but there's not enough in the jar so she shakes out what she can), and sesame oil, followed by oyster sauce. Finally, she adds some ground pork while mentioning that chicken can be subsbreastuted. She stirs the mixture with a wooden spoon and with another gleeful gleeful "Me washie handsies with soap! Me washie handsies with soap!", washes her hands, but then uses the contaminated stirring spoon to put the filling in the wrappers. The idiot STILL hasn't grasped the concept! She puts them onto a baking sheet that she coated with corn starch to keep from sticking to the pan or parchment paper in the pan. I have no clue what makes her think that or why it would be necessary if she used the parchment, but let's not dwell on it. After staggering around looking for a knife, SLop lines the steamer with a couple slices of the cabbage and puts the wontons into it to cook for less than a minute and shows us a really cute way to serve them; she produces an oriental food take-out container and fills it with shredded cabbage (shredded lettuce is fine), jabs a couple chop sticks into it, and fills it with the barely-heated wontons and adds that she loves this because they are disposable (thanks to a grant from the garbage collectors union). With a "One for me! Come here!", she pops one into her mouth and exits stage left while rolling her eyes in ecstasy.

We return from commercial to see SLop entering from stage right clutching a bottle of booze. SLop excitedly tells us she was in the pantry looking for her cream liqueur *wink wink nudge nudge* but then sullenly tells us it's not quite chickentail time yet. I cannot get a good look at the bottle, but I am betting it'd only partially full because she seems totally lit. She tells us she's going to use this to make this great desert, but the glamour shot that flashes on the screen isn't convincing, which means we're really in for a "treat". She clumsily opens a package of puff pastry sheets, takes one, and then tosses the rest onto the counter behind her. She places the sheet onto a baking sheet and then slices them with the knife with which she sliced the cabbage. Shouldn't you do that sort of thing on a cutting board so you don't mess up your knife? Anyhow, she pops them into the oven and shows us some loaves she already made, then grabs an apple pie and begins to shred it with a fork before deciding she can do it better if she dumps it all into a bowl. What she did to that poor apple pie reminded me of what my sister used to do with her food when she was three years old. I'm just sayin'. Finished shredding her pie, she leaves it to set for while she takes a tub of partially blurred cool whip and adds some cinnamon sugar to make it taste home-made. In another bowl, she combines cream cheese and powdered sugar and them uses a hand mixer on the lowest setting to mix them. To this she adds the liqueur and clumsily mixes it with the hand mixer some more. She buttembles the napoleons by setting one of the puff loaves to serve as the top and uses a fork to smash and shred a depression to hold the filling. Me, I would have used a knife or, even better, used a fork to puncture the dough so it doesn't puff up when baked. There's a word for this that I saw on Good Eats once but I can't remember it now. She sets the bottom layer onto an inverted pan, fills the dough hole with some shredded apple pie, and tops with the whipped topping mixture. She repeats this with the second puff loaf. She recommends using a glad bag for the adulterated Cool Whip to make it look more professional, but in her stupid faux southern drawl, says "Ah jus' wanna eat et like dis!", then gloats about how one can take something premade, recycle it, and take all the credit for making it. She tops this with the last puff load and then uses a glad bag to dribble the cream liqueur stuff over it all, claiming it will look like you paid a fortune for it at a fancy bakery. Only if the head backer's name is Otis. Before we head out to commercial, SLop announces she's going to show us her chickentail as, in ominous foreshadowing, we see a glamour shot of what she just made sitting on a grill which looks like half a softball.

When we return from commercial, we can tell by the graphic on the screen that it's now "Sandra's chickentail Time!". She announces that her latest chickentail, can be made from those great energy drinks you buy at the store, but I'm not sure what it is because the can was pilfered from Rachel Ray's set and disguised with a red label. Anyhow, this chickentail can be made with some ice, energy drink and frozen berries, adding that vodka adds "grrrreat" flavour to it. I can only guess what the energy drink is when she calls this concoction a "redtini". I think SLop is running out of 'tini names and has now moved on to colors. Anyhow, she dumps the ingrediants into a red KA blender which didn't manage to escape and then adds "a little bit of vodka--1, 1 1-2, 2 cups!". Please try not to get so exicted, SLop, you might pee on the carpet, topped off with the energy drink, which she notes isn't red but then quickly giggles that the strawberries will give it the right color. I cannot help but think that until that moment, SLop didn't know Red Bull isn't red. SLop turns on the blender and the light pink contents suddenly become a dark blood-red color.

SLop then heads off to the dining room to show us her table-scape. Oh. My. GAWD! Remember that big butt bag of "paper products" she had at the begining of the show? Well, she used that to decorare her table. To wit, she covered the table with some wrapping paper and then left black sharpies all over it for doodling (what I would like to know is what exactly what she scrawling to her guest on the table), a little shopping cart for the wontons, and a mini-grill shaped like a baseball to hold those mutilated apple-pie monstrousities. I cannot believe ANYONE would consider papering over the dining room table and then leaving markers for the guests to doodle and play games, well, words just escape me right now. SLop gives her closing lines and exits stage left.

-- WARNING!!! Use of these recipes may be hazardous to your health, food budget, standing in your community and liver function. Use at your own risk!! We buttume no liability from any illness or injury sustained while eating the "food" or being exposed to crapbutt tablescapes. And no, we're not sure where she grew up either. The Cordon Bleu disavows any knowlege of Miss Lee.