There is a deep part of me that loves Sandra Lee. I love her horrifying bunny cakes. I love that she insists on wearing all white. I also happen to think the whole “semi homemade” concept is not a horrible idea. But never forget the time she used carrot baby food to make muffins.
Yes okay all it is is carrot puree and there is nothing so offensive about cooked carrots and water run around in a blender for a few seconds, and babies have to eat something, but oh my god no. I don’t know what to do with this information. There could be baby food in any number of edibles in my home and I wouldn’t know it. It could be anywhere. I could be eating it right now. Help.
I’m now imagining a Punk’d style TV show that consists exclusively of the host leaping out at people in their homes and revealing he put baby food in whatever they’re eating.
…I mean… I’d probably tune in to watch Ashton Kutcher scare the shit out of Adam Driver at nine in the morning to explain that that ain’t chocolate in the center of his croissant, it’s baby food.
But what baby food is chocolate brown?
Ok but… I thought all adults secretly agreed that baby food is delicious? Or… no?
Hand me that apple puree then since you clearly don’t want it.
I make homemade apple sauce for my kids because they love it, they are entirely too old for baby food (8 and 12) but they specifically tell me to blend it so its like baby food. I promise we are not totally wierd. We all like it like that. So yes, baby food is delicious.
*raises hand* I definitely eat baby food. I have a jar of winter squash in my food drawer in my office at this very moment. Sometimes I want some squash to mix with my lunch, I only want a little bit, and I want it pureed. I think the revulsion at eating baby food* is just because it’s labeled as baby food. If we marketed it as a convenient way to work more vegetables into your day, I bet more people would be all over it.
I maybe wouldn’t have a national cooking show where I casually used baby food in my recipe without reiterating, several times, that it’s just pureed vegetables.
*I’m talking about the pureed vegetables, not the mushy meat-based baby food. I’m sure that’s fine, but pureed meat is not something I’m going to get excited about.
It’s totally starting to be marketed that way. My grocery store just started stocking all these puree packets for adults ~fortified with chia seeds~ or whatever, and they are no different than the baby food packets one aisle over.
Pureed meat is definitely gross, I can’t even stomach feeding a baby that.
I have not seen those! And yeah, that’s sounds like it’s definitely just baby food.
I have to say though, that something about squeezing those baby food pouches is inherently disgusting. It’s an intangible, but I feel it’s much weirder than jars of baby food.
I remember my aunt pureeing leftover veggies and roast lamb for my cousin when he was a baby and giving some to us (far older and wiser) other children. It was delicious.
I will take your word for it because I can’t do pureed meat. It’s all in my head, though, because I would definitely it meat in a stew that had cooked for so long that it starts to disintegrate.
Yeah I was always down with eating baby food. Only the sweet ones though, I do not want pureed stew thank you.
Wasn’t there a thing a few years where Beyonce was eating baby food instead of full meals?
I cannot possibly stand the thought of eating baby food. Though I have cheerfully put the ones the baby didn’t like into muffins, so. (I’m told I never liked it, even as a baby. Too slimy, I think.)
My friend and I are fans of arrowroot cookies, just sweet enough to be a treat but not so sweet that we’d feel guilty over eating several (or… ahem… half a package) in one sitting.
Hey, no shame – arrowroot biscuits and a nice cup of tea are a great way to spend your afternoon tea. I guess I know they’re meant for teething but where I come from they’re just as grown-up as any other bikkie though!
I have never eaten baby food (as an adult; I have no memory of eating it as a child, but very probably did as a baby/toddler). If this is a thing all adults secretly agreed, it has completely passed me by.
Agreed, the very thought of eating baby food nauseates me.
Oh I openly agree that baby food is delicious, no secrets here.
I’ve tasted plenty of baby food, and most of it is not bad (except the green beans – blech). But I don’t like it’s overly-smooth texture, so I actually don’t agree.
Oh god, my mother used to do this! With stewed prune baby food! I’m glad to know I am not the only one who finds it incredibly disturbing.
My mother used prune puree in chocolate cake. Don’t eat too much of that bad boy.
+1 for using the term “bad boy” in that way, it’s very much a phrase my dad uses all the time.
Dads!
Nothing will ever beat the horrific-ness of her Kwanzaa cake, complete with corn nuts.
Oh. My. God. The Kwanzaa cake! I think it was Anthony Bourdain who called that cake a hate crime.
I dunno, Leftover Green Bean Casserole Empanadas are up there in the pantheon of her garbage-fire “recipes.”
I showed my mother that video and woke up one Thanksgiving morning to find all of the makings for Kwanzaa cake (what was the other name, like Autumn festival cake or some shit?), because my mother has a hell of a sense of humor. Guess what I made for Thanksgiving dessert?
My brother said it tasted like hairspray.
This video of her drinking a vodka-lemonade-heavy cream cocktail might actually edge out the Kwanzaa cake for me.
The drinks! She made another three-ingredient “cocktail” with vodka, white chocolate liqueur, and heavy cream.
to be fair, I would drink that.
Okay, it’s more convenient, but it’s also way more expensive. Seriously, individual carrots cost just cents. Why, Sandra? Why?
Her whole concept is so price-blind it’s hilarious. She once made a pumpkin roulade filling by SCRAPING THE PIE FILLING FROM TWO STORE-BOUGHT PUMPKIN PIES and mixing it with cool whip. A premade pumpkin pie costs, what, eight bucks? And then you throw the crust away? And the packaging? Like, just go to the bakery and buy the dang pumpkin roulade, I guarantee it’ll be cheaper than TWO PIES, a box of cake mix (plus egg, water, and oil), a carton of cool whip and a box of powdered sugar.
Not only that–you can just buy a can of pumpkin pie filling in the grocery store.
What??? That’s so much more work than just using a can of pumpkin pie filling. Why would it ever occur to anybody to do that?
Why not just eat the pie? You’ve already got a completed dessert there…
Get a grip, Sandra.
What? I mean… what?
Yes, this. If you can’t cut up and boil a few carrots then whirl them around the blender for a minute, maybe you ought to just buy some damn muffins. “Time saving baking” is just asinine.
I went through a phase of eating a lot of baby food, because I was on a very limited diet for boring medical reasons and baby food was one of the few things that was readily available in drugstores and supermarkets everywhere, didn’t need preparation, was already cooked, didn’t contain additives and mystery ingredients I wasn’t supposed to have, and was easy to consume when away from home.
So yeah, I don’t have a problem with using it in baking. The little containers are convenient and perfect for the small amounts you often want.
Hold up. That’s actually a kind of genius hack for carrot cake. I cbf grating carrots, but I looove carrot cake.
See also banana bread when you don’t have any over-ripe bananas. Next time I’m hitting up the baby food aisle.
My mom’s carrot cake recipe apparently started out using baby food. Since I’ve been old enough to help in the kitchen it’s been canned carrots instead – crushing them with a potato masher is very therapeutic, and waaay easier than grating.
I’m with you on the bananas, though. I’m to impatient and spend ages hitting them sadly with a wooden spoon.
I love Sandra Lee so much. LOVE. One of my greatest laments of no longer living in New York is that she is no longer my First Lady.
Personally I could never stand Sandra Lee until she became the de facto First Lady of New York and started kicking ass at it. (Her partner…. Yeeesh, I voted for him twice and don’t regret it but MAN, get a grip, Andrew!)
I was so proud and excited to see her marching in NYC Pride the year that NYS legalized same-sex marriage. She wore this awesome white dress and I’m pretty sure there were like Snow White-type birds flitting around to carry like her pocketbook and to carry sweet little notes over to friends and relations she might have spied on the sidelines.
I’ve always wanted to be able to cook/bake where I put my gloppy, uncooked whatever in the oven and then be able to eat the already-done product that was waiting for me on the counter.
A warning. If you buy baby food, use cash. A few years ago, my elderly cat was ill, and I got veal baby food (which is a whole other discussion) to tempt him into eating. About 2 months later, my parents, who at that point lived in house I had never occupied started getting formula addressed to me. That was an interesting paternal phone call, let me tell you.
Ok, so I’ve also somehow landed on a new mom LIST out there, probably through some horrible big data thing. Over the summer, I got FORMULA delivered to my apartment, and my boyfriend at the time was like “Um….???” My friends thought it was hilarious because I’m a big weirdo who is excited about one day being pregnant (I’m sure I’ll rue these words eventually), and they were like “Yeah you totally signed yourself up for that.” BUT I DIDN’T. AND I STILL GET NEWBORN BABY MAILINGS. Did you get off the list?? How??
My friend was actually pregnant when she somehow got on one of those lists, but she had a miscarriage at 11 weeks. So it was really fun for her when two separate formula companies sent her giant boxes of formula a couple weeks before her due date would have been. Mine data better, guys!
Ugh. Horrible pregnancy grief flashbacks and sympathetic rage on her behalf. That is wretched.
You are on the list forever. Your ads/free samples/email blasts will change as your imaginary baby matures.
Lemme know if you find out. My younger is about to turn 10 and I *still* get diaper coupons in the mail. I know we’re all a little lax about potty training in the U.S. these days, but come on, now.
{Sidebar: have you ever looked at a fifties/sixties parenting book? Back in the day, you were dead meat if your child wasn’t wearing underwear by 13 months, but rock that bottle just as long as you like. These days, the pediatrician will report you to child services if your 13-month-old is still drinking from a bottle, but no one bats an eye at 3-year-olds in diapers.]
Veal baby food. Veal… baby… food.
After my elderly cat died, I tried to find some takers for the jars of strained lamb and veal I had purchased for him. Feeding Baby Animals to Babies! Unsurprisingly, no one was excited about this.
Au contraire; I think we should all get on the free formula mailing lists and then donate it to food banks. That stuff’s expensive and some people really need it!
My personal favorite is the time she used an entire frozen apple pie, which you still have to bake, as an ingredient to make another dessert. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sandra-lee/app…
That recipe is… something… I need to see a picture of this because while the ingredients sound delicious, it seems so much more complicated than it needs to be.
But her whole thing is making stuff that would take 500 hours of obsessive steps, and doing it in 40 hours of slap-dash steps. Cheating Martha Stewart.
I once made a spice cake for guests and happened to mention it was made with baby food–apples, I think, and apricots and something else I can’t remember. My guests were HORRIFIED. I didn’t feel bad tho–that cake was delicious, and now I need to make it again.
Seriously what is the difference between baby-food apples and applesauce? Literally the way to make applesauce is to simmer apples in a pot and then mash them/blend them. Maybe the grownup stuff has added sugar. It’s bugging me that this would be considered horrific. A waste of money perhaps, but hardly gross.
My late grandmother’s carrot cake recipe included carrot baby food. I’ve made it before and that cake was moist as hell.
So baby food haters to the left, basically.
I cannot think about eating baby food without picturing these two goobers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2INKRjtw_cI
I love Aunt Sandy and her tablescapes. I used to always stumble upon her show and now I can never find it. What am I supposed to do when I want to day drink?
When I was a kid we had a recipe for… butterscotch cookies, I wanna say?? that used baby food, but I don’t remember what kind. Apricot or apple or something. Anyways they were delicious, so I’m all on board for this.
using baby food carrots in your muffins is ok, if you are super-lazy and rich and don’t mind spending a ton of money for a pureed carrot
Super-lazy and rich is a person I would not mind being in the slightest. Bring on the expensive pureed carrot.
I love The Americans SO MUCH. I also miss Nora Ephron and think about her AT LEAST once a month, and what she would have to say about the world in 2016. So many touchstones in this roundup!
The thing I find remarkable about Ms Lee is that she and I have completely different definitions of “the fun part” of baking. I mean, most of the time she completely skips the actual baking parts – the alchemy of taking some sugar and flour and fat and turning it into all these different forms of batter, the tactile pleasure of the dough itself as you knead or mix it, the joy of watching it rise and bake (and, admittedly, the occasional agony of defeat when it doesn’t) – in favor of spending a bunch of extra money on a soulless machine-made product. On the other hand, she then spends forever decorating it, which is the part that drives me crazy. And usually she doesn’t even do a very good job of decorating because, surprise, canned icing designed for a thirty-year shelf life is not as easy to decorate with!
I mean, this particular recipe isn’t that crazy. It is at least actually baked, and although it’s from a mix, she’s actually doing some pretty clever things to improvise around the base mix to produce something which has a better flavor and texture, and I’m willing to forgive her the baby food trick if it helps her do that. (I’m actually more concerned about the apple juice; adding all that extra sugar to a muffin mix sounds like it might be too much to me. And I really don’t understand what exactly the coconut is adding to apple-cinnamon-carrot muffins, but à chacun son goût, I guess.) But then whenever I start feeling too charitably inclined towards her, I remember the Kwanzaa cake…
This imbalance of appearance over taste (and not very tasteful appearance at that) is precisely why I hate her from the depths of my baker-soul.
I mean, if you can bake a respectable cake, and still have time to coordinate your icing with your tablescape, more power to you…. I guess…
I think for her the “fun part of baking” is either the smell of the thing in your oven, or getting to eat it while it’s still warm. The rest of baking is just … something to get through until you reach that goal.
I grew up having baby applesauce on pancakes because it was closer to “european” applesauce.
Sandra Lee is awesome. She even has pet cockatoos.
My favorites:
Frosting cake pans (at the end): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVjj_I8b6a0
Hanukkah cake with marshmallows (which usually aren’t kosher): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj89Ax60DEI
Cocktail tree!! Not to mention some incredibly strong cocktails and an emasculated gingerbread man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCU1Nuct0t8
The meatloaf. THE MEATLOAF. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQKu3PcgYrU&f…
She is so proud. I am so horrified.
The Sandra Lee that counts half a bottle of vodka as ‘two shots’ will always be my #1 hero, but this Sandra Lee is okay too I guess
Ah yes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7bo-aeznzY
“and, in goes two shots of vodka *glug glug glug glug glug glug glug*”
I’m disappointed that there are no other posts under the Sandra Lee tag on here.
When I was on SNAP, I read that Sandra Lee had been on welfare/food stamps, too. I don’t care for her cooking (look at Leanne Brown for better-for-you food that is covered by the SNAP allotment) but I still have a soft spot in my heart for her. She fed herself and her kids on basically nothing. And nothing is about what SNAP covers.
Makes more sense now that she uses pre-made ingredients instead of “good olive oil”, right? Not to diss Ina Garten, ILU & good olive oil, too.
The only thing better for my self-esteem at that time was singing the WallyWorld song “she got Louisiana Purchase Card!” when it refilled with with our month’s worth. Y’all go ahead and YouTube “Walmart Song”, I’ll wait.
She filled an episode at my home Ren Faire once, and she served raw chicken to the cast members who participated. :/
As in “I didn’t realise this chicken was undercooked” raw or “here try this wacky new raw chicken recipe I’ve created bcos?????” raw…(Bad either way, but still! Nope!)
I mean, my mom’s been baking baby food muffins for decades, usually plum or apricot. They’re fine, I just prefer fruit chunks 🙂
My mom used to put mixed vegetable baby food in meatloaf.
My freezer is a banana graveyard.
Frozen bananas are also the best thing for smoothies.
Food Network Humor, when it still existed in web form and updated on the regular, referred to her as "Aunt Drunky." (FNH also had a virtual warehouse full of gifs of Aunt Drunky stirring things as her chest shook back and forth.)
The thing I love about Sandra Lee is the unapologetic ways she makes cocktails at the end of her show. Decorative pitcher — check — liter of gin — check — ice — check. Garnish with a flower or a spritz of fruit juice and you’re good to go!
I had a cat once who loved Gerber creamed spinach.
to be fair, I would drink that.
I got a free jar of apricot puree once and used it in BBQ sauce. It was delicious.