Recipe Favourite Cooking Shows (with recipes you've actually made)

I have four cooking shows that I try not to miss and have them scheduled on my PVR. All four typically showcase recipes that can be done at home with normal ingredients that anyone can get at a reasonable price from most any store.

America's Test Kitchen - as dorky as I think the presenters are, the recipes on this show are usually bulletproof and very tasty. I even subscribe to the cooksillustrated.com website so I can get the recipes and others afterwards.

Cook's Country - it's basically the same show as America's Test Kitchen. Same staff, same great recipes, different setting is all.

Lidia's Italy - I absolutely adore Lidia Bastianich's cooking. Her rustic homey approach to Italian cooking I just adore and I've made countless recipes from this show.

Chuck's Day Off - A show about a French Canadian chef in Montreal - makes great food, generally easy to make without a zillion steps, but really tasty and rustic.


My all time favourite 'cooking' show if it counts is Top Chef but this is a reality show and you generally aren't going to cook much you see on there. You can get the recipes from the website usually but quite often it involves hard to get or expensive ingredients and complicated recipes.

 

Good Eats is awesome. We have made a lot of his dishes.

We also like Barefoot Contessa. Her Outrageous Brownies cost as much as a good used car to make, but they make a metric ton of brownies and are awesome.

 

I used to enjoy Marianne Esposito, on Ciao, Italia. She's a bit more authentic than Lidia, who I feel can be a recipe thief.
I can spend hours watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. I do not, however like his cookbooks. Ina is the legendary master of simplicity. Her recipes always turn out right and allow you taste the purity of the main ingredients without other competitive flavors. I do like the Neeley's, too, but eating their cuisine on a steady diet would surely end you up with a case of heart disease.

Julia Child. Gets her own paragraph.

 

I loved the Japanese Iron Chef.
The American version, not so much.
I've made multiple recipes from Alton Brown like the posters above, and never been disappointed.
We make Gordon Ramsey's shepherd pie regularly (I think it was on F Word) and love it.
Cook's Illustrated is a staple here, I have just never gotten around to watching America's Test Kitchen.

 

I am a big fan of Chuck's Day Off and have made a number of his recipes. We had him over to this part of the world for a tour and I spent some time with him. Great guy. I've also visited his restaurant in Montreal. Very nice.

Fresh with Anna Olson, the show is not only well-shot and easy to follow but the recipes are great. I've made quite a few of her desserts but also some of her savory dishes.

How to Cook Like Heston. If you don't know him, Heston Blumental is one of England's top chefs. He's done a number of show but this one is more like a Good Eats episode. He goes back to basics and each episode tackles one ingredient. His beef episode gave me a new go to recipe for steaks.

Jamie Oliver. I know there are many who like to dis Jamie, I am not one of them. I love his cookery shows, especially his first, The Naked Chef. Simple, easy to replicate recipes. I've made a tonne of them.


This are my current top four. As part of my job is watching as much food TV as possible, I can get a bit obsessive about it.
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Like you, cyn, I grew up watching the Galloping Gourmet every afternoon. I think it may have shaped how I think about food (or at least TV hosts -- more wine!). Your choices are also excellent as well. I have Made in Spain and New Scandinavian Cooking on the channel. Great shows. Jose Andres is crazy good.

What do you think of the show, Avec Eric?

 

Epic Meal Time!

I recently constructed a (somewhat smaller) Bacon Cheeseburger Lasagna (next-level fastfood maneuver, haters!)

Eighteen 1/3lb bacon cheeseburgers in two layers of nine each

Three pounds of bacon strips (and bacon strips and bacon strips and bacon strips...)

Two pounds spicy Italian sausage, one quart tomato sauce, one can tomato paste (for that custom sawce!). Yes, I left out the Jack Daniels...'twas for cooking and consumption by Persons Underage.

Three pounds shredded cheese

One pound onion-rings

One-half liter of reverse-engineered Big Mac Sawce!

Baked for 45 mins at 250F.

Spicy, delicious, and without a doubt the single richest, most calorie-dense meal I have -ever- cooked. Easily fed twenty people with leftovers to spare.

Next time, we cook a Porcupine!

 

Epic meal time is epic.

Friends of mine tried to make a deal with them to make a TV show. The Epic guys decided to go with someone else. Personally, I am not sure that it would make good TV (but it sure makes good Internet).

 

We watch Good Eats on a regular basis. His show is more food-focused than many and I really like learning *why* to cook a meal in a particular manner.

Used to watch Naked Chef and enjoyed the show, but haven't seen it in years.

 

Another great show is Cook Like a Chef. It airs on Food Network Canada.


View: http://youtu.be/rDhOalE2GEM

 

Bittman has been in three different cooking shows:

How to Cook Everything: Bittman Takes on America's Chefs
Best Recipes in the World
Spain on the Road Again (with Gwyneth Paltrow and Maria Batali)

They have also tried to make his video blogs from the NYT into a 30 minute cooking show, but I don't think it really works.

 

The cooking show that really changed how I thought about cooking was The Urban Peasant.

James Barber was the first TV chef to be not only relaxed but also very much of the school, make it with what you have. He gave me the confidence to just throw stuff together.


View: http://youtu.be/66syNhYJtls

 

I also watch a good deal of the shows mentioned in the thread such as Iron Chef and Alton Brown. They are great for learning new concepts and techniques.

I am also a big Jamie Oliver cooking show fan (not so much the reality show ones). I love his style of rustic food.

 

Masterchef UK has been good for "how not to get too carried away" with flavor combinations, cooking style, and presentation for me. I love Good Eats as well, because I learn something. The crazy white-haired Sarah chick has a bang-up bolognese recipe, but I've never watched her whole show. I watch snippets of Gordon Ramsay all the time... for both recipes and techniques.

 

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Haven't tried making anything shown on the show yet, but I get very hungry watching it.
We watch quite a few shows on The Food Network but have only tried making a few of the dishes.

 

I used to love Two Fat Ladies. I wish they would do a Food network classic tv channel or something that has all these old great pure cooking shows. There is far too many reality shows on their now and actual cooking instruction is rare.