feygan | Dec. 11th, 2013

Seriousness, this looks pretty good :P

Originally posted by

bestweekever at 2 Chainz, Gwyneth Paltrow + Other Celeb Chefs Help You Entertain For The Holidays

http://www.vh1.com/celebrity/2013-12-11/celebrity-cookbooks-holiday-parties/

http://www.vh1.com/celebrity/?p=402770

celeb-cookbooks

Does the prospect of hosting — or even just bringing food to a holiday party strike fear in your heart? Wouldn’t you rather just be watching TV or reading your favorite celebrity blog rather than feeding other people? C’mon, Scrooge, we here at VH1 decided the holiday season was the perfect time to combine our love of famous people with our love of stuffing our faces, so we took a four celebrity authored cookbooks — Miss Kay’s Duck Commander Kitchen (from the Duck Dynasty grandma), 2 Chainz‘ #Meal Time, Gwyneth Paltrow’s My Father’s Daughter and Stanley Tucci’s The Tucci Cookbook — for test runs. Should you share these dishes with friends? Let’s find out.

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1. Miss Kay’s Duck Commander Kitchen: Armadillo Eggs

Test Chef: Sabrina Rojas Weiss

I’ve long been suspicious of Duck Dynasty as a show — how can anything that rapidly popular and hailed for its family values be that good? — but since I decided to do this project, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist a cookbook that contains recipes for Boiled Squirrel and Dumplings as well as Fresh Strawberry Pie. I love Louisiana cooking AND good shock value on my coffee table. So I also checked out the show and, to my pleasant surprise, I kind of love it. It’s like Orange County Choppers but with no yelling, sweeter accents, and lots of scenes of Miss Kay cooking, so now I get this cookbook thing.

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I’m all talk, so no, I won’t be bringing freshly killed game to my friend’s party this week. Instead, I chose Armadillo Eggs, which are actually cream-cheese stuffed jalapeno peppers wrapped with sausage and bacon. With a demanding baby at home, I appreciated how simple it looked. The prep was super easy: slice the peppers, stuff them with cream cheese, wrap them in meat.

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Instead of breakfast sausage, I went with Italian turkey sausage I already had on hand. Also, the recipe calls for a grill, but gives directions for an oven if you don’t have one. I used my toaster oven tray, popped it in the oven for 15 minutes, and then finished it in the broiler to get it crispy.

Unfortunately, the tray idea was my downfall. All the bacon grease gathered at the bottom, so the underside was soggy while the top got a little too crispy. But that didn’t matter, it tasted delicious. You can’t go wrong with bacon, meat and warm, gushy cream cheese. The jalapeno taste is drowned out, but it makes for a handy structure! The recipe says to pour melted butter over the finished product, which sounds gross and unnecessary, what with all that pig fat already there. After one, you can feel your arteries closing up. Miss Kay must be getting a kickback from the American Heart Association.