Chopped Gold Medal Games Winner Crowned Tonight

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Tonight at 10pm ET/PT on Food Network is the season finale of Chopped Gold Medal Games where the winner will take home a $50,000 prize.

The final four competitors each got to the finale by winning a specialty episode. Sarah Wade won the frying episode, Lynnae Oxley-Loupe won the grilling episode, Ken Harvey won the speed episode and Winnette McIntosh Ambrose won the baking episode.

The episode description says "in the first round, the elite culinary athletes open up their baskets to find something grilled and something intended to frighten them. In the entree round, the judges wonder which competitors will be far, far off in their treatment of far far, an Indian snack food. And champagne (in an unusual form) is in the final basket."

I will update this post with the winner and order of eliminations after the episode airs.  Continue reading to see the order of eliminations and the winner.

Food Network's February 2018 Programming Highlights

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Here are some of the highlights of the Food Network programming scheduled to air on the channel in February:

• A special Valentine's Day episode of Guy's Grocery Games on Sunday, February 11th where judges Damaris Phillips, Aarti Sequeira and Jet Tila bring their spouses into the competition.
• New primetime episodes of Best in Food, Chopped, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Guy's Grocery Games, Kids Baking Championship, The Grill Dads, Ridiculous Cakes, and Worst Cooks in America.
• New daytime episodes of Giada Entertains, The Kitchen, The Pioneer Woman, Trisha’s Southern Kitchen and Valerie’s Home Cooking.
• Many primetime and daytime episodes that have a Valentine's Day theme.

A press release with episode descriptions and air dates is below:

Food Network Edits John Besh Out of Iron Chef Showdown Episode

On last night's episode of Iron Chef Showdown, you may have noticed something was a bit different with Giada De Laurentiis being the only judge on the episode.  This was because John Besh was edited out of the episode due to the sexual misconduct allegations against him that were revealed in October 2017.  Food Network still aired the premiere episode of Iron Chef Showdown in November which had John Besh on it, so it seems they have had a change of heart.  This is perhaps due to other networks recently removing programming that had chefs with sexual misconduct allegations (ABC removing Mario Batali from The Chew, Top Chef planning to edit out John Besh in an episode, and ABC removing the Great American Baking Show mid-season due to Johnny Iuzzini allegations).

This particular Iron Chef Showdown episode was supposed to air on December 13th, but it was removed from the schedule by Food Network at the last moment.  Tory Miller, who competed on the episode, actually had a watch party on December 13th and didn't know the episode wasn't airing until they tuned in and a different episode was showing.  Alton Brown took the blame on Twitter saying it was his fault as he didn't finish voice over patches in time.  However, now it looks like they were busy editing the episode to remove John Besh.  An interesting tidbit is that the episode was actually released on Amazon Video and aired on Food Network Canada in December and that episode had John Besh in it.

Last night, John Besh was totally edited out of all of the judging segments and Food Network even tried to edit him out of the background shots.  Below you will see examples of John Besh edited out of the background as well as times he was missed.

Worst Cooks In America Season 12 Discussion

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Worst Cooks in America happens to be one of Food Network's higher rated shows and a few people have requested a post where they can discuss this season, so here it is.  The reason for the good ratings is possibly due to how ridiculous the show and contestants are.  Many contestants go on the show looking for their 15 minutes of fame rather than to improve their cooking skills.  In fact, you may have seen some of the contestants on other shows such as Asaf (So You Think You Can Dance, Are You The One) and twins Skyler and Spencer Nick (Twinning).

So feel free to discuss this season below in the comments.  I will do another post close to the finale so you can discuss the final episode as well.  If you are interested in reading the contestant bios, episode descriptions, or reading the press release for Worst Cooks in America season 12, here is a link with all of that info.

Food Network's Top Rated Healthy Recipes

It's that time of the year where everybody is trying to eat healthy due to New Year's resolutions and pigging out over the holidays.  Below I have compiled the top-rated healthy recipes from the Food Network site.  I have also listed who is responsible for the recipe, the nutritional facts, and the number of reviews/avg. rating (as of today's date).


Healthy Chicken Recipes:

• Chicken Enchiladas - Chef - Tyler Florence; Calories per serving - 383, fat 13g; Number of reviews - 856, Average 4.6 out of 5 stars
• Roman Style Chicken - Chef - Giada De Laurentiis; Calories per serving - 266, fat 13g; Number of reviews 1260, Average 4.6 out of 5 stars
• Lemon Chicken Breasts - Chef - Ina Garten; Calories per serving - 393, fat 19.5g; Number of reviews - 703, Average 4.6 out of 5 stars
• Chicken Parmesan - Chef - Ellie Krieger; Calories per serving 410, fat 11g; Number of reviews 264, Average 4.8 out of 5 stars

Healthy Seafood Recipes:

• Salmon Baked in Foil - Chef - Giada De Laurentiis; Calories per serving 300, fat 18g; Number of reviews - 511, Average 4.7 out of 5 stars
• Lemon Garlic Shrimp and Grits - Chef - Food Network Kitchens; Calories per serving 367, fat 12g; Number of reviews 295, Average 4.6 out of 5 stars
• Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Lemon, Basil and Salmon - Chef Giada De Laurentiis; Calories per serving 462, fat 17.5g; Number of reviews 244, Average 4.9 out of 5 stars

Other Healthy Recipes:

• Vegetable Meatloaf with Balsamic Glaze - Chef - Bobby Flay; Calories per serving - 270, fat - 14g; Number of reviews - 301, Average 4.7 out of 5 stars
• Three Bean and Beef Chili - Chef - Ellie Krieger; Calories per serving - 295, fat - 8g; Number of reviews - 406, Average 4.7 out of 5 stars
• Tuscan Vegetable Soup - Chef - Ellie Krieger; Calories per serving - 145, fat 4g; Number of reviews - 283, Average 4.8 out of 5
• Lentil Soup - Chef - Alton Brown;  Calories per serving - 372, fat - 8g ; Number of reviews 368, Average 4.8 out of 5 stars

Note, I only picked recipes that had nutritional information on the website and all were tagged as "healthy."  It is kind of hard to filter and sort recipes on the Food Network site without having to look at slide shows, so hopefully this helps.  If you know of healthy recipes from the Food Network site that you have tried and are highly rated, please feel free to leave a link in the comments.