By Denise Warner

Sandra LeeYou know her as the 'Semi-Homemade' guru of the Food Network.
But Sandra Lee is much more than that.

In the third season of her second show, 'Sandra's Money Saving Meals,'
Lee sets out to show you how to make good food on a budget.

Sandra chatted with PopEater about the upcoming episodes, exactly how
she gets inspired and her passion project -- Share Our Strength's Great
American Bake Sale.

"It was really important for me to launch off my third season with
something that was meaningful that addressed something so timely," she
explains.

If she could cook for anyone, who would it be? "Cher," she quickly
replies.

And of course, we talk about cocktails.

Q: Are you excited about the upcoming season?

I am very excited. It also kicks off with something that I'm very
involved with and is very important to me. And I was fortunate to have
everyone from Brook Johnson, the head of the Food Network, on down bless
it and support it. That is, we're launching the third season with a
Great American Bake Sale show. It's a bake sale show, but it's not just
about sweets, it's also about savory baking, like ham and cheese
pinwheels. So good.

Q: Tell me a little bit about what you're trying to do with the bake
sale.

The Great American Bake Sale is something that everyone and anyone can
do. It's a national campaign for childhood hunger. It just kicked off
this month. It is a six-month campaign; it will go until next fall. And
what you do is you hold a bake sale in your community and then you
donate the proceeds to Share Our Strength. You can go to
ShareOurStrength.org for information. You can go for recipes. Basically,
last year we had 12 million children in our country that were at a risk
of hunger. This year, because of the economy, it's 17 million. This is
our own country. We're not talking about third-world countries here,
we're talking about America. So it was really important to me. I've been
the spokesperson for Share Our Strength for three years. It was really
important for me to launch off my third season with something that was
meaningful that addressed something so timely. It was incredible to have
the full support of the Food Network behind it. It was a dream and a
blessing.

Q: What kind of tips and meals can we expect this season?

Well, we just got done filming. This has been the best run for food and
just for the show in general of any season that I've ever done – and I
did eight seasons of 'Semi-Homemade.' It was a pleasure to go to work
every single day. Everything was tight, all the prices were buttoned up,
the recipes were genius. We went to work and laughed every day, all day
long and just had a great time.

Q: How do you create a money saving meal?

The first thing you need to do is figure out what your show theme is
going to be. So if we're going to do all German food – what is the most
popular German food that people like to make in the United States? And
then we'll kind of break that down. We'll come up with recipes for that.
For instance, we made spaetzle – which are basically dumplings. And what
we did is we took the batter, and you need a big pot of boiling water.
Then we took a colander – like a colander you use to shake out pasta. We
put the colander above the boiling pot of water and you take the batter
and pour it in, then you push it through and it makes these perfect,
little, delicate, raindrop dumplings. And it cooks up in two minutes.
Then you put them in a pan with a little bit of butter and they're
genius. They're inexpensive and they're delicious.

Q: It sounds like I could do it.

It's just, the recipes this season are the best I've ever done. The best
I've ever eaten.

Q: What's your favorite part of the show?

Do I dare I say cocktail time?

Q: Please say cocktail time.

Well, we have two every single money saving show. One's a "mocktail."
Drink responsibly! But it's something that the kids can practice their
toasts -- you know, when they grow up? Being able to deliver a really
beautiful toast is an art. Teaching them young what they are happy for,
what they're grateful for, is fun. So the kids get to partake. The
mocktail always come first – and they range from 30 cents to 50 cents a
piece. And then [for] the cocktails, you normally add for say vodka or
gin 43 cents. For a dark rum, it's 54 cents. [You stupid ****!]

Q: You can drink responsibly and inexpensively.

That's right. Stay at home. No driving.

Q: What's your favorite cocktail?

Tough question. My favorite cocktail I ever had – I just had it. Down in
Miami at the food and wine festival, we were out to dinner at a
restaurant and this woman had a strawberry grass martini. It was
unbelievable.

Q: If you could cook for anyone, who would it be?

Cher. [What did she do to SLop to deserve that?]

Q:What would you make for Cher?

I think she'd like the spaetzle. And a big cocktail.

Q: Any last thoughts?

'Semi-Homemade' is coming back this fall, too. Look for the relaunch of
that. [YAY!]



--
It's now time for healing, and for fixing the damage the Democrats did
to America.

On Mar 29, 8:08*pm, Ubiquitous > wrote:

> what is the most popular German food that people like to make in the United States?

German Chocolate Cake!

--Bryan