Paula to the Rescue

Hey, y'all

Today on Paula's Party, it's Paula to the rescue. Get it, girl

Grab cakes without the expensive crab meat. OK. Boring leftovers. Doesn't that look yummy

It turned into a fabulous meal. Spin, spin, spin. A high-speed challenge that lets me have my cake and eat it, too

So y'all gather in, get comfortable, sit down, and join our party

Thank you

Oh my goodness! I recognize you. Look at this hair. Oh yes. My brother would rather be doing this, but I'll do it instead

It's great to have y'all here today. Hey, handsome. How are you

Woo, that's hard. I like that. So y'all know what we're going to do today

What? I bet everybody here has had some kind of kitchen disaster

Well, you know what? Old Paula's going to show you how to fix that

Don't panic. Just turn to your pantry. There's not a disaster that we can't fix

And that's what we're going to do today. Who's ready to party

Let me tell y'all something. You know, I may be a cook and I may have my own show

but believe it or not, I do have kitchen disasters. I'll never forget one day we were knee deep in catering jobs

down at the Lady and Sons. And then Gina the baker comes to me and says

Paula, we don't have any desserts for the restaurant for our customers here

I said, throw some blonde brownies in the oven quick well she did

but then she forgot about them and they burned well lo and behold

out of that disaster came one of the most requested desserts that we ever served at the Lady and Sons

I grabbed those blonde brownies I took them out of that pan, I trimmed every bit of the burn off of them, and made a fabulous chocolate trifle

Oh no! They burned them! Look, I hear these things are burned good, but that's not a bit of problem

I'm just going to shave every bit of that burned off, just like that

Paula, what exactly is a blonde brownie? A blonde brownie doesn't have any cocoa in it, but it's got brown sugar, so it gives you a lighter brownie

I'm going to show you quickly how we do this. We're just going to take our brownies and crumble them up just like this, and you don't have to be particular with it

And guess what? You get to eat it, girl! You get to tell me how you like it

All right, so I'm going to do about half of that. And then I'm just going to sprinkle that cake with some sherry

All right, now I've made just a regular chocolate instant pudding because I had this in the restaurant

I knew what I had in my pantry, and I knew I could fix it

All right, so I'm putting the second layer on now. I started out 17 years ago with a business called the bag lady

Well, you know, in my mind, in my heart, I will always be that poor, broke bag lady

I can't, I just can't shake that. So it just kills me to throw anything away

So every time I go to clear a bowl or think I need to put something in the trash, I'm working on a way to recycle that baby

So look how simple that was. Everybody has instant chocolate pudding in your pantry, don't you

Everybody does. Everybody usually has heavy whipping cream on hand, don't they

You don't? You don't use heavy cream in your coffee? No? Well, let's pretend that you do

All right, I've got some heavy cream here. In your life, you know, not being able to throw away anything in the pantry when you're cooking

does that roll over into the other parts of your home? Are you a pack rat

Yes, honey. I am a pack rat. In fact, you can't hardly move in my closet

because I just know that one day I'm going to be a size 8 again

I'm almost there. You just add a 1 and I'm there. All right, look at this

Isn't this beautiful? I'm going to add just a little mint. Who would ever have guessed that this was a ruined burnt brownie

And that burned brownie turned into one of the most requested favorite desserts that

we serve at the Lady and Sons. Okay, y'all want to try it? Yeah

Bring it on, girls! Bring it on! Bring it on! Bring it on

Let me check it out. Oh, it looks delicious. And look-a here

While y'all are tasting y'alls, I got me a spoon to taste mine

Isn't it yummy? You have to have it. Mmm

That is very good. I love it. So when we come back, y'all, more common kitchen disasters

What are you doing over there, Laura? Solving kitchen disasters Thank you, thank you, thank you

Today is all about rescues. It's gonna be Paula to the rescue

This pretty lady right here brought with her a photo of a terrible disaster, Laura

Come on up here, girl. Next. What happened? Well, it was the first Easter that my husband and I were married

so I thought I'd make a really special dessert, and we had two puppies we'd nicknamed Buttermallow and Fudge Cake

so I'll make a Buttermallow Fudge Cake. Well, the cake part turned out just great

but the frosting was a disaster. When we sat down to eat it, that frosting had oozed all over

It was flowing off the cake plate, heading for the tablecloth like a giant white volcano

You had to chase your icing, didn't you? I did. It was like the blob. It was like scooping up the blob

And you can see I put two little chocolate Easter bunnies on top and they're just drowning

Are they standing or are they laying? They kind of fell over. It almost looks like they're in bed with the sheets pulled up

Well, you know what? I'm going to show you how you could have fixed that icing

Thank you. Made it pretty and still very, very good. Excellent. So look at this

Think you can fix that runny icing? You know, the main thing, let's go, I'm going to take you to your kitchen

How about that? That's great. Oh, and you got some more runny icing

You've got salt, black pepper, and house seasoning. Don't use any of those. Okay

I was starting to panic. Those are not yours. Okay. Okay? This is yours

All right. It's confectionate sugar. Okay. So what I want you to do is just simply give this some more body by adding powdered sugar

Okay. How much do I know to add? Just keep adding until I got a good consistency

Well, you're supposed to know that. Until I get the consistency I want

Yeah, so it'll stay on the cake. Okay. You know I have a problem with that

Fix that icing, baby. All righty. Because I'm going to go over here, and I'm going to be working on another disaster

How many of y'all out there have overcooked a vegetable? Every one of you, haven't you

Well, I've got a plate full of overcooked broccoli. How am I going to fix it

I'm going to turn that steamed broccoli into cream of broccoli soup

and my family will get their vegetables, and I will get every penny's worth that I paid for that broccoli

And to get our broccoli soup, I'm going to add some chicken broth

which is going to give it a wonderful flavor, and I'm going to add about a half a cup of heavy cream

What are you doing over there, Laura? I'm making the world's sweetest frosting

What are you doing? Well, I added the sugar. You told me to add the sugar, and I'm adding the sugar

Isn't it looking good? Yeah, I believe that's about perfect. Yay! All right

Even though it's not even resembling the color that we wanted. But here, let's do this

No, no, no. Yes, yes, yes. You can fix that, girl. You're just tired of stirring

All right, now see, now we're getting back to our color a little bit

Okay. All right, now just a little bit more sugar in you there

Okay. You're close. Okay. All right, does everybody have one of these in their kitchen

Yes. These are handy little pieces of equipment. Now I'm just going to go down in there and blend up our vegetables

If you don't have an immersion blender, but you've got a regular blender, you could just

blend your broccoli in the blender first. And then you wouldn't have to go through all this

It would already be done for you. But just that quickly, I've turned that into soup

I'm going to add a little salt, a little pepper, and let's see what we've got

All right, it's looking pretty good. That takes care of that. Laura, you are doing wonderful, aren't you

I am doing fabulous. Ooh. You want to taste my soup? I sure do

I want you to. I want to see your icing. I'm so proud. Look how beautiful. Beautiful

Yeah, and see the way it hung on to your whisk? That'll hang on to your cake

That's not going to make a white volcano, is it? No. All right, here, let's taste the soup

Congratulations, Laura. I knew you could do it. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you

Oh, yum

Isn't that delicious? That is so fabulous. When we come back, more Paula to the rescue

So we'll see y'all back in a few minutes. Don't y'all go anywhere. Yum

Now get your meat and beat it. The whole thing. Leftovers made new again

Welcome back, y'all. I was just out here talking to Marla. She had emailed us a question

Exactly. So, you want to come up here with me? I'd be happy to

Come on up here. And we'll talk about your problem. I want you to tell everybody the email that you sent me

My husband and I love roasts, and we fix one every couple of weeks

The great thing about it is that it makes lots of leftovers, but that's also the problem

It's lots of leftovers. Lots of leftovers. So they can get a little boring sometimes

Well, I love leftovers. So I want to share with you a recipe that we make at the restaurant

When we have leftover pot roast, and we love to turn that into a shepherd's pie

we're going to cut the pot roast. Okay. Now I want you to take this out

and we'll leave as much of that gravy in there as we can

Now we want to just cut our pot roast up into chunks, okay? Okay

And you can do that by, like, going down the center of that and then just cube it up

Okay Where would you like my tea All right Marla you can keep your tea over there in your kitchen okay Okay so I washing my hands And give your hands a wash and then you take this over there

Here's your rag. Now get your meat and beat it. The whole thing

That was my evil twin sister that said that. All right. Cut your meat up

All right. All right, now over here, I'm going to start with a little melted butter with some onion

How are you coming, Marla? I'm doing well. All right. All right, our onions are sauteing nicely

Now I'm going to take our potatoes and I'm going to put them in the bottom of my casserole dish

Put a nice, generous layer. Paula. Yes, darling. That new daughter-in-law of yours

have you been giving her some tips in the kitchen? You know what? Have you seen what she looks like, honey

She ain't got to cook. My goodness, Jamie Dean is breaking his legs

getting in the kitchen cooking for that girl. All right, Marla, how you coming, honey

Getting it down to the fine cubes. Okey-doke. Well, throw it. Throw it in the gravy

Okay. I've got the onions ready. All right. I'm going to layer my corn onto my potatoes

All right, Marla, how we coming, baby? It's in the pan. Good

Well, let's come get it. Come on. Now, I'm going to put this in the pan because I want to heat it up

It smells good. So it won't have to start from scratch. Doesn't that smell wonderful

All right, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to take our meat and our gravy

and we're just going to ladle that on top of that corn and potatoes

That gravy's just rolling down in there. Yes, we want that. That's exactly right

We want that gravy to just get all over those taters. Now what are we going to make our crust out of

What are you going to do? More mashed potatoes? No. You know what we're going to frost it with

What are we going to frost it with? I package those wonderful cheese biscuits

Oh, those are so good. Those are good. So I always, always have a bag of biscuit mix on hand

So we're going to take two cups of a biscuit mix, and I'm going to take a cup and a half of milk

Okay. Just regular milk, and we're going to mix that together. You want to do that for me

I'd be happy to. Now, that's way too thin for a biscuit, isn't it

Yes, it is. But we want it that way. We don't want it as tight as a biscuit because we want to be able to pour this over our meat and vegetables

So you see how quickly we got that together? Yes, okay. Now we're just going to take this and we're going to pour it

Ooh-wee. This looks good. Doesn't that look yummy? Now is that going to rise

Oh, yes, baby. It's going to rise. Now I'm going to pour just a little butter

There's the butter. I love butter. I do, too. All right, we're going to put this in our oven

a preheated oven at 350 degrees. Okay. And you'll be able to look at it and tell when it's ready

because that biscuit crusty top is going to be a light golden brown

Okay. And you'll know that it's ready. So let's get that in the oven. You know how I always like to be prepared, Marla

Yes. Well, guess what? All right. Mmm. Yum. Who would like to come up and taste

All right, girls, y'all come on up. Now, Marla. Ma'am. Come on, you're the hostess

Okay. Get them some plates. There's our plate. Get them spoons, and y'all dig in

And when we come back, crab cakes on a budget. Eat up, girls

Well, you would love to serve your friends crab cakes, wouldn't you? But you don't have any money

It's true. Spend it all on beer and stuff. A little later on, y'all

What do you want, Regina? You want some of this four-minute cake

Thank you, thank you. Today is all about rescues. It's gonna be Paula to the rescue

We got email the other day from somebody that needs some advice from me

Elizabeth, come up here. Y'all meet Elizabeth. Hi. You contacted me, didn't you

I did. Well, I am in law school. Uh-huh. And it ain't cheap

That ain't cheap. So when I want to impress people, I have to cook something good

but I don't have, you know, tons of money. Yes, yes. Well, good luck to you, darling

Thank you. And you know what? I think I can help you and rescue you

I thought you might. From lack of money. Great. And you know how I'm going to do that

Tell me. You know crab meat is very expensive. It is. Lump crab meat, my gracious Elizabeth, what is it

$14, $16 a pound. In Atlanta, it's something like that. Is it

Well, you would love to serve your friends crab cakes, wouldn't you

I would. But you don't have any money. That's true. Spend it all on beer and stuff

At least you're truthful. And you know what? It's very, very important that you set your priorities

And that beer is very important for it to be a fun party, right

I'm going to help you out here, Elizabeth. since we can't afford to go to the seafood market and buy that expensive crab

We're going to go to my pantry, and we're going to pull out a can of tuna fish

Believe it or not, we're going to fix these, and your study group is going to think they're having crab cakes. Good

You want to help me make it? I want to. Okay, well, you get over here. I'll get over here

I have a half a cup of regular breadcrumbs. These are not seasoned

I have one egg that I've beaten. I have a fourth of a cup of mayonnaise

And I have a few tablespoons of green onions that have been chopped fairly fine

So I got all this set up and ready for these faux cakes And over there in your kitchen I got you the same thing set up It bigger than my real kitchen Come on

All right, I think that you have everything that you're going to need. You've got your tuna, your breadcrumbs, your eggs, your mayonnaise

your pepper, your green onions, and you've got house seasoning, black pepper and salt

So hit it, girl! Great, thanks. If you need me, holler, okay

All right, now I'm going to add a little oil to my pan

and I'm going to let that start warming up for me. Now over here, I'm going to take my breadcrumbs

I'm going to take my mayonnaise. I'm going to take my egg, and I'm going to take my green onion

and I'm going to just mix this together and then I'm going to take my tuna

and I'm going to fold it into this. Now the reason I didn't mix everything

all together is because I don't want to work this a whole lot

I want those chunks to stay pretty whole so they'll think that they're

getting lump crab meat. I'm just going to fold this and work it

gently in together. All right, now I'm going to take just a little lemon juice and squirt in mine

You can do whatever you want to, Elizabeth, but I'm going to add just a little bit

And then I'm going to sprinkle mine with a little house seasoning. How are you doing, Elizabeth

I'm all right, except I put the tuna in first. Well, you know, that's all right

You put the crab in first. Okay. Right? Of course. Just come over here with me

Better. Come on over here with me and start making these patties

How about that? That's easy. Yeah. Bigger? Well, you can make them any size you want

I kind of like this size. I got you. And you see I got my pan warm

Perfect. Perfect. So where are you going to go after you graduate from law school

Wherever they hire me. Did you go to college, Paula? Well, I rode by one one day

But I didn't actually go in the doors. Can you tell? No, but that counts

I think that should count. All right, I got to wash my hands, Elizabeth

I got our skillet pretty full. All right, now, let's look over here at our faux crabs

Oh, look, Elizabeth. Looks good. John, that looked delicious. Think that would impress people back home

Oh, shoot, yeah. I think so, too. They would have no idea that you just spent all of a buck 99 on them

How long do you have before you graduate? Paula, in two years, I can do anything legal that you need done

I can help you with anything you need in two years. Oh, Elizabeth, that's wonderful

And it hasn't been easy, hasn't it? No, it's not. No. But you know what

Anything worth having is not going to be easy. You know, the hardest thing I've ever done was 17 years ago when I started the Bag Lady

It was so hard. Only had $200 to start with. And, honey, I couldn't even afford a hairnet

Do y'all know what I put on my head to keep the hair from getting in the food

What? My underwear. My clean underwear. So I can appreciate what you're telling me

But you know what? This, too, shall pass. All right. Now, I would like to serve these, Elizabeth, with a nice tartar sauce. Yeah

Of course. A tartar sauce more so than a cocktail sauce. But look-a here

That looks so good. Now with a little rice and a can of spiced up black beans

do you ever keep black beans in your pantry? Got some right now

Do you? Well, you can take those up, chop some jalapeno in them

a little bit of ham or butter, something to flavor them up

Cook you some white rice. And pour those black beans on top of that rice

And then top them with these faux crab cakes. And you will be a hit

You ready to taste? I am. Well, reach down there and get you a fork

Thank you. Taste that, girl. It's a little bite. Oh, take a regular bite

It's so good. It's crispy. Great. Oh, here. You have it, girl

You need it more than me. When we come back, y'all, it's more of Paula's party

So I'll see y'all back in a minute. When we come back, y'all..

Well, our door is open to Paula's Eve. I'm going to be going door to door

Thank y'all. You're most kind. Welcome back. As y'all know here

in the audience, today's show is all about cooking disasters. How many of y'all

can go to your refrigerator right now and find a bunch of leftover food

that more than likely is going to be thrown out when it starts growing hair

I'm going to show you how you can take those leftovers and turn them into a whole new meal

that your family is not going to recognize that they've eaten just the day before

In fact, to prove it to y'all, I'm going to go knock on the door

take their leftovers, and make them a fabulous meal. So y'all come with me

Hey, y'all. I'm over here in Habersham Woods in the south part of Savannah

Today, I'm traveling with Paula's Portable Pantry. And I'm here to prove a point that if you've got the right few select things in your pantry

if you keep your pantry stocked with these things, you can throw together a meal just like that

Let's see which house I want to go to. Ooh, I think that yellow house looks good, y'all

Ding dong. Hey! Hey, girls. Hi

I'm Paula. Hi. Hi. Hi, I'm Annie. Annie. Annie and Abigail. Am I seeing double

Yes, ma'am. We're twins. You're twins. Hi, I'm Jan. I'm looking for a house that'll let me in

Well, our door is open to Pauline. Is this the fridge? Is this it

Come around here and help me. Oh, look. Look, y'all didn't eat much of that chicken

Let's pull out that chicken. Let's see what else. What's she finding, y'all

Some cheese? I don't think you want what's in there. That might be a little old. Coleslaw

Oh, what is that, wild rice? Yeah, we got some wild rice. Let's use that

What's this? Apple cider. Oh, it looks good. I might want a glass of apple cider

How about an onion? Plenty of onions. Ooh, light. No, we don't want that. No

I feel a casserole coming together. We like casseroles. A cream of celery

I think we'll go for that one. Green beans. And water chestnuts

Pimentas. That'll be beautiful for color. I think that's all we're gonna need

All right, Mama's gonna cut our onion for us, and we're gonna get our vegetables open

What is your favorite thing to cook? Um, I like cooking brownies

Oh, yum. And what do you like, Abigail? Um, yeah, I'll have to

I like brownies, too. You like to make brownies, too? But I love my sisters. They're better than mine

Why? Jan. Yes, ma'am. How about heating us up a skillet, please

We're going to saute off those onions. What we're going to do, girls, is pick this chicken

and we're going to dice it. I'm going to give you some chicken. And you just cut that up

How's it going over there, Jan? We're all melted. Throw your onions in now, Jan

Okay. Isn't that yummy? All right. How about a measuring cup, girls

We're going to need to measure out three cups of chicken. You show me where three cups is

Right there. All right, Jan. Yes, ma'am. You can bring that on over here, honey

Yeah. Ooh, that looks good. Now Abigail, I need for you to get the casserole dish for me

Thank you, darling. Y'all are so sweet. I wish y'all could go home with me

Oh, they can. They can? No, they really can't. No, they really can't

I'm sorry. So into the casserole this goes All we gonna have to do is just cook this until it hot and bubbly We going to put it in a 350 degree oven

And we're going to bake it probably for about 20 or 25 minutes

I bet I could start a fight with my hands. You know it

What are you laughing about? You got to get your sister. Don't get me

There, that was good. Yay, I got a fight going, y'all. Are you tasting

I'm tasting everything. Girls, mama's not going to want me to come back

That looks so delicious. Doesn't that look yummy? Good

Is it good? You did good. Y'all are good cookers. Thank you

All right, so what kind of toast? What can we toast to, Jan

Leftovers. Okay. Paula's pantry. Okay. And how about the two cooks of the future

Sounds good to me. Here, here. So how'd y'all like that

It was great, wasn't it? I proved my point. I had fun

And I produced a whole new look to a meal. And in a few minutes, more Paula's Party

A half a cup of shortening. Who's got the sugar? Come here with the sugar

Dump, dump, dump. You're supposed to slowly add that, but who cares

This race takes the cake. Welcome back

You know, I'm going to miss y'all. When y'all leave here, I'm going to expect Michael to clap now for me

every time I walk in the room. And I can tell you, he's not going to do that

Y'all are going to be sorely missed. Guess what we're fixing to make, y'all

What? We are fixing to make my mama's pound cake. Now, you think a pound cake, you can't do that quickly

Well, you know what? I'm going to prove it. I'm going to make this pound cake in four minutes

Four minutes? Four minutes, baby. Who's got a stopwatch or a second hand

All right now, y'all, I've got two sticks of butter that been cut up here in my bowl Now here the kicker y I got all the ingredients to put this cake together hidden in the audience So when I call out for an ingredient you have to run and run

like the wind, because you don't want me to look like a fool, do you? No! So y'all run

quickly, and if it's dumpable, dump it. Oh, except for the flour and the milk. All right

So you ready to give me my count? I'm ready. Are you ready? Let's go. Three, two, one, go

All right. Shortening. Who's got the shortening? All right, I got two sticks of butter, a half a cup of shortening

Who's got the sugar? Come here with the sugar. Dump, dump, dump

You're supposed to slowly add that, but who cares? I got a time clock to beat

All right, who's got the eggs? Come on, I need eggs. All right, baby girl

One at a time. One egg at a time. There we go. Yeah, one egg at a time

There you go. You're doing perfect. One more egg. One more egg

One more egg. Now get out of here. Hurry. I got a cake to make, baby girl

All right, who's got the flour? Who's got the milk? Who's got the bacon powder

And so, ooh, handsome, Skye. Three more minutes, Paula. Huh? Three more minutes

Three more minutes, okay. We gotta sift this real quick, girl. All right, handsome, throw that into the flour. Okay

All right, sift, sift, sift. Do y'all know I was on Regis Philburn the other day

Did y'all see that? I was making a cake with him, and I told him I heard he sucked in the kitchen

He threw raw eggs on me. Get your spoon. We're going to add flour and milk alternately

We're going to start with flour, and we're going to end with flour. So, baby, you make sure there's some flour left when she gets..

Okay, go. Coming up for two minutes, Paula. Whoa, alternately. Two minutes

Alternately. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Two minutes. Okay. I'm getting this on my jacket

Whoa! No, you're good. Pour, baby, pour. All right, pour, pour, pour

All right, spatula, spatula. You're at 2 minutes and 30 seconds. How much

You've got a minute and a half left. We can take a nap in a minute. I didn't realize how good we were

All right now who got the vanilla flavoring Come on up here baby Give it your best shot One more minute

All right, let's taste it. Isn't that delicious

Let me just give it a quick stir. All right, now this has got a little flour on it, but y'all know what

I love it. 30 seconds. Ooh, we got it, we got it. All right, baby

Spin. Spin, spin, spin. Whoa! Don't spin it too fast. You done spun me out

All right, now I've got to save baby girl over here some. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

I've just proven, y'all have just proven, that we can do anything if we got the right stuff in our pantry, right

All right, girls. Y'all ready for peace? Yeah, we are. What you want, Regina

You want some of this four-minute cake? Well, you are a wonderful timekeeper

You gonna feed it to me? No, honey, you're gonna have to feed yourself. All right, now let's get our strawberry

and I'm just going to slice our strawberry. Just put a few slices

That's how you do it. Yes, and just fan him out. And do we have any mint

No, but we got some bushes. Oh, it's pretty. And we got a little powdered sugar

Alright, girls, y'all eat up. I can't believe it that our time is up already

Aw. It's been a great party, though, hadn't it? Yeah. We've taken a little time out of the day to get together and enjoy good food and good fellowship

I hope every day of your life, every day that you walk in the kitchen, turns into a party for you

I love y'all, and I'll see y'all next time