Richard’s Favourite Cranberry And Orange Zest-Biscotti

2 Cups of All-Purpose Flour
1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder
¼ teaspoon of salt
¾ cup of sugar
½ cup(1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 Large Eggs
½ cup of dried Cranberries
1 ½ tablespoons of finely chopped Orange Zest

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a large, heavy baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Using your KitchenAid Stand Mixer, beat the sugar, butter in the large bowl. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the flour mixture and beat just until combined, add in the cranberries and the Orange zest.
Form the dough into a 16-inch-long 3-inch wide log. Transfer the log to the prepared baking sheet. Bake until light golden about 30 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for 30 minutes.

Place the log on a cutting board. Using a serrated knife cut the log on the diagonal into 1/2to3/4 inch thick slices. Arrange the biscotti cut side down on the baking sheet. Bake until pale golden about 15 minutes. Transfer them to a cooling rack and cool completely.

Instead of cranberries you can use raisins, walnuts, almonds, or chocolate chips - it is up to you!

Betty Jean’s Best Bruschetta Recipe!

Italian baguette or bread sliced on an angle about inch thick.
Drizzle with a little olive oil and roast until slightly brown to crisp it up.
Take out of oven and rub slices with garlic.
Chop/dice Roma tomatoes ½” , add minced garlic, basil, sea salt and fresh pepper and olive oil to season and let blend.
Scoop on roasted baguette slices and top with shaved or grated Parmesan cheese.
Broil in oven and stay with it just until the cheese melts.
Serve on a platter dressed with parsley and enjoy.

My best recipe is made with my homemade roma tomatoes that are canned whole in my kitchen every September.
I wanted to make bruschetta one time and had all the fixings but not the fresh tomatoes. So tried this and it was the best ever.

Enjoy,
Betty Jean

Norm’s Favourite Wolfgang Puck Creamy Rice Cooker Mac & Cheese

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni
1 1/2 cups chicken broth or 1 1/2 cups water and a good-quality chicken bouillon cubes
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (to taste)
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

1. Combine macaroni, broth and cream in Rice Cooker, press cook and stir occasionally.
2. When machine switches to keep warm, add remaining ingredients and stir thoroughly until all cheese is melted.
3. Press Cook again. The Rice Cooker will switch to keep warm after just a few minutes; this is the point where the cheese on the bottom turns that delicious brown. Serve.

SHOP for your kitchen at theShoppingChannel.com

Got a Question? This Wednesday is your opportunity to ask us about something you’ve always wanted to know about Host Richard Nester or Thermolon Rocks guest Mark McEwan. Is there anything you have ever wanted to know about being s host, or working with a fantastic cooking line? How about knowing how to start your own business? Or what it’s like talking live to a camera?

Simply post your question on The Shopping Channel Facebook Wall up until 2pm ET. Starting at 11am ET, we’ll do our best to answer as many of your questions as possible. Some will even make it to air!

Richard Nestor and Betty-Jean Allison will be in Vancouver on Monday April 26!

Tune in to Breakfast Television on Citytv Vancouver at 7:20am and again at 7:40am to watch Richard get interviewed for a change! We’ll be bringing prize giveaways so be sure and tune in.

> Watch online at http://www.btvancouver.ca/
> Citytv Vancouver is channel Shaw 13, Telus 13, Express Vu 253 or Star Choice 359

Betty-Jean will be interviewed live at 8:40am on Vancouver’s Fun FM. BJ will also be bringing prizes for the listening audience.
> Listen online at: http://www.1049greatesthits.com/

Both Richard & BJ, along with a few other folks from The Shopping Channel, will be at the Citytv studios in person from 10am to 11am Monday morning for a drop-in meet and greet. Stop in and say Hi – we’d love to see you there!

What’s on my wish list this year? Well, hope my friends and family are reading this!

I am probably the only one that does not own a digital camera and would LOVE one!! Our Canon 10MP Digital Camera has all the goodies to go with it too. Everything I would buy anyway and you get them included in one kit for me!

I also do so much driving. Back-and-forth to work on three major highways, and, on my days off either driving out to Hamilton to visit my aunt or to Niagara Falls to visit my mother. It would be so handy when the roadways are having a problem (which is often!) to have a GPS.

Love all my KitchenAid appliances — I have the Artisan Mixer in Red and the KitchenAid mini-chopper too. What I would LOVE in my kitchen is the KitchenAid Counter Top Oven. For quick heating up it would be wonderful, but I can cook whole meals in there too without turning on my gas stove. Sounds good to me!

So if any of my family and friends are indeed reading this, also remember we are still offering a minimum of 4 easy pays on every order — that makes it even easier to shop for me!

Happy Holidays to all!
Richard Nester

On June 24th, The Shopping Channel held its first-ever Make a Difference Telethon in support of the Canadian Cancer Society. The Telethon included an auction for once-in-a- lifetime experiences, one of them being a backstage studio tour and lunch with the highest bidder’s favourite TV host.

Earlier this week, Linda Arcand and her Aunt Gloria (both from Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON) enjoyed this amazing experience. Linda chose to have our host Richard as her personal tour guide and Richard was honoured to oblige. Although, I learned that it was a toss up between Richard, who was Gloria’s choice and BJ, who was Linda’s choice. Since this day was a special gift to Linda’s Aunt Gloria to celebrate “Aunt’s Day”, a family tradition, Linda wanted to let Gloria have her wish. Meanwhile, we here at The Shopping Channel had a plan to surprise Linda and include BJ in the experience as well.

It started with a behind the scenes tour of our TV studio. Linda and Gloria were brought on-air where Nick Chavez gave them a little primping and a lot of heartfelt thanks for their generous contribution to help conquer a disease that has affected us all in some form. Throughout the studio and production area, our tour guests had the opportunity to meet many of the hosts, chat a bit and take pictures with them.

Then it was off to a very quaint restaurant to relax and enjoy the decadent food and their charming lunch companions. The conversation was all about vacations, music, theatre and work. Linda knows all there is to know about wines and wineries and had the rest of us fascinated with her interesting stories. Linda and Gloria have been long time viewers of The Shopping Channel so there was a lot of reminiscing about “back in the day” when the broadcast consisted entirely of still photos and when a horn would blow when the phone lines were full. Of course, Richard and BJ shared all the funny and embarrassing stories they have about working as hosts.

On the ride back from the restaurant, it was discovered that Gloria and BJ are both songbirds and they started belting out tunes. What a big voice Aunt Gloria has! And BJ is quite a singer as well. I am sure Linda and Gloria didn’t want it to end as we said our sad goodbyes. Thank you to Linda Arcand for her very generous contribution to our Canadian Cancer Society fundraising efforts. We hope you had a wonderful time!