FN Dish – Food Network Blog: Go behind-the-scenes at Food Network featuring your favorite chefs, shows, recipes, events and more.

It has certainly been an amazing year for cookbooks by Food Network chefs, and that also goes for the many talented contributors who write for FN Dish. We have their books piled high on our desks, but FN Dish editors thought it was time to share the love. Whether you keep them for yourself or gift them to a loved one, here’s the ultimate literary holiday treat.

We’re giving away a collection of cookbooks from FN Dish contributors and Food Network chefs that includes:

• Melissa d’Arabian’s Ten Dollar Dinners
• Ree Drummond’s The Pioneer Woman Cooks
• Food Network Magazine‘s 1,000 Easy Recipes
• Marisa McClellan’s Food in Jars (read Marisa’s weekly column, The Weekender)
• Hedy Goldsmith’s Baking Out Loud (read Hedy’s baking column and make her recipes)
• Catherine McCord’s Weelicious (read Catherine’s monthly column, The Product Puree)

You can buy them all, including Marisa’s, Hedy’s and Catherine’s books, or enter for a chance to win all of them. To enter: Tell us what your favorite FN Dish post of the year was in the comments. We’re giving away this collection of cookbooks to one lucky, randomly selected commenter.

Read official rules before entering

Hooray for grapefruit season! There’s no question that the pink and red grapefruit varieties add a burst of sunshine during the shorter, darker and colder days of winter. One recent morning, my son Kyle decided he wanted to play “Chopped” for ...

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Chances are that butternut squash made an appearance in at least one of the dishes in your Thanksgiving spread last month, but the beauty of this slightly sweet, sunset-colored squash goes beyond traditional holiday soups and salads. Light and elegant yet still satisfying, butternut squash can be imagined in any number of dishes because it can be cooked in many different ways. Whether you puree it into pasta sauce, roast it with spices, bake it in halves, or boil and mash it, butternut squash is a meatless staple that shines throughout winter. Check out a few of Food Network’s favorite butternut squash preparations below, then tell us in the comments: how do you enjoy butternut squash?

For a comforting cool-weather supper, look to Food Network Magazine‘s Butternut Squash Risotto (pictured above). Unlike many risottos, this recipe requires little hands-on time since it’s made in a pressure cooker. After just a few minutes under pressure, the garlic-laced squash turns tender, the rice al dente and the sauce thick, and it’s ready to be mixed with rich gouda cheese and peppery arugula. The secret to this and other risottos is using Arborio rice, not everyday white or brown rice; the starchy Arborio guarantees a thick, creamy final product. To maintain a wholly vegetarian meal, be sure to swap in vegetable broth for chicken.

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The fifth season of The Next Iron Chef: Redemption is in full swing with now only four familiar chefs battling it out again to prove they’ve got the skills to win the ultimate prize: the title of Iron Chef.

Each chef will try to pull out all their tricks to stay in the competition but, ultimately, one chef must go home each week. Every Sunday, FN Dish brings you exclusive exit interviews with the latest chef to go home.

Find out who went home

When it comes to decking the halls, you can be sure that your favorite Food Network stars have no-fail recipes, easy entertaining tips and party-ready menus to help you host your best holiday ever. But have you ever wondered how these chefs celebrate the season when they’re away from the cameras? Among them, which are known for an infectious Christmas spirit, and who prefers to spend a casual holiday enjoying non-traditional eats and drinks? Do they like to curl up in front of the fireplace with their families, or are they drawn to the hustle and bustle of the season? We recently caught up with Paula Deen, Sunny Anderson, Alton Brown, Bobby Flay and more Food Network favorites to find out the answers to these questions and more, and what they told us may surprise you.

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No stranger to competitions, Masaharu Morimoto is one of the Chairman’s longest-standing Iron Chefs and a seasoned veteran of Kitchen Stadium, with more than 35 Iron Chef America battles under his belt. On Wednesday night, however, the tables will turn for this king of Japanese cuisine as he trades in his chef’s jacket and takes his place at the judges’ table of the Miss Universe Pageant.

The Iron Chef will join 16 other famous judges including musician CeeLo Green and three-time Olympic Gold Medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings at Las Vegas’ Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino to oversee this annual pageant. As 89 contestants from around the world come together to compete in several rounds like a question-and-answer segment and evening gown presentation, it will be up to Iron Chef Morimoto and his fellow judges to determine who has proven herself worthy of the crown and the yearlong title of Miss Universe.

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The traditional Christmas meal varies from family to family. Some gather around the table for variations of spaghetti, while others eat ham, but what is there for those families who want to stray away from the conventional meal? Surprise your family...

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Gingerbread houses aren’t the only way to decorate with cookies around holiday time. Classic cut-out cookies make quite handsome ornaments. But what makes them even better than other handmade ornaments — like paper stars or pipe cleaner snowflakes — is that you can eat them (best the same day you bake them, of course). So if you’re bored of the same old decorations every year, why not try baking your own ornaments? Your only limitation is your imagination — or the size of your cookie cutter collection.

These Stained Glass Wreath Cookies make the perfect hanging ornament for your tree. The recipe from Sandra Lee uses store-bought sugar cookie dough to make it even easier. The colorful centers are created using hard candies that melt in the oven to replicate the look of stained glass. For an extra dazzling touch, use icing to affix silver dragees. Whatever you do, don’t forget to cut a hole at the top of each cookie using a large straw after they come out of the oven. It will make hanging them much easier.

Last Sunday night, the first part of the Next Iron Chef rivals’ road to redemption came to an end when they moved from their home base of sunny Los Angeles to Las Vegas to begin the second half of the competition. For Chef Nate Appleman, this transition proved to be a moment of mini redemption, as in Season 2 he was sent home just one episode prior to the chefs traveling to Tokyo, while for others the change of scenery was nothing remarkable, just another city in which to cook. “Regardless of the setting, I’ll do what is good food and what is my style,” Chef Jehangir Mehta said.

This week’s installment of Rival Recipes celebrates this shift in the season with a play on one part of Sin City in particular: the Strip. In Las Vegas, the Strip is known to be a bustling, tourist-heavy area packed with hotels, casinos and entertainment venues of all kinds. But in the culinary world, the strip is understood to be a marbled slab of beef that is deliciously tender and juicy. Chefs Elizabeth Falkner and Tim Love, two rivals who didn’t make the cut to travel to Vegas, have brought their best beef to the battle and are prepared to face off in a strip steak showdown with a New York in Cast Iron and New York Strip Steak With Serrano Lime Butter, respectively.

VOTE NOW

Food Network stars reveal their favorite cookbooks. Give one (or all!) to the chef in your house.

ALTON’S PICK:
The Fireside Cook Book
Alton Brown’s most beloved cookbook, written by James Beard, isn’t about food science or crazy gadgets — it’s an old-school American classic. “It’s a clear portrait of American cuisine at its post World War II height, before the rise of California or fusion cuisine, or any cuisine for that matter,” he says. $30, Simon & Schuster

MARC’S PICK:
The French Laundry Cookbook
Iron Chef Marc Forgione loves Thomas Keller’s fine-dining bible as much for how it looks as for what it says. “When I first picked up this book, I realized I had never seen food look like that before,” Marc says. “Reading Keller’s stories about ingredients, purveyors and staff helped me confirm that I wanted to be a chef.” $50, Artisan

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