Barefoot Contessa at Home: Everyday Recipes You'll Make Over and Over Again (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Garten's fifth cookbook (after Barefoot in Paris) follows her surefire formula: uncomplicated but elegant recipes for the home cook whose priority is spending time with friends and family, not in the kitchen. From breakfast to dessert, the Food Network star organizes this volume by meal, with an easy-to-navigate recipe list at the top of each section. Many entries provide a creative alternative to the basics: the Summer Borscht—which calls for fresh beets, cucumber and chicken stock—will make a cool, flavorful substitute for the predictable bowl of gazpacho, and the mayonnaise-based Jon Snow's Fish Salad—freshly roasted white fish filets (e.g., halibut) distinguished by the addition of diced fennel—will supersede tuna salad. But some of Garten's "feel-good" foods barely warrant inclusion—her recipe for Sunday Morning Oatmeal barely elevates the instructions on the Quaker canister. If not always inventive, these recipes (e.g., Cornish Hens with Cornbread Stuffing) should be reliable for seasoned but time-pressed or ambitious but inexperienced cooks. Striking a warm, personal tone, Garten also includes advice on designing a kitchen, making a grocery list, planning a menu and where to shop and dine in the Hamptons. (Nov.)
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Product Description

Throughout the years that she has lived and worked in East Hampton, Ina Garten has catered and attended countless parties and dinners. She will be the first to tell you, though, that nothing beats a cozy dinner, surrounded by the people you love most, in the comfort that only your own home can provide. In Barefoot Contessa at Home, Ina shares her life in East Hampton, the recipes she loves, and her secrets to making guests feel welcome and comfortable.

For Ina, it’s friends and family–gathered around the dinner table or cooking with her in the kitchen–that really make her house feel like home. Here Ina offers the tried-and-true recipes that she makes over and over again because they’re easy, they work, and they’re universally loved. For a leisurely Sunday breakfast, she has Easy Cheese Danishes or Breakfast Fruit Crunch to serve with the perfect Spicy Bloody Mary. For lunch, she has classics with a twist, such as Tomato, Mozzarella, and Pesto Paninis and Old-Fashioned Potato Salad, which are simply delicious. Then there are Ina’s homey dinners–from her own version of loin of pork stuffed with sautéed fennel to the exotic flavors of Eli’s Asian Salmon. And since Ina knows no one ever forgets what you serve for dessert, she includes recipes for outrageously luscious sweets like Peach and Blueberry Crumble, Pumpkin Mousse Parfait, and Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing.

Ina also lets readers in on her time-tested secrets for cooking and entertaining. Get the inside scoop on everything from what Ina considers when she’s designing a kitchen to menu-planning basics and how to make a dinner party fun (here’s a hint: it doesn’t involve making complicated food!).

Along with beautiful photographs of Ina’s dishes, her home, and the East Hampton she loves, this book is filled with signature recipes that strike the perfect balance between elegance and casual comfort. With her most indispensable collection yet, Ina Garten proves beyond a shadow of doubt that there truly is no place like home.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter (October 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400054346
• ISBN-13: 978-1400054343
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (128 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #751 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

271 of 281 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Value, October 27, 2006

By	Jay K. "just a thought..." - See all my reviews

As the owner of a whole 'lotta cookbooks, I sometimes have to explain my theory of cookbooks to my husband. In the case of "Barefoot Contessa at Home", the recipe for Easy Cheese Danish is a perfect example. This recipe uses 6 ingredients plus seasonings. It can be made the night before you need it. Both of which translate into making my life easier. And it can be enjoyed by our family and our holiday guests for years to come. If you break down the cost of the book as to how many times we'll use just that one recipe, you'll see what a great value it really is.

And, of course, there are many more recipes included that make it even better. Most of the recipes are a creative version of standard fare, like a coleslaw that uses blue cheese or the jalapeno cheddar cornbread or the Chicken Salad Veronique. The book includes chapters entitled soup and sandwiches; salads; dinner; vegetables; dessert; breakfast; and others.

And I like it that Ms. Garten includes a recipe for "Chicken with Goat Cheese and Basil" that can be prepared in 10 minutes when, as she puts it "I'm too tired to cook." I LOVE recipes like that.

And, what about the "frozen berries with hot white chocolate"? Looking forward to trying that.

Plus, Barefoot Contessa at Home includes menu suggestions, which are helpful if you're in a hurry or need inspiration. Each recipe is partnered by a beautiful photograph so you can see what you're making and how it should look.

I like her style, I like her recipes and I like her cookbook.

243 of 259 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ina changed my life!, October 26, 2006

By	GreenGirl (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

I cook because of Ina. Before I found her first cookbook, I cooked infrequently. I knew the basics, but I didn't have simple, great tasting recipes that I enjoyed making on a regular basis. Ina changed my life with her books, and my friends and family thank her for it!

I'm one of those people that needs to have a photo of the finished product, and Ina delivers beautiful images, encouraging you to give the recipe a try. Her recipes were easy and each one was a tasty success, I have slowly devoured my way through her books.

I am thrilled with this new one, and just with the first pass through it, I've found 14 recipes I'd like to try immediately!

I am a little surprised by comments made by one of the other reviewers, (which is why I am now writing my first review for Amazon.) They had issue with Ina's liberal use of butter and salt, the cost of the book, her crediting recipes to other people, Ina's suggestions for grocery shopping, etc. How funny!

Part of Ina's charm and fabulous tasting food results from copious amounts of butter and salt. If you have an issue with it, you probably shouldn't make those recipes. (She has plenty of recipes that don't have butter in them, but they aren't as tasty!)

Why someone would complain about the cost of the cookbook baffles me. The retail cost of the books is $35, (I pre-ordered it for $20.35) It is a wonderful book with exquisite photos, and if you say it has only 80 recipes, I'll take your word for it. Would you rather sit in front of the TV, watching her show and writing down the recipes? I feel this is the type of book that because it is so beautiful, would be a lovely gift, let alone a welcome addition to anyone's kitchen.

Each chef and their cookbooks are unique, and Ina's style fits perfectly into my kitchen. I just hope that Ina keeps producing more books so I can keep expanding my list of recipes!

244 of 265 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't live up to her other cookbooks, December 9, 2006

By	Esther Schindler (Scottsdale, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I really like Ina Garten, and I have a few of her other cookbooks. Unfortunately, Barefoot Contessa at Home is far from her best effort; it is, alas, entirely resistable.

The major reason behind my disappointment is that the book doesn't live up to its premise: these *aren't* everyday recipes you'll make over and over again. While I like to bake as much as anybody, I don't do so on an everyday basis -- yet fully half the book is given over to dessert recipes. There are only 16 recipes for entrees (I'm not counting the side dishes in those), and several of them -- however delicious they appear to be -- are not in my everyay budget. I admit that I'm swayed by the seafood gratin and by the paella, but both of those use lobster, the paella uses 1/2 teaspoon of saffron... this is not an everyday dinner. It might be a delicious one (that gratin _does_ call to me...) but given her emphasis on simplicity I find the cost of the ingredients a bit of a downer, because one is left with few "they really *are* everyday" recipes.

Then, when a recipe does meet my criteria for "everyday" (you can get dinner on the table within 1.5 hours of getting home from work, without full-time attention in the kitchen), it's surprisingly ordinary; chicken salad? blue cheese burgers? another roast chicken? That's not to say that the book lacks some good recipes. Some of these include loin of pork with fennel; garlic & herb cherry tomatoes; herbed basmati rice which, she says, always accompanies the Indonesian Ginger Chicken from her first book (a dish which has saved my life on a few occasions, since it's dead easy, is made in a single pan, and is absolutely delicious). It's just that there's so darn few of them that the book really isn't worth acquiring.

Then, too, the book is uneven in regard to its audience. Does someone who can afford lobster and a pound of wild mushrooms need to be told how to write a shopping list? Do I really need to be instructed to use "good" mayonnaise? This isn't quite a book for the novice cook, and it doesn't have the simple-but-special recipes to satisfy those of us who read cookbooks the way that others read the daily newspaper (and as often, too).

If you're looking for a first Ina Garten cookbook, don't start with this one. If you're a big fan of her show (and honest, I am too) you'll be tempted to add this one to your collection. I'm sorry that I feel the need to suggest that you try to resist the urge.