Barefoot Contessa at Home or Americas Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

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

Author: Ina Garten

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 partyfun (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.

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.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Garten's most recent book, Barefoot in Paris, was just as popular as her earlier best-selling Barefoot Contessa books. Now she's back here at her country home, with recipes for casual, contemporary comfort food, from Fennel-Stuffed Loin of Pork to Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing. Each chapter of this lavishly illustrated book opens with a mini-essay on a different aspect of entertaining or welcoming guests, from "Designing a Kitchen" to "The Important Dinner," and most of the recipes include helpful tips on ingredients, substitutions, advance preparation, and the like. Sure to be in demand, this is recommended for most collections. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

Author: Cooks Illustrated

One of the bestselling cookbooks last fall, The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook delivers more than 1200 foolproof recipes for classic American family fare in a clear, accessible style. Repackaged to be even easier to use and expanded to include a new chapter of light recipes, this revised edition remains the only basic cookbook you'll ever need. Beautiful step-by-step photos illuminate every conceivable technique from chopping shallots and skinning salmon to cutting up a chicken and tying a roast. Just about anything you want to do in the kitchen is explained in these pages in the test kitchen's approachable, no-nonsense voice.