Entries from The Amateur Gourmet tagged with 'Barefoot Contessa'
A Dessert Party at Ina Garten's House? How Bad Can That Be?
[Hey, this is Adam The Amateur Gourmet. I'm on vacation in Barcelona, Spain and while I'm gone I've asked some awesome people to fill in for me. I first met Jacob Strauss, the Food Network Addict, at the Miami Food & Wine Festival when I was hosting The FN Dish. Jacob's a great guy and his blog is really sharp and funny. Here Jacob gives an account of every gay food lover's dream--meeting Ina Garten. Take it away, Jacob!] I still have a hard time believing it really happened. Last year I appeared on a Food Network special called Dear Food Network that was filmed at Ina Garten’s massive plantation cozy estate in East Hampton, New York. Yes, the Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa herself....
The Best Beans of Your Life
If someone asks my friend Diana what I got her for her birthday this year, she's very likely to answer: "Beans. I got beans for my birthday." That sounds like a negative thing, but in the case of Diana's birthday dinner, it was entirely positive. These beans, like the beans Jack trades his cow for, were no ordinary beans: they were magic beans. Specifically: the Barefoot Contessa's Baked Beans, which bake in the oven for six hours with bacon and ketchup and maple syrup and come out a deep rusty red and taste smoky, zippy and intense. In other words: the best beans of your life....
Mayonnaise-Based Sauces
Growing up, there was nothing I hated more than mayonnaise. NOTHING. The idea of putting mayonnaise on a sandwich repulsed me. It still does, actually. I mean: if it's a burger and there's mayonnaise on it, I'll overlook it because it blends with all the juices and the ketchup and the mustard and makes something of a sauce. But a turkey sandwich with JUST mayo? Blech! Nothing repulses me more....
The River Cottage Roast Chicken
My go-to roast chicken recipe, that one from Chez Panisse (here's a video I made on how to make it), is such a gut bomb of fat--and fat from just the chicken itself--that any roast chicken recipe that requires the addition of more fat (butter, olive oil) usually provokes my inner Richard Simmons who bursts out in short shorts and says, "You don't need all that fat you fat fat fatty!"...
Burnt Sticky Buns
What's there to say when you burn your sticky buns? It's a pretty unkind thing to do. On a Sunday morning, you pique everyone's interest with rumors of sticky bun making; then you roll them, pop them in the oven, and fill the apartment with a wonderful smell. And then you burn them. What kind of a person are you? Not a very good one, I imagine....
The Best Broccoli of Your Life
You know you've done something right with broccoli when the person you made it for describes it to someone else the next day as "better than biting into a steak." Those were Craig's words and they were a marked change from the first words he uttered about the broccoli, before he bit in: "You made broccoli for dinner? Broccoli and sweet potatoes?" Then he did bite in and his eyes lit up. "Oh my God," he said. "This is the best broccoli I've ever had in my life." Later he said: "If parents made this broccoli for their kids, kids wouldn't hate broccoli. They'd beg for it."...
A Flag Cake Reprise
Happy 4th, everyone! In honor of today, here's a video from TWO YEARS ago. You can appreciate how much my voice has changed since I've gone through puberty. Have a great (hopefully not too rainy) day!...
Warm Weather Food (A deeply focused, highly intelligent, penetrating essay and not a review of "Sex & The City: The Movie")
This is a post about warm weather food only I just got back from "Sex and the City: The Movie" and I'd rather write a post about that. But I will be good and stick to my subject matter, albeit a thin subject. I mean, really what's there to say about warm weather food when I still can't believe that movie was almost two and a half hours long? And why was it so shmaltzy and bad when the TV show is so good? Ok, ok, I'm digressing. Warm weather food. Above you a see the plate I made on Memorial Day for our indoor Memorial Day festivities. I made the Barefoot Contessa's shrimp salad, which basically amounts to boiling shrimp for three minutes and then tossing them with mayo, mustard, celery, red onion, salt, pepper and dill. I served it on a hot dog bun toasted in butter, the way they toast the bun at Pearl Oyster Bar. And speaking of bars, someone should be BEHIND bars for some of that dialogue. Louise from St. Louis who loves Louis Vuitton? Is this "Sex and The City" or Dr. Seuss? Also on that plate you see The Barefoot Contessa's potato salad which didn't turn out very well because I under-boiled the potatoes. And the salad is another Ina recipe (gotta love that Ina): cherry tomatoes and cubes of feta tossed with olive oil, vinegar and some dill. No "Sex and The City" reference in this paragraph except...the materialism! The crass obsession with money and apartments!...
Smoked Salmon Dip
Cooking is a funny process. If I gave you a spoonful of cream cheese and a spoonful of sour cream and told you to put them both in your mouth at the same time you'd gag and say, "Sick, man, get out of my face." But if I mixed that sour cream and cream cheese together in a bowl and tossed in horseradish, lemon juice, dill and pieces of smoked salmon you'd say: "Ooooh, look at that lovely dip. Let me have it!"...
For The Love of Pavlova
A miracle took place in my oven the other day. Set to 170 degrees, I placed a baking sheet inside with a mound of beaten egg whites and sugar, and out came this: That is pavlova. It's named after the ballerina Anna Pavlova. I've seen Julia Child make it, Nigella Lawson and The Barefoot Contessa (whose recipe I used). But I'd never been driven to try. How good could it be? Just egg whites and sugar--no fat? Just a big crispy blob of white? Oh how wrong I was. This wasn't just good, it was shockingly good: crispy on the outside and gooey, like a marshmallow, on the inside. And then, to be totally decadent, you top it with whipped cream and berries: For the berries, I made Pim's strawberries in hibiscus and vanilla syrup. That berry mixture on top of the whipped cream on top of the pavlova was like going to the moon with the most beautiful person on Earth, having sex all the way, while listening to your favorite band play live as little puppies lick your toes. You get the idea. Pure bliss. Heaven, thy name is pavlova. [Note: Craig said it was "too sweet" and made a face.] [Note 2: Craig said that after eating an entire tub of Swedish fish.]...
