Not sure if I’ve mentioned this yet, but I love the Barefoot Contessa.
Ok, I am sure I’ve mentioned that—one of the sites that links to me writes “Barefoot Contessa worship” in its description of what I do. That may be true. The shrine to Ina Garten dominates my living room and prayers take extra long at night thanking her for every recipe of hers that proved to be a success. (She still hasn’t answered my prayer for a time share in the Hamptons.)
(Actually, this is a good time to parenthetically mention that my parents and I trekked out to the Hamptons last week where I intended to make a pilgrimage to the Barefoot Contessa store. Alas, it is there no longer—my mom found out that she sold the store and now does a mail-order only business. Needless to say, I was heartbroken.)
One of my favorite Barefoot Contessa recipes is her recipe for Curried Cous-Cous salad. It’s wildly easy, really. I’m sure the recipe is on the foodtv site so I’m not going to type it out here. But I think you’ll see how easy it is as I describe it.
Basically, you buy some cous-cous. You put the cous-cous in a bowl. Your boil some water, add some butter to the water, then add it to the cous-cous. Cover for five minutes:
That’s all the cooking you do. After that, you fluff the cous-cous with a fork and then make the dressing.
The dressing is way easy too: plain yogurt, olive oil, curry, tumeric, salt, pepper.
Pour the dressing over the cous-cous, fluff more with a fork and then go chop your veggies.
(Another sidebar: lately I’ve broken out a bit. Some may say this is due to stress. Others may say it’s due to the weather. The woman at the Kiehl’s store in SoHo said it’s due to poor diet. “You need to eat more vegetables and drink lots and lots of water. Oh, and buy our products.”)
The veggies for our curried cous-cous salad are diverse and delicious: carrots, onions, scallions, and parsley. There’s also dried currants and almonds. I’ve never bought dried currants before but they are scrumptious. Like raisins except smaller and tart-er. Here’s our finished product:
Looks delicious, no? And there’s so much of it. Enough to feed me for several meals. And that’s the other thing I love about the Barefoot Contessa: her recipes yield large results that you can keep on eating and eating and eating…
Sort of like Jesus with the loaves and fishes. Wait a second? Could Ina Garten be the second coming? (Or, if we go by my Jewish belief system: the first coming?)
Nah. If God lives in the Hamptons we’re all in trouble.
I can’t find the recipe on foodnetwork.com :(
Can you link to it?
Oh man that looks really yummy.
And I wouldn’t mind if Ina was god, atleast we’d all eat well in heaven.
I also love the BC. I have all her books, have been to her website many times and have adapted quite a few of her recipes. Have you tried the Outrageous Brownies in the first book? Soooo darn delicious! Her Strawberry Scones? Her Maple Oatmeal Scones? Her Broiled Buffalo Wings from the Family Style book? She is just wonderful.
I also love watching her tv show and have taped it many times to watch over and over. I have digital cable and watch her On Demand too.
Can’t get enough of Ina, so I know where you are coming from.
I knew she sold the store, but I didn’t know that the new owners closed it. What a shame. I’ll have to see how to get a catalog for her mail order BC stuff. I’ll have to investigate that.
Glad to know I am not the only BC freak in this world.
Now if I could just have her house! I love that house. I want it for my very own and that kitchen! Mine is so tiny compared.
RisaG
Love your blog!!! I love Ina Garten, too..although Alton brown is my favorite…followed by Michael Chiarello, Ina Garten, Bobby Flay, and Mario Batali.
I too love your blog! I checked the food network and the recipe for curried couscous has expired. Would you mind posting it? It looks really good. Thank you!
That’s the one thing that bugs me about Ina Garten – her recipes expire on the Food Network web site. Why? None of the other cooks’ recipes expire. My guess is that she wants people to buy her books rather than get her recipes online, but even Martha Stewart puts all of her recipes on her web site.
Hey, sorry for the late response regarding the recipe…here it is:
Curried CousCous
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups couscous
1 Tbs unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup good olive oil
1 tsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup grated (or small diced) carrots
1/2 cup minsed fresh-flat leaf parsley
1/2 cup dried currants
1/4 cup blanched, sliced almonds
2 scallions, thinly sliced (white and green parts)
1/4 cup small-diced red onion
Place the couscous in a medium bowl. Melt the butter in the boiling water and pour over the couscous. Cover tightly and allow the couscous to soak for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork.
Whisk together the yogurt, olive oil, vinegar, curry, turmeric, salt, and pepper. Pour over the fluffed couscous and mix well with a fork. Add the carrots, parsley, currants, almonds, scallions and red onions; mix well and taste for seasonings. Serve at room temperature.
I am curious if anyone has tried to make her “outrageous brownies” from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook? I just spent all afternoon making them and they turned out to be a gooey mess. What a disappointment!
Found your web site Googling for Ina Garten recipes because, alas, I saw a Barefoot Contessa episode on Food TV Canada yesterday on which she made Outrageous Brownies…went to the Food Network website to get the recipe, and dammit! The recipes from the Beach episode had EXPIRED??!!! Never heard of that happening at the Food Network before! How frustrating!
Anyways, I’ve enjoyed your web site, and I’m going to try the Curried Couscous — it sounds delicious! Thanks for typing it up seeing as IT had expired too!
Jan
This is so funny – I was looking (desperately) for this recipe and in a final stab simply googled it and lo and behold hit your site! Thank you so much, I too love Barefoot Contessa. As a note I have added shredded chicken to this recipe which is yummy as well.