Ina Garten Make it Ahead: Cake, Quinoa and Ricotta

Well hello there!  Long time no see!  Happy New Year!  I am happy to be back with you and back to bookcooker.  I apologize for my long absence - no good excuse really -  lack of inspiration, lack of time, too much work, life etc...The important thing is I am back, ready to start 2015 with a bang and a blog post!  I resolve to blog more this year, this will be helped by an awesome new camera I was lucky to get as an Xmas gift that has inspired me to get back at it!  Starting the year with a visit with Ina Garten.  Now as I posted previously, I clearly have a cookbook problem with 200+ cookbooks in my home.  A good little chunk of this problem is with Ina Garten books.   I have every single on her books, which I think is 9 now?  There is just something about Ina - her personality, her style, her food and her adorable husband Jeffrey that I find irresistible.   I have cooked out of all 9 of these cookbooks, and you know what?   Not one recipe has failed.  Not one recipe has been too complicated.  And not one recipe has been "meh."  I will admit her recipes, after 9 books, can seem a bit formulaic - but it clearly a formula that works, so who am I to question?  For this post I am starting with Ina's newest book - Make it Ahead.  One thing I have noticed in that some of Ina's later cookbooks there is a bit of repetition and some of the recipes seem a tad uninspired.  But even in these books there is loads of great recipes to make, all a combination of accessible and special.  The theme of this Make it Ahead book is obviously recipes you can make ahead of time.  I am not sure how well this theme really drives the book - but like I said, there are loads of great recipes in there.  I made all of them before I ate them ; ), but not anymore than 1 day before I ate them - so not that "make ahead." The three recipes I made are a good example of the end of December to beginning of January trajectory many of us are on: a festive mocha cake (end of December) to a quinoa tabbouleh (beginning of January) with a homemade ricotta somewhere in the middle of a celebration excess and cleanse diet mentality.  All were easy, all were delicious, with perhaps the homemade ricotta as a standout  - such minimal effort, such incredible reward!

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Maine and a Seafood Salad

For me, J. Courtney Sullivan's Maine was a particularly well suited summer read.  The book is about a family house in Cape Neddick, Maine and the trials and tribulations of four of the women who are part of the dysfunctional family, the Kellehers, that own the house.  As it turns out, my family owns a summer house a stone's throw from Cape Neddick,  Maine, and I must admit that our family, like all families, has its share of dysfunction.  With that background, I was understandably excited about the book, and while I liked it a lot, it did not totally live up to my expectations.   My real complaint is that the book took too long for all the characters to get up to Maine  - once they were there and interacting I really enjoyed the book, but I think Sullivan took too long to tell us everyone's back stories.  More about the book after the jump.  The seafood salad pictured above is my go to dish for when I have friends visit me in Maine.  It is both fancy, because of the lobster, but very easy and down to earth as well, and it screams Maine in the summer.  At least in the Northeast, lobster prices are low this summer, so for your labor day weekend, make this dish as a goodbye kiss to summer.

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Restoration and a Tuscan Feast

When you read a book set in Tuscany, it is difficult to choose one dish to make!  While food is certainly not the focus of Olaf Olafsson's Restoration,  I could not resit making a few simple, fresh and hearty Tuscan dishes this week.  The book is set on at a Tuscan villa and farm owned by a British expat - Alice, and her Italian husband during World War Two.  As Italy became a battle zone,  Alice turned the villa into a hospital of sorts, and then a school and home for refugee children from the north.  One day, a mysterious Icelandic woman, Kristin, shows up at the villa severely injured from a train bombing.  Kristin is a struggling artist and has a connection to Alice that Alice is unaware of.  The book alternates between two stories - Alice's and Kristin's.  Alice's story is about life on the farm,  her grief the loss of her young son, her careless affair, and the difficulties in her relationship with her husband Claudio.  Kristin's story is about art, about her struggle to become an artist, her obsessive love affair with her boss, and about a dangerous forgery.  To me, Kristin's story was much more engaging and believable while Alice's story, told through diary entries that are written as a letter to her missing husband, were cliche and less interesting, perhaps because I found Alice kind of boring and unlikable.   More about the book and the Tuscan feast after the jump.

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