Barefoot Contessa At Home: Everyday Recipes You'll Make Over and Over Again [Hardcover]

I wasn't going to buy this book until I saw it in Waterstones (for about £[]!!) and had a good flick though. Once I knew some of the recipes appealed, I bought it from Amazon and saved myself some cash!

I love Ina Garten and her TV programs. She has such a laid back way of cooking and explaining things, and I love that she is also a bit of a domestic goddess in other ways - she shows you how to set a nice table and decorate your house!! I've tried about ten recipes so far - all worked very well and all tasted absolutely amazing. I would particularly recommend the lemon yogurt cake (though I have to turn my oven alot lower and cook it for about twice the time - makes no difference to the finished result however) and the peanut jelly bars (quite simply amazing, but possibly a heart attack in a tin!). On that note, I've found many of these recipes to have far too much oil,sugar, butter, cream and, oh my god salt, to be considered in any way healthy, and I use it about once every two weeks for that reason. Maybe that's why the recipes are delicious though - I think we all know the better something tastes the worse it is for our health!!

Anyway, it is a great book, it's great quality and I would definitely recommend it. I just wish someone could do for Ina what they have done for Nigella and make these transatlantic-friendly, i.e. give ingredients in weights, tempuratures in celcius and alternatives for US ingredients.

40 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

Someone's In The Kitchen With Ina, October 24, 2006

"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" Ina Garten Cookbook PR

I first came to know Ina Garten via her TV cooking show on foodnetwork.com. She was filming from her home in the Hamptons, and the food looked so delicious. I bought a cookbook, made every recipe, to wow reviews from family and friends. I now have every cookbook Ina has written. Every recipe is delicious and fairly easy to make.

This new cookbook is dedicated to us. Those of us who cook everyday for our families and want to prepare and serve delicious, nutritious food.

I have tried several of these recipes and the chicken pot pie is the best I have ever had. One of Ina's simpler methods is to keep the chicken moist by baking it in the oven first. Sprinkle with olive oil and salt and pepper and bake for 40mins. You use bone in chicken breasts. The flaky crust is very easy to make in your food processor, or by hand if you don't have a processor. Yum yum- Another favorite is her coconut macaroons- so simple but so good :-) And her coconut cupcakes are so delicious that many people asked if that recipe could be converted into a cake. Ina made a few adjustments with the recipe and voila. Coconut cake is the most requested birthday cake, and Ina's looks lucious. From homemade honey white bread, to blue cheese coleslaw to maple baked beans, all the recipes you need to help make the family happy. The photographs are just beautiful in this new cookbook. I go to Ina's cookbooks time and again. A recipe for every occasion. We are looking for simpler times and these recipes provide us with food we serve everyday. A little more upscale than a tuna casserole, but home cooked fare we are proud to serve. I watch Ina every week on her TV cooking show. Ina's laugh is so infectious, and she has such a good time cooking that everyone enjoys her and her food.

And, besides the recipes Ina discusses how she made her house a home and gives us her ideas. Each recipe also comes with a little story of how the recipe came to be. As a collector of cookbooks, I love to read them, and this is a great read.

"Garten had no formal training, and instead taught herself culinary techniques with the aid of French and New England cookbooks. Later, she relied on intuition and feedback from customers and friends to refine her recipes. She was mentored chiefly by Eli Zabar, of Eli's Manhattan and Eli's Breads fame, and domestic maven Stewart. Among her hallmark dishes are caeur à la crème, celery root remoulade, pear clafouti, and a simplified version of baeuf bourguignon. Her culinary fame began with her gourmet food store, Barefoot Contessa; Garten parlayed this success into a string of best-selling cookbooks, magazine columns, self-branded convenience foods, and a popular Food Network television show. Wikipedia

One of the best cookbooks for any cook, from the newbie to the more experienced cook. We are all looking for new recipes and Ina brings us the best. Highly, highly recommended. prisrob 10-24-06

Well, she's cooked up another classic cookbook again. This time the theme of the book is food you serve at home- not in your house. The book starts out by defining what a home is to her- and to tell you the truth, it sounds a bit like mine: it's not perfect by any means, and is, in fact, a bit cluttered. Cluttered not so much in a messy way, but rather with personal items which ultimately are responsible for making the house into a home.

And so it is with her delicious recipes. Laid out in different sections such as dinner, soups, etc., each section is prefaced by several pages of interesting info on a selected food or food preparation topic.

A very down-to-earth cookbook, it is laid out well, has great pictures, and you'll even notice that the pages have a thick, smooth feel to them. Also suggest The Sixty-Second Motivator if you have trouble sticking to a healthy diet.