Barefoot Contessa Family Style: Easy Ideas and Recipes That Make Everyone Feel Like Family

Barefoot Contessa Family Style: Easy Ideas and Recipes That Make Everyone Feel Like Family | Ina Garten | Best Gift Ever

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	Barefoot Contessa Family Style: Easy Ideas and Recipes That Make Everyone Feel Like Family Ina Garten Clarkson Potter, 2002 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 145 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Ina Garten, who shared her gift for casual entertaining in the bestselling Barefoot Contessa Cookbook and Barefoot Contessa Parties!, is back with her most enticing recipes yet?a collection of her favorite dishes for everyday cooking. In Barefoot Contessa Family Style, Ina explains that sharing our lives and tables with those we love is too essential to be saved just for special occasions?and it?s easy to do if you know how to cook irresistible meals with a minimum of fuss.

For Ina, the best way to make guests feel at home is to serve them food that?s as unpretentious as it is delicious. So in her new book, she?s collected the recipes that please her friends and family most?dishes like East Hampton Clam Chowder, Parmesan Roasted Asparagus, and Linguine with Shrimp Scampi. It?s the kind of fresh, accessible food that?s meant to be passed around the table in big bowls or platters and enjoyed with warm conversation and laughter.

In Ina?s hands tried-and-true dishes are even more delicious than you remember them: Her arugula salad is bright with the flavors of lemon and Parmesan, the Oven-Fried Chicken is crispy without excess fat, and her Deep-Dish Apple Pie has the perfect balance of fruit and spice. Barefoot Contessa Family Style also includes enticing recipes that are memorable and distinctive, like Lobster Cobb Salad, Tequila Lime Chicken, and Saffron Risotto with Butternut Squash.

With vivid photographs of Ina cooking and serving food in her beautiful Hamptons home, as well as menu suggestions, practical wisdom on what to do when disaster strikes in the kitchen, and tips on creating an inviting ambience with music, Barefoot Contessa Family Style is the must-have guide to the joy of everyday entertaining.

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A big help

I am the quintessential "ambitious but inexperienced" cook to whom Ina Garten's book are supposed to cater. Prior to using this book, my lasagnas would make messes, rather than good dinners. Where other recipes fail to deliver, EVERYTHING I have tried from this book has succeeded. Speaking of the turkey sausage lasagna... I made endless substitutions, right down to using vegan Tofurky sausage and pureed cottage cheese instead of ricotta. It turned out wonderfully, and my non-vegetarian "please don't put meat sustitute in my food" husband loved it. Following the recipes exactly might be important in some cases, but the cooking process seems to be the magical element in many others. In fact, my spouse doesn't really care for sauce-less veggies but loved the roasted asparagus recipe when I used baby broccoli instead.
I appreciate the footnotes that help me when I want to stray from the original recipe, or make something ahead of time. This really increases the utility of the recipes.
While the ingredients might be expensive at times, at least they end up producing "mmm's" at the table rather than ending up in the trash or dog bowl.
And yes, there is a lot of butter used throughout, but the food turns out so elegant and rich it takes only a portion to be satisfied, and this calorie watcher has not gained weight despite eating the mashed potatoes.
If you combine the ideas in this book with those from the t.v. show- make one main dish, a salad/veg & dessert- you will have a complete lovely dinner without needing 2 ovens and 2 hours. This book has made me feel inspired and successful, despite being quite average in the kitchen. If I can now make good tiramisu, so can anyone.

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Best Gift Ever

I love this book & have made nearly every recipe. My copy is covered in spattered oil & sticky fingers. I have given this as gifts to most of my friends & am now buying it for my sister's 40th birthday. Hands down favorite is the fish & chips. Chicken soup not so much. Enjoy.

A fantastic cookbook

I absolutely LOVE this cookbook! I first got it out of the library and renewed it three times. I am a novice cook but every recipe I tried out of this book made me feel like a five star chef. My husband commented repeatedly how much he enjoyed the meals I made. I made the linguine with shrimp and my guests were very impressed- I didn't tell them how incredibly easy it was! It is my firm belief that using natural ingredients (even butter!) is a lot healthier than using processed mixes and/or processed diet foods. I have tweaked a few of these recipes a bit to fit in better with the tastes my family and I have- for example using raw spinach rather than mixed greens for the parmesan chicken, reducing the amount of butter in some recipes, and using low- sodium salt rather than kosher salt but in my opinion it hasn't altered the recipes flavor in any way. I look forward to collecting all of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks!

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Barefoot Contessa Family Style

This is my 5th Barefoot Contessa cookbook and this one is every bit as wonderful as the other four books. The recipes are versatile, easy to follow and they are fail safe. I can easily prepare a new recipes from Family Style for my family or friends with the confidence that it will turn out delicious and the results are as if I had been making these recipes for years. I am very happy that I purchased this cookbook.

Great cookbook

A friend of mine had this book and after paging thru it, I knew I wanted it. Ina Garten makes her recipes so easy to follow and there are some really great ones in this cookbook. Enjoy!

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