Ina Garten

Herb and Apple Stuffing

February 18, 2016 by Charles 1 Comment

I wouldn’t consider myself a stuffing man. It’s not something I usually think to have or make with a meal. And I am definitely not bold enough to try putting the stuffing in any raw bird. That’s just not something I am willing to try.

But this past Thanksgiving (yes, this recipe is looong overdue) I was willing to try a stuffing recipe. And I am glad that I did. This recipe turned out great. It was absolutely delicious and the leftover stuffing was the first of the Thanksgiving leftovers to bite the dust.

We had actually tried to make cute stuffing muffins from this recipe, packing the mixed stuffing into buttered muffin tins. The stuffing cooked fine, but it did not hold together in a muffin shape. Instead, it quickly came apart the minute we removed it from the tins. In the end, it was probably for the best. I liked…

Tres Leches Cake with Berries

August 15, 2015 by Charles 1 Comment

In my last post, I bemoaned the fact that I had not been trying out enough recipes from the Barefoot Contessa (a.k.a. Ina Garten). Well, sure enough, I am back in form, with a second Barefoot Contessa in less than a month’s time.

I had always wanted to make a tres leches cake, having always been eager to order the dessert at the Mexican restaurants we might frequent. I loved how moist and sweet the cake was.

And as luck would have it,…

Blueberry Bran Muffins

July 29, 2015 by Charles 2 Comments

How I have been remiss! It used to be that an Ina recipe landed on my blog almost every other month. There was her spanakopita and her cheese straws. There was her panko-crusted salmon with french lentils and her maple-roasted winter squash. Every dish, it seemed, was a winner.

And with six of her cookbooks sitting on my shelf, each neatly arranged according to the spine’s color, there was no shortage of recipes at my disposal. There were even two recent books — Make it Ahead and Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust — that, horror of horrors, I had not yet acquired.

I was desperately falling behind on my Ina testing.

Fortunately, the St. Louis County Public Library …

Almond-Raisin and Chocolate-Nutella Rugelach

February 5, 2013 by Charles 3 Comments

Rugelach was always one of those desserts that I wanted to try to make. For whatever reason, there seemed to be some mystery to it, some complexity locked within its spiral shape. At the bakery or deli, I always peered through the glass cases with equal parts wonder and admiration. How did they get that perfect spiral shape? How did they get the filling so evenly distributed?

In bakeries with rugelach, I always felt tempted to try one. What was an ordinary, cookie or brownie, when there was rugelach. What was a simple circle or square when there was a dough-filled spiral? Indeed, each bakery…

Pumpkin Roulade with Ginger Buttercream

October 13, 2012 by Charles 3 Comments

The idea of making a roulade seemed, at first glance, somewhat intimidating. There was the rolling, then unrolling, and finally, the re-rolling. The instructions seemed intricate and the cake seemed delicate. Visions of a cake suddenly collapsing and crumbling under its own weight flashed before me, wiping away my mixing and baking efforts in a moment.

But then I stopped, and remembered that this was not the first time that I faced what seemed to be an insurmountable cooking hurdle. There had, after all, been many intimidating cooking projects before this one. I had made flan, caramelizing sugar. I had made oat bread, coaxing the yeast. I had made spanakopita, …