Welcome to Cookbook of the Week.
Ina Garten is no stranger to cookbook writingand no stranger to most of us.
Shes one of the original celebrity chefs (in my book anyway) on the Food online grid.
It also happens to focus specifically on simple, scrumptious dinners that you could whip up with few ingredients.
When I say simple, for once, I don’t mean no-frills.
She manages to do this without making the recipes eye-rolling or complex.
Thats why this is a great cookbook to nab before Thanksgiving cooking begins.
A great cookbook for the swamped cook
Swamped is more of a feeling than a definition.
Its being weighed down.
You dont have to be a practiced chef.
Id venture to say you dont even have to begoodat cooking.
If you follow the recipe, you will be rewarded.
Inas not doing all of that.
Its about to be Thanksgiving.
We dont need all the reasoning, we just need the recipe to work, dammit!
And that, they do.
The abutting page is the recipe.
The recipes are often eight ingredients or fewer.
These recipes are much easier to read because of it.
Since the focus is primarily dinner, the recipes usually range from four to eight servings.
Which reminds me: Most of these recipes are easy to split if youre making dinner for two.
That dish gets covered and set in the fridge for the night.
It still came out perfect.
The suspiciously simple mac gets baked until bubbling and golden brown, et voila.
A flavorful, creamy mac that required barely 15 minutes of actual active work from me.
Most of the time the dish was chilling in the fridge or baking.
The cheese sauce thickens just enough from the starch left on the pasta.
Say hello to your make-ahead Thanksgiving mac and cheese recipe.
How to buy it
This book is one youll be leaning on for years to come.
