Go-to Dinners Is the Cookbook You Need for Thanksgiving (and Every Other Night)
Welcome to Cookbook of the Week. In this series, I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While searching for a specific recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has its own magic.
My Cookbook of the Week series has always been about recommending a book that I liked or found extremely useful so that others can benefit from that find. Well, it’s the week before Thanksgiving, and there’s no other time of year when a healthy cookbook is so essential. Ina Garten’s Featured Dinners is my favorite cookbook this week. If you’re hosting a holiday feast and feeling a little lost, this cookbook is your lifeboat and Ina is your Chablis captain.
Ina Garten is no stranger to cookbook writing, and neither are most of us. She’s one of the first celebrity chefs (in my book, anyway) on the Food Network. She, her husband Jeffrey, and numerous fried chickens have been on my television for most of my life, undoubtedly inspiring my love of cooking. She is known for preparing elegant dishes in a simple manner, focusing more on quality ingredients and rich flavors rather than precise techniques and skill sets. I’ve always loved how Garten makes his recipes as approachable as possible and makes even the most insecure cook feel successful.
A little about the book
Go-To Dinners is Ina’s latest cookbook in the Barefoot Contessa series, published in 2022. It also focuses on simple, delicious dinners that can be whipped up with just a few ingredients. When I say simple, I don’t mean no frills. Ina incorporates a lot of clever “frills” into her dinner recipes that make them what I call great comfort food: the presentation is naturally worthy of the event. She manages to do this without making the recipes too complicated or confusing. That’s why this is a great cookbook to grab before you start cooking your Thanksgiving meals.
A great cookbook for the avid cook.
“Swampy” is more of a feeling than a definition. This is aggravating. Whether it’s work pressure, relationship problems, or literally the moment Thanksgiving cooking makes you feel overwhelmed, we all feel overwhelmed sometimes. Go-to Dinners is full of really easy recipes that turn out great. You don’t have to be an experienced chef. I would venture to say that you don’t even have to be a good cook. If you follow the recipe, you will be rewarded.
Whether you’re hosting Thanksgiving or tasked with bringing the sides to a big meal, you’ll find plenty of salads, vegetable sides, or desserts here that won’t feel too heavy. shoulders. She writes the difficulty level at the bottom of each recipe (spoiler: many of them say “Easy” or “Make It Ahead”) so you can easily gauge what kind of commitment you need to make. Instead of feeling anxious about complicated meals, Go-To Dinners gives you an “Oh, I can do that” list.
Recipes You Can Expect
The blessed relief of this cookbook is that every time you turn the page, the next recipe is just as achievable as the last. Some denser cookbook collections, such as the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook or Milk Street Bakes (both good for different reasons), contain a number of recipes with plenty of text to tell you the “how” and “why.” Ina doesn’t do all this. It will be Thanksgiving soon. We don’t need all the reasoning, we just need the recipe to make it work, damn it! And they do.
Each recipe includes a full-page close-up photo of the dish to give you a better look at your target. On the next page is the recipe. Recipes often have eight ingredients or fewer. Instructions are usually two to five short paragraphs long, and there is a lot of white space on the page. If you’re not familiar with “white space” in design, it’s simply empty space on a page, and it’s important to keep the page uncluttered. This makes these recipes much easier to read.
The serving size is also listed at the bottom of each recipe, which I think is important if you’re using this book to make your Thanksgiving easier. Since the focus is on dinner, recipes typically range from four to eight servings. It’s the perfect size to serve to a table of eight to 12 people trying a little bit of everything.
The dish I cooked this week
I chose Overnight Mac & Cheese as my test recipe for a few reasons. First of all, I love the excuse to make mac and cheese; but otherwise this recipe intrigues me. I’ve never made mac and cheese that needed to be soaked overnight, and for a casserole that looked creamy and decadent in the photo, the recipe was just seven ingredients with no dressing (a flour and butter paste to thicken sauces). ).
I got to work last night to make a quarter of the recipe (because my partner is lactose intolerant and it wouldn’t make sense for me to eat six servings alone). Which reminds me: Most of these recipes are easy to share if you’re making dinner for two.
I steamed the pasta and mixed it with a mixture of cream and grated cheese with a little nutmeg as directed. Suspiciously uncomplicated. Cover the dish with a lid and place in the refrigerator overnight. Note that although the recipe calls for a soaking time of 24 hours, necessity makes me a rebel and I only soaked for 12 hours. It still turned out perfect.
I took the soaked pasta out of the refrigerator and placed it in a greased pan, topping it with more grated cheese and buttered breadcrumbs. The suspiciously plain macarons are baked until they are bubbly and golden brown, and voila. A fragrant, creamy poppy seed that required only 15 minutes of active work on my part. Most of the time the dish was chilled in the refrigerator or baked. The cheese sauce will thicken sufficiently due to the starch remaining on the pasta. Although she doesn’t say it, you just need to make sure you follow the instructions and it will work. Say hello to your Thanksgiving mac and cheese recipe.
How to buy it
This book is one you will rely on for years to come. Get your copy quickly from Amazon if you have Prime shipping, or you can get a signed copy directly from the Barefoot Contessa website here . Otherwise, since she has a big name and this is her latest cookbook, check out your local bookstore and you’ll probably find it there. Sure, you’ll be glad you got it in time for the upcoming holiday dinners, but you’ll be flipping through it for the rest of the year.