Barefoot Contessa at Home: Everyday Recipes You'll Make Over and Over Again

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.

For Ina, it’s friends and family–gathered around the dinner table or cooking with her in the kitchen–that really make her house feel like home. Here Ina offers the tried-and-true recipes that she makes over and over again because they’re easy, they work, and they’re universally loved. For a leisurely Sunday breakfast, she has Easy Cheese Danishes or Breakfast Fruit Crunch to serve with the perfect Spicy Bloody Mary. For lunch, she has classics with a twist, such as Tomato, Mozzarella, and Pesto Paninis and Old-Fashioned Potato Salad, which are simply delicious. Then there are Ina’s homey dinners–from her own version of loin of pork stuffed with sautéed fennel to the exotic flavors of Eli’s Asian Salmon. And since Ina knows no one ever forgets what you serve for dessert, she includes recipes for outrageously luscious sweets like Peach and Blueberry Crumble, Pumpkin Mousse Parfait, and Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing.

Ina also lets readers in on her time-tested secrets for cooking and entertaining. Get the inside scoop on everything from what Ina considers when she’s designing a kitchen to menu-planning basics and how to make a dinner party fun (here’s a hint: it doesn’t involve making complicated food!).

Along with beautiful photographs of Ina’s dishes, her home, and the East Hampton she loves, this book is filled with signature recipes that strike the perfect balance between elegance and casual comfort. With her most indispensable collection yet, Ina Garten proves beyond a shadow of doubt that there truly is no place like home.

Customer Reviews:

From a grateful hubby
The barefoot contessa has provided inspiration to one of the more talented cooks I've ever had the pleasure to know - my wife. For some reason with all the career women and other females who were working to discard the traditional roles put cooking at the top of their list of bad things. That left a dwindling group of women and a bunch of men to carry the banner. Ina is helping to bring this wonderful part of life back.

I have been the benefactor of numerous excerpts from this book and I love it. The way that the everyday meals are put together and delivered is fantastic. As a personal trainer I respect her desire to keep the foods as healthful as possible while still making them very palatable.

--2006-12-13

Doesn't live up to her other cookbooks
I really like Ina Garten, and I have a few of her other cookbooks. Unfortunately, Barefoot Contessa at Home is far from her best effort; it is, alas, entirely resistable.

The major reason behind my disappointment is that the book doesn't live up to its premise: these *aren't* everyday recipes you'll make over and over again. While I like to bake as much as anybody, I don't do so on an everyday basis -- yet fully half the book is given over to dessert recipes. There are only 16 recipes for entrees (I'm not counting the side dishes in those), and several of them -- however delicious they appear to be -- are not in my everyay budget. I admit that I'm swayed by the seafood gratin and by the paella, but both of those use lobster, the paella uses 1/2 teaspoon of saffron... this is not an everyday dinner. It might be a delicious one (that gratin _does_ call to me...) but given her emphasis on simplicity I find the cost of the ingredients a bit of a downer, because one is left with few "they really *are* everyday" recipes.

Then, when a recipe does meet my criteria for "everyday" (you can get dinner on the table within 1.5 hours of getting home from work, without full-time attention in the kitchen), it's surprisingly ordinary; chicken salad? blue cheese burgers? another roast chicken? That's not to say that the book lacks some good recipes. Some of these include loin of pork with fennel; garlic & herb cherry tomatoes; herbed basmati rice which, she says, always accompanies the Indonesian Ginger Chicken from her first book (a dish which has saved my life on a few occasions, since it's dead easy, is made in a single pan, and is absolutely delicious). It's just that there's so darn few of them that the book really isn't worth acquiring.

Then, too, the book is uneven in regard to its audience. Does someone who can afford lobster and a pound of wild mushrooms need to be told how to write a shopping list? Do I really need to be instructed to use "good" mayonnaise? This isn't quite a book for the novice cook, and it doesn't have the simple-but-special recipes to satisfy those of us who read cookbooks the way that others read the daily newspaper (and as often, too).

If you're looking for a first Ina Garten cookbook, don't start with this one. If you're a big fan of her show (and honest, I am too) you'll be tempted to add this one to your collection. I'm sorry that I feel the need to suggest that you try to resist the urge.
--2006-12-09

Were recipes even tested before publication?
I normally love BC cookbooks and own most of them. When I received this one as a gift, I was excited to try out the Asian salmon recipe. I made it for a group we have over for dinner. Now, I enjoy salty food, but this was almost inedible. The recipe called for a cup of soy sauce for the marinade, to be poured over the salmon, with a breadcrumb mixture on the top (also covered with the marinade). Everyone at the table had to scrape the topping off just to be able to eat the salmon. It was that salty. I wonder how testers ever could have approved such a recipe? Why didn't they call for low-sodium soy, or cut the amount of soy to a quarter cup? I was very disappointed. I think maybe BC has used all her good recipes, but her publishers were pushing another cookbook, and the rest of us are suffering the consequences.
--2006-12-05

Easy, Delicious and Stressless
I love Ina's recipes. They are guaranteed crowd pleasers and are simple to make. I also look to her books when I want to make something great without stress! I highly recommend this.
--2006-12-01

Simple and delicious recipes!!
This is the first Barefoot Contessa book I've bought and I'm really enjoying it. I'm a big fan of Ina and her show and I can hear her voice with every description in the book.

Yes, many of the recipes are super-simple, but that's fine. Sometimes you need a quick idea and there's plenty of inspiration to be found.

For those people who object to the overuse of butter or salt in the recipes, you can definitely work around it. I have family members who need to be on a low-sodium diet and salt substitute works just fine, even with the baked items. You can definitely cut down on the butter too, although with some of the baked stuff, I'm not sure how it will impact the recipes.
For those I use unsalted butter.

Some favorites so far are the Orange-Honey Glazed Carrots, Ultimate Ginger Cookie and Stewed Lentils and Tomatoes.

Like another reviewer stated, Ina has changed my life too. She took away the fear of entertaining and made it relaxing and even fun!
--2006-11-30

- Clarkson Potter