bhnyc's Reviews
11 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 11Sort by: Title 
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Barefoot Contessa Parties! Ideas and Recipes for Easy Parties That Are Really Fun
By Ina Garten
Clarkson Potter - 2001
Brisket with Carrots and Onions : page 64
This is very good. It's amazing that plain old tomato juice can produce a sauce with so much flavor. Just check on the meat often enough to make sure that all of the sauce hasn't cooked off.
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California Pizzas : page 48
So this isn't the best pizza dough ever, but it is good and easy to make. The recipe makes 6 8-inch pies so everyone can 'design' their own, which is fun. They had to bake longer than indicated so plan accordingly.
useful (2)
Chicken Soup : page 60
This is comfort in a bowl. Soooo good. I add lots of vegetables- carrots, celery, parsnips and turnips. I also add some of the garlic that cooked in the stock. This freezes well and is perfect on a day when you aren't feeling well!
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Chicken Stock : page 60
I think this is the best of the chicken stock recipes in Ina's cookbooks. At first I thought they were the same, but this is the one to use if you want to serve chicken in soup. Her other recipes use the same ingredients, but have you throwing out all of the chicken because it cooks so long. That seems wasteful to me.
This recipe has you take the chicken breasts out after an hour so you can shred the meat later and return it to the stock. I debone them and then throw the bones back in to cook for the remaining three hours. I recommend that you cut the chickens up before putting them in the pot. I didn't do that and then had to pull the entire steaming hot chicken out of the pot in order to get the breast meat.
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Chocolate White Chocolate Chunk Cookies : page 237
These are so, so good!
useful (1)
Garlic Roasted Potatoes : page 86
These are easy to make and are a great side dish with the Perfect Roast Chicken in the Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.
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Matzo Balls : page 63
These are very good but I don't think they are any better than the ones I usually make. Separating the eggs and then whipping the whites seemed time consuming and unnecessary to me. I had expected them to be incredibly light because of this and they weren't. Still good, though! I froze extras on a cookie sheet and stored them in a freezer bag. Then I can add them to soup/stock later on.
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Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies : page 236
Yum! These are really good.
The directions say to bake them for 17 minutes and take them out of the oven even if they look underdone. I had to bake mine for less time and some still got a little darker than I think they should be. I used heaping tablespoons and it made many more cookies than stated. I got about 50.
I would definitely make these again. They would be really good as ice cream sandwiches with chocolate ice cream!
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Pesto : page 142
This is a quick and simple recipe that just screams summer. I make it a lot when basil is plentiful and then freeze it in smaller portions to enjoy when summer is over.
Ina gives us the exact same recipe in three of her books: How Easy is That?, BC Parties! and Back to Basics. The pesto is good in many of her recipes but I also like it on plain pasta, on chicken or on a piece of fish.
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Rugelach : page 69
These are delicious and easy to make. I doubled the recipe and made half as instructed- with raisins and walnuts. The other batch I made using toasted pecans and dried cranberries. I put the cinnamon sugar mixture on the raisin batch and wish I had used it on the cranberry cookies too. Either way, though, they were really good!
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Strawberry Country Cake : page 128
This is one of my favorite cakes and a Mother's Day tradition in my family. It is easy to make and I love that it makes two cakes at once so you can freeze one for later use.
While the recipe calls for a pint of strawberries and 1 cup of cream for the whipped cream, I actually double both. I haven't tried it with other berries or a combination of berries but I bet that would be delicious.
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