Queezle_Sister's Reviews
7 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 7Sort by: Title 
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The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook
By Ina Garten, Martha Stewart
Clarkson Potter - 1999
Caramelized Butternut Squash : page 151
Rich and sweet. Butternut squash is cut into cubes, and mixed with butter, brown sugar, salt and pepper. A long roasting time (about an hour) leads to nicely carmelized squares of bright orange squash.
For flavor and appearance, this recipe deserves a 5.
Why "only" four? Butternut squash starts out sweet, and it doesn't really need all that butter and brown sugar to be excellent. I felt that the recipe took a really healthy ingredient, and made it less healthy.
On the other hand, if you have kids who are vegetable adverse, this recipe might be your ticket.
As a side note, other than the sugar, this was a locovore delight.
useful (3)
Maple-Oatmeal Scones : page 223
Light, crunchy, with excellent flavor. These scones rose nicely, baked to a perfect crispness in 20 minutes, and the glaze is delicious!
I did modify the recipe, though. I couldn't bring myself to use as much butter as called for - so I used 1/2 the amount, and substituted yogurt. After doing this, I googled butter substitution and discovered that substitution of 1C butter should be 1/2C yogurt. Fearful of a too-wet dough, I omitted the maple syrup from the batter. I'm sure that the full butter version would be richer, but I suspect nobody would miss the butter.
Note that I also made a 1/2 batch, and I cut them into wedges instead of rounds (this way the scraps of extra dough were eliminated - these scraps tend to get overworked when you re-mold them).
This recipe was compared (by my children) to the family recipe for oatmeal scones. These were much richer, and not liked as much as our family's traditional recipe.
useful (3)
Parmesan Smashed Potatoes : page 158
Great flavorful potatoes!
But I must confess to several alterations - largely to cut the fat. But even so, kids and husband couldn't get enough of it!
Now to the changes -- I used 2/3 the butter called for, I replaced the half-and-half with 1% milk, and I replaced the sour cream with yogurt.
useful (5)
Raspberry Corn Muffins : page 215
Moist and sweet muffins. This recipe uses a 3:1 flour:corn ratio, as a result the texture is not as gritty as many corn muffins.
These were easy to prepare, but I did run into some problems. It makes a lot of batter. Ina Garten says to fill to the top of 12 muffin cups, so I just piled in the batter. Way too much - the entire top cooked together (see my picture #2). This made removing the muffins problematic, and only 7/12 came out intact.
I did pipe preserves into the muffins. It worked fine - very nice way to serve the muffins without having to give everyone a knife and have jam on the table. They were still crumbly, and the dog happily licked up all the crumbs that hit the floor.
While these were delicious, they use A LOT of butter and sugar - 1 C each. This is not the way I typically bake. Given that this recipe was developed for the Barefoot Contessa store, its great, and I could see it being loved by many. But it confirms my suspicion about buying muffins!
useful (2)
Roasted Brussels Sprouts : page 150
Excellent!
My DH prepared this for dinner tonight. He found it easy to follow the recipe and they tAsted quite good. My only quibble is that they seemed a bit overlooked and the house had an unpleasant aroma. I think just shortening the cooking time would solve both problems.
useful (1)
Szechuan noodles : page 108
Pretty tasty sauce! It does come together quickly, but to me it seemed very heavy and gloppy. Is gloppy a word? I think you know what I mean.
I used lovely peppers from my garden, but felt that the recipe would be improved by (1) breaking the pasta in half prior to cooking so its easier to mix in vegetables, and (2) tripling the vegetables.
I made about 2/3 of the sauce recipe, and still have about 1/2 C left over.
useful (1)
Turkey Meatloaf : page 138
This was good, but I've made much better meat loaf. There were no problems with the recipe (other than the size - we made 3/5 recipe), the cooking time seemed about right, and the texture was good. I think it just didn't have anything special about it. My kids ate it, but wanted seconds on the parmesan smashed potatoes instead of the meat loaf. Also not pretty enough for me to bother photographing.
useful (1)