How to Cook Like Ina Garten: Cookbook Club
Hi lovers! Welcome to Be My Huckleberry, thanks for stopping by!
First post ever over here- and I want to talk to you about my cookbook club. I realize that probably sounds super lame like something your grandma would do but it’s SO FUN! If you and your friends need an excuse to eat amazing food, take cute Instagram pics, and potentially drink some champagne, this is it.
Traditionally, a cookbook club is a group of people getting together and everyone cooking a recipe from the same cookbook to make a full on potluck style meal (the cooking happens before the gathering, not everyone is in the kitchen at the same time). However, that can get really tricky- especially when you have friends that don’t all eat the same things and don’t own the same cookbooks. My friends and I organize our cookbook club by chef, and to date we have only done celebrity chefs. We have also only done this twice… but it’s definitely happening monthly so it’s still a thing I can talk about.
To give a little bit of background, I collect cookbooks. It started as a vintage cookbook collection (which I still am constantly on the hunt for) but it has turned into a collection of old & new. The cookbook club came into existence amongst my friends because I was gifted an original Julia Child’s cookbook and needed an excuse to cook from it. Before cookbook club we were having brunch monthly, which was GREAT, but honestly this is better. Choosing Julia Child’s cookbook as our first was probably not the best idea. That is a really hard one to cook from! I knew it was French, I knew it was old, I’ve even seen Julia & Julia and I was still not expecting it to be as complex as it was, but we got through it and the food was delish.
Our next meeting we decided to cook from Ina Garten, the Barefoot queen herself. I loved cooking from Ina’s recipes. She uses really simple ingredients and makes really simple food that somehow is better than anything you’ve ever had before. My friend Jackie hosted this lunch at her house and we made and brought the following items: tomato soup with grilled cheese croutons, roasted brussels sprouts, zucchini gratin, linguine with shrimp scampi, salted caramel brownies and lemon bars. P.S. my mouth is watering as I write this. It was all so good. My two favorites were tomato soup with grilled cheese croutons (because I made this and it was yummy and so easy) and the linguine with shrimp scampi which is CRAZY because I don’t like shrimp! I didn’t really eat the shrimp in the dish but the pasta was all lemony and fresh, perfectly light, just so good. I would definitely recommend making all of these dishes though.
Linking the recipes below so you all can cook like Ina, too! Please start a cookbook club with your friends! You will love it. Keep you posted with our next meeting- we are going to be cooking Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings. I cannot wait. Let me know in the comments what you want to see next & if there is a cookbook you want us to cook from! <3
NOTE: when cooking the tomato soup I did NOT include the saffron or the orzo (because I didn’t have it) and it was still very good.
Menu
Easy Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons
Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta