Test Cooking: Ina Garten's Modern Comfort Food
Our family loves Ina Garten-we have all of her cookbooks and use them as our go to source for recipes. Her newest book, Modern Comfort Food, came out this fall and we all gave it to each other for Christmas. The idea of comfort food is such a personal one, as she talks about in the book, and it can vary wildly from one person to another. I think it’s usually food that has carbs, it’s often warm food, but it really comes down to food that reminds you of childhood, and for me, that’s spaghetti, grilled cheese, and chocolate chip cookies.
We were so excited to delve into this cookbook that we decided to test out some of the recipes from each category and rate them on easiness, taste, and the amount of comfort that they gave us. For Eloise, the Waffle Iron Hash Browns were the surprise winner, but our mom, Chad and the kids all voted for the Bittersweet Chocolate Cake. Keep reading to see our reviews of the seven recipes that we tried.
Fig & Cheese Toasts
I love all of the ingredients in this recipe and it was super easy to assemble, but it looked pretty and like I had put more effort into it than it actually required, which is always a win to me! We couldn’t find fresh figs at either of the grocery stores we went to, but all of the other ingredients were easy to find or to have on hand, and we ended up substituting thinly sliced pears for the figs, which totally worked. I would definitely make this for friends if we’re ever able to entertain again-it’s the perfect simple hors d’oeuvre to serve before dinner, but next time I might add a little more balsamic vinegar to keep it from being too sweet.
Easiness: 4 out of 5
Taste: 4 out of 5
Comfort: 3 out of 5 (it’s more of a party food than a cozy food, to me)
Spinach & Artichoke Dip
This recipe was pretty much the opposite of the Fig and Cheese Toasts. It had a million ingredients and was very labor intensive, but the end result was warm and cozy. My mom and I both really enjoyed it, although we thought that it might benefit from a little more spice. The girls had no interest in it, which really surprised me-I thought they would love it, so I probably wouldn’t make it again, unless it was for a big party because it made a lot (the picture above is of one half of what the recipe made).
Easiness: 2 out of 5
Taste: 3 out of 5
Comfort: 4 out of 5
Crispy Chicken with Lemon Orzo
Okay, this recipe was definitely a winner. The girls and Chad ate so much chicken that we ran out, which never happens! The ingredients were easy to locate, although we had a grocery store snafu and somehow bought skinless breasts instead of skin on breasts. We decided to roll with it (I’ve gotten a lot more flexible in the past year) and use the skinless breasts and it still tasted great. I also wanted to try this because I just got my first cast iron pan and this recipe calls for one, and I had no trouble despite being a novice cast iron pan user. The chicken was delicious and everyone ate every bite. I loved the orzo, and might have added even more dill and lemon, but the kids preferred eating the orzo plain.
Easiness: 4 out of 5
Taste: 5 out of 5
Coziness: 4 out of 5
Bittersweet Chocolate Cake
This recipe was the hands down favorite for our family-Chad even went back for a second piece after eating birthday cake. It’s very easy to make and the end result is a gooey cross between a cake and brownie, which is the ultimate comfort food for me. Yum and yum! We just melted the chocolate in a pan over low heat because we were too lazy to deal with the double boiler situation, and we just used a regular 8 in pan because I didn’t have a springform pan, and it still turned out perfectly. Seriously, we cannot say enough good things about this recipe.
Easiness: 5 out of 5
Taste: 5 out of 5
Comfort: 5 out of 5
Waffle Iron Hashbrowns
This recipe surprised me because it was so easy and yummy. I decided to make it spur of the moment because I had all the ingredients in my pantry already. I love hashbrowns, but rarely make them because they’re labor intensive. I was a little intimidated by the grating process for the potatoes and onions, but it was actually very easy, and only took a few minutes to put the “batter” together. I have a smaller waffle iron, and each waffle cooks for 5-10 minutes, so it did take a while to make the entire batch, but I puttered around while they were cooking, so it wasn’t painful. They were crispy and delicious and the kids ate all of them-I can see this being a regular part of our weekend breakfast rotation.
Easiness: 4 out of 5
Taste: 5 out of 5
Comfort: 5 out of 5
Potato Galette with Smoked Salmon
Dinah here - one of the things I really miss are long, fun brunches with friends, so making any brunch-adjacent food brings me so much comfort these days. Since I only have myself to cook for, I decided to make this recipe as it seemed pretty easy to adjust the portions on! I also cheated a bit and made it even easier by using the Trader Joe’s potato pancakes ( I also sprinkled a little bit of Everything But the Bagel seasoning on it after photos for extra flavor). It ended up being incredibly easy, and based on Eloise’s experience with the waffle iron hashbrowns, probably would have still been easy to make the galette from scratch. It would be the perfect thing to make for a fancy breakfast or brunch and using the pancakes also would make it very easy to execute for a larger group once we can have parties again!
Easiness: 5 out of 5
Taste: 4 out of 5
Comfort: 3 out of 5