celery -

by hungry monster

Cooking with Love: Carla Hall's Rustic Mushroom Tart

Hey, guess what? I got an opportunity to review Carla Hall”s brand new cookbook, Cooking with Love: Comfort Food that Hugs You. I was obviously very excited. Thanks, ES!

I have been a fan of Carla Hall since her first season on Top Chef, Season 5. When she came back for All-Stars, I also enjoyed rooting her on. She has a southern style of cooking that focuses on comfort food and fine dining spins on classics. Plus, she has a super perky and positive personality, but not in an annoying sort of way. Like in a contagiously sunny kind of way.

This book has so many great recipes that I”ve bookmarked to try, like goat cheese grits and buffalo wing burgers (yum!) It also has some little anecdotes and tips from Carla. Carla was a caterer before she made it big and has some great tips about serving large groups, if you are into that kind of thing. If I had to give a constructive criticism about the book, it would be that I would like a picture for every recipe. That”s probably not doable to have so many photographs, but that”s what I like. Although the pictures that are already in the book are quite stunning.

All in all, I”d say everyone should definitely have this cookbook on their shelves. It”s pretty rockin”.

So, I decided to make the mushroom nbso tart recipe and it was pretty boss. Super easy and oh so tasty. I didn”t use a paddle attachment on a food processor , so my dough was a little more crumbly than hers appears. It was still really good, though.

You should make this and pop over to Amazon to preorder her book, which comes out November 6th.

Rustic Mushroom Tart from Cooking with Love

When Inauthentic Is Delicious: Weeknight “Gumbo”

Ok, let me preface this by saying that this is not authentic gumbo. No need to point it out to me. I am aware.

I set out to make authentic gumbo with the brown roux and what not, but if you know anything about gumbo, it’s pretty labor intensive and time consuming. That’s not my bag, baby.

I am going to tell you a little anecdote (if you can even call it that) from my week, so you get a feel of how I work in the kitchen.

I went to three different stores looking for fish sauce for this gumbo recipe. Not sure why. I read it in a cookbook, so I figured it’s important. So, 3 stores and nothing. Then my Dad found it and got it for me (love you, Dad!) It was such a huge bottle of fish sauce, so I suppose I was set for many future gumbos.

Except, I couldn’t get it open. That dang top would not come off. I guess this would be where an extra set of (not weak old lady) hands would have been beneficial. Honestly, I probably could have gotten it open, but I have no patience or perseverance for such a task. Don’t I sound like a fun person?

Long story short: no fish sauce made it into this dish. So sad. But true.

Here’s how it all went down.