I Let Ina Garten Pack My Lunch For a Week. Here Are My Ratings from 1 to 5 Cosmos

Honestly, girl dinner. Technically this is in the appetizer section but sometimes, all I want for dinner is bread and cheese. Or crackers and cheese. The ricotta is ultra-creamy and gets a little kick from the black pepper and red pepper flakes. Garten advises using mild olive oil, but if you’re a crazy enthusiast like me, you can use a stronger olive oil for a more forward flavor profile. For what it’s worth, after trying it once, I skipped the fig jam (shown above). You lose the sweetness but it’s still incredibly satisfying. You can also make this ahead of time and refrigerate, which is another big plus.

Admittedly, I’ve made bone broth before and really ad-hoc’d this, mainly due to the fact that I do not own a stock pot that can accommodate THREE 5-pound roasting chickens. I also cut the herbs. Otherwise, I used all the same key ingredients working with the pot I had (I do this in my slow cooker). Doing it in the slow cooker makes it a set-it-and-forget-it operation. Bone broth is super good for you, and it also really amps up the flavor in soups and any other recipe that needs stock. (Garten has a recipe for tortellini soup that calls for 12 cups of the stuff.) I plan to make this in bulk and freeze it for any and all winter soup needs.

When I was an au pair, I made zucchini soup for my kids every week, courtesy of the family’s trusty immersion blender. I have never owned one myself until I saw this recipe and knew I needed to make it immediately. As Garten has previously claimed, Simply Ina is all about low-effort and what she calls “barely cooking,” and so the recipe calls for pre-cut butternut squash. Well, lo and behold, I could not find this for the life of me, across THREE grocery stores. When I discovered how easy it was to chop and peel a squash on my own, the pursuit of pre-cut actually felt like more effort. There are only six ingredients, five if you cut out the optional (but recommended) cheese crisps. Though the recipe only calls for 1.5 cups of apple cider, I was forced to buy a gallon jug. Initially dismayed, it’s actually come in handy to thin out the leftover soup, which thickens in the fridge.

There are a few cuisines I usually never cook at home due to intimidation with the number of ingredients, including French. However, Garten’s provençal chicken had just ten, and most were pantry staples minus, for me, the olives and capers. This recipe is in the one-pot dinner section, and I did indeed cook everything in one large Dutch oven. I love that she coats the chicken in flour (I used gluten-free) to help crisp up the skin. Initially I was weary about bone-in thighs (I hate bones), but it’s true: The meat is more tender. Everything marinates slowly in the oven, and the resulting sauce is delicious over rice, polenta, quinoa or your grain of choice. The only thing that was slightly disappointing is that my crispy chicken skins went a little soft in the oven. A solid 3.5 Cosmos, which is high praise from someone who hates handling raw meat.