Thursday, July 21, 2016

Book #8: Cravings by Chrissy Teigen



Back after a hiatus of a few years!  Where does the time go?   And was I really the one to write those blogs??  At this rate, it will take me... (8 blogs, 4 years, that's 2 blogs a year...)..500 years to get to 1000 cookbooks.  I'd better speed it up!).

For my return book, I'm highlighting Chrissy Teigen's debut cookbook, Cravings. You may know her as being a Sports Illustrated model (I did not).  I think she's one of those models that is in so many places that you recognize her and say..."Where do I know her from?"  Most recently, I knew her as a cohost from Lip Sync battles, (which is pretty hilarious and over the top, if you haven't seen it).  

 I did not just choose this book because she is hot and hoping I could learn from her.  I mean, if she can be sexy and eat all this crazy stuff, I can too.  She may have started with some different materials though.  So from the show, she is quite charismatic and funny.  This comes through in her book.  It's really hilarious.  (and it's a cookbook!)  She shares a little of herself in each recipe.  I have to say that there definitely are some gratuitous photos of her feeding her husband John Legend, or just showing a whole lotta leg.  Who is this book for???  Is W going to start making these recipes for me??

But seriously, these are some great staple recipes.  It is an American comfort food focus, like potato salad, Dutch Baby's (did we decide that maybe those really aren't American, based on the name?) but with a modernized focus, like Pot Pie Soup w/ Crust Crackers OR Yellow Cake Baked Oatmeal.  (Wait, what?)  But also includes such classics as "Sh*t on toast" and Zucchini Lasagna Bolgnese.  Chrissy is half Thai, so it also has a Thai influence, like Chicken Satay.  Yumm!  And umm...this is not a health book.


For my first attempts at her book, I tried out the Chicken Lettuce Wraps.  Ok, prep time is NOT 15 minutes.  But still worth the time.  They went quickly, and the flavor was sweet and complex.  If I were to compare them to lettuce wraps I have had elsewhere (I am embarrassed to say PF Chang's), I didn't like the flavor balance quite as much, but that may just be tweaking the ingredients.  The water chestnuts provided a perfect crunch, the scallions also a nice variety.  A solid recipe!





My personal learnings while making this recipe...did you know about mother of vinegar?  I had an old bottle of rice vinegar I thought I might use, but it had this crazy thing inside which looked a bit like a potato sliced up and ready for potatoes au gratin.  It was not.  From my main encyclopedic source, Wikipedia (don't tell my students!), " Mother of Vinegar is a substance composed of a form of cellulose and acetic acid bacteriathat develops on fermenting alcoholic liquids....[It] can also form in store-bought vinegar if there is some non-fermented sugar and/or alcohol contained in the vinegar."  Apparently you can still use this vinegar, but since the mother was really taking over (Mom!!), I bought a new bottle and saw instantly (ok, smelled) that the new one actually smelled like vinegar and the old one smelled like...not vinegar.  


Also, don't be thinking you have Thai sweet chili sauce at home, when actually it is the Vietnamese Chili Garlic sauce.  It's all about the sweet!




I also made Chrissy's Creamy Potato Salad with Bacon.  I have been looking for a go-to potato salad recipe, and based on the rave reviews, this may be it.  A good mayo base, scallions ( I think they are in all her recipes), hard boiled eggs, BACON, red onion, gave lots of variety to the salad.  A slight variation on a classic, but a good one.


If this blog is showing me nothing else, it's saying I need to work on my photography skills.  These dishes looked perfectly delicious when I photographed them.  They even looked ok on my phone.  Now they look some sort of mush--except for the bacon of course.


I'd give this cookbook 4.5 stars.  Humor (completely unnecessary in a cookbook), beautiful food photos, solid recipes, and some great variations on your typical home cooked meal.

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