There’s something so soothing about watching Ina Garten prepare food. Whether it’s on her TV show, The Barefoot Contessa, or simply on an Instagram Reel, she certainly gives me the boost of confidence I need.
Her recipes are consistently crowd-pleasers, and she pretty much has one for every occasion. Feeling blue? Grab a bowl of butternut squash soup, which happens to be her favorite comfort food. Need a dessert that’ll wow at a potluck? Try Ina’s French apple tart and wait for the compliments to roll in. Hosting can be stressful, but not if you channel Ina’s sense of calm.
So while I don’t live in the Hamptons, I like to channel the Barefoot Contessa’s elevated nature whenever I have guests over. And Ina just dropped perhaps the easiest appetizer recipe that I have ever seen.
What is Ina Garten’s easy appetizer recipe?
While Ina is no stranger to firing up the grill for guests, she also has a few low-key recipes up her sleeve. Namely, a beautifully arranged Mediterranean mezze platter. It seems to combine two of Ina’s favorite sayings into one beautiful dish: “store bought is fine” and “how easy is that?”
In a recent Instagram post, Ina says that she has friends coming over for cocktails, and that it’s way too hot to cook. So, she shows viewers how she put together the platter—which requires zero cooking. “I’m going to make a Mediterranean mezze platter, completely with ingredients that I bought at the grocery store,” she says in the video.
First, she lays some fig leaves on a wooden platter (a large cutting board is a great option, too) as a nice base for the spread. “I take all of these ingredients, and I do something to them to make them special,” she says. “So it doesn’t feel like you’re cooking, but it also doesn’t feel like it’s from the store.”
She slices a block of feta, then sprinkles it with herbes de Provence and drizzles it with olive oil. She also puts hummus into a bowl, then tops it with pine nuts and, you guessed it, olive oil. Additional ingredients include vine-ripened tomatoes, stuffed grape leaves and baba ganoush topped with pomegranate arils. Then, of course, plenty of pita bread for dipping!
As she builds the platter, the overall effect is one of beautiful simplicity. It’s not going to be overwhelming to throw something like this together when you have guests visiting. I think it would pair nicely with a refreshing glass of rosé. How easy is that?
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Dining and Cooking