Curtis Stone - Good Food, Good Life: 130 Simple Recipes Youll Love to Make and Eat

BY CURTIS STONE

Good Food, Good Life

Whats for Dinner?

Relaxed Cooking with Curtis Stone

Cooking with Curtis

Surfing the Menu Again

Surfing the Menu

Copyright 2015 by Curtis Stone

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Photographs Ray Kachatorian

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Stone, Curtis.
Good food, good life: 130 simple recipes youll love to make and eat /
Curtis Stone.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-345-54255-7
ebook ISBN 978-0-345-54256-4
1. Quick and easy cooking. 1. Title.
TX714.S78594 2015
641.512dc23 2014036637

www.ballantinebooks.com

v3.1

Contents

Introduction

I may be stating the obvious here but Ill say it anywaymy life wholly and completely revolves around food. Not just the eating of it (though my mum used to call me a greedy little monster, and she was rightand things have never really changed), but the entire experience that encircles food. For me, thats anything from planting and plucking up veggies in my garden with the California sun on my back to the pride that comes with pulling a simple roast chicken out of the oven and unveiling its perfectly golden brown skin. Its also cooking breakfast with my three-year-old son, Hudson Hudzini, who has more fun in the kitchen than he does playing a game of trains, or seeing guests faces light up when theyre presented with a unique tasting plate at my restaurant, Maude. The simple and sometimes extraordinary joys that good food brings to me makes for a very good life.

Food has made all of my dreams come true. Ive been fortunate enough to travel and cook with some of the best chefs in the world, and its provided me with a career that keeps me steadily on my toes, just the way I like it! I get to host food shows and events, develop hundreds of recipes for home cooks in my test kitchen, and spend as much time as I can cooking at my intimate twenty-five-seat restaurant in Los Angeles. But when I really hone in on what it is I love most about food, its the really simple stuff like sitting around a dinner table sharing stories and celebrating occasions over really delicious home-cooked food, while showing a little love to the special people in my world.

I wrote Good Food, Good Life because I believe in just that: through tasty, well-cooked food prepared with fresh, quality, and seasonal produce you can have an incredible life. Good food and a fulfilled life become easier to obtain when youve got some inspiration and encouragement to spur you on; my hope is that you reap a good dose of both from a bunch of the recipes, tips, and experiences shared in this book.

The recipes that make up this collection are the same delicious ones that I cook at home from morning to night and include snacks, sweets, light meals, sides, drinks, breakfast, and dinner, too. Theres the green juice that Hud and I make most mornings with freshly picked fruits and veggies, grilled spicy lemongrass chicken wings for a Saturday afternoon snack around the pool, bad for me but tastes so flipping good divine chocolate brownies that I eat much too oftenplus 127 more that youll love to make and eat.

Different stages of my life have influenced this assorted collection of dishes. For instance, I know youll fall for the Chocolate Salted Caramel Kisses that I used to eat in the schoolyard all those years ago, and Im excited to share some recipes that Ive cooked time and again in my restaurants, such as Sesame Shrimp Toast, but have now been appropriated for the home kitchen. I mastered the art of making these babies at nineteen years of age working as an apprentice in Melbourne, Australia, and this version is so so simple for cooks of all levels to replicate.

Im now husband to the love of my life, Lindsay, and lucky father to our two gorgeous kids. As chef of the house, I do my best to fill their bellies with as much joy and goodness as I can. Hence, there are a few of our secret family recipes divulged in each chapter, even a scaled-back cupcake interpretation of the carrot cake with brown sugar cream cheese frosting that I whipped up for Linds on our wedding day. I promise you the cupcakes are much easier to bake than our three-tiered wedding cake, and are equally delicious.

I have my beautiful family and good friends to thank for giving me a great life. I want to provide for them, nurture them, and make them deliriously happy, and the way I know how to do this is through good food.

Food has been so good to me. Good Food, Good Life is a celebration of all the dishes that bring overwhelming happiness to me and to the most important people in my world. I hope theyll bring just as much to you and yours.

Chapter 1

LIGHT MEALS

I can think of no better way to spend my time than sharing a home-cooked meal with family and good mates. The food, people, setting, time of day, music played, and cocktails mixed make every gathering an occasion. However, I do like to kick back on the couch every now and then, and tuck into a well-made sandwich or satisfying salad. Whether its a light flatbread sandwich stuffed with summers crispest cucumbers and sweetest tomatoes or a frise and apple salad in the fall, theres something about eating barefoot and almost horizontal on the sofa that feels particularly indulgent.