We were very excited about trying this cookbook. Thomas Keller is an American chef and cookbook author. He owns the famous Napa Valley restaurant The French Laundry. Ad hoc at home is supposed to be his family-style comfort food cookbook. We can't say we were wow'd by it. Even though everything turned out well and was tasty, we felt that the recipes were either not that easy, took a lot of time, or were not very economical.
Braised Artichokes
This was a great appetizer. I loved that it was light but still full of flavor. It was a bit hard to eat because of the carrots and fennel that were served on top. There was no picture of this dish in the cookbook and it wasn't completely clear how the artichoke had to be cut, so this may not look exactly the way Keller had intended it to look but it was still a good dish.
Peperonata Rustica
This was a a simple but tasty dish. The recipe was pretty easy and straight forward. The peppers were first baked in the oven and then cooked in broth with Soffritto. It was definitely more flavorful than I expected it to be but the cookbook didn't say what to serve it on or with, so we brought it out with bread and it turned out to be a great addition to the rest of the meal. If you have any left over, try it for breakfast with a sunny side up served on top.
Beef Stroganoff
You can't go wrong with beef, mushroom sauce and pasta. This turned out amazing and was actually one of my favorite dishes of the evening. The beef was really tender and the sauce was creamy but not too heavy. This was one of the dishes that took forever, though. The beef had to be made a day ahead and cooked for hours in a special wine reduction sauce. Per the cookbook, we were suppose to make home-made pasta. We didn't and it still took 2 days to make this dish. It was really good but not sure if it was worth the time. I'm sure there are other Stroganoff recipes that are just as good and take half the time to make.
Chicken Pot Pie
This was my other favorite dish. The pie looked perfect when it came out of the oven. The pie crust turned out great on the first try and was nicely browned and flaky. The chicken, vegetables and cream sauce were perfectly cooked, it had great texture and was very flavorful. We added a bit of salt to it afterwards but if you're not eating it right away, you may not need it. The flavors actually settled in more the longer you waited. If you follow the recipe to a tee, this would also take forever to make because we were supposed to cook each vegetable separately in a mix of herbs and then mix it all together in the end. This was already a great tasting dish and we don't think it would have been that much better if we had done it differently.
Upside down Pineapple cake
Last but not least, we made a pineapple cake for dessert. Overall it had good flavor but the bottom of the cake was a bit dry to me. I liked it though because it wasn't super sweet and actually would probably be very good with some tea or coffee.
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