Columbus Foodie

I was lucky enough to be chosen to participate in this round of Cookbook Spotlight, a food blogging event where a group of bloggers all receive the same book, and blog about it by cooking a recipe from within the book. On this go round, the book chosen was Gale Gand’s Brunch!: 100 Fantastic Recipes for the Weekend’s Best Meal, which is chock full of brunch recipes ranging from both the simple to the complex.

We chose to make the Torta Rustica (pg 65-67), which easily has to be in the top 10 list of the best things I’ve eaten in the past year. You would think that a conglomeration of ingredients like puff pastry, eggs, spinach, mushrooms, ham, mozzarella cheese and roasted red peppers would clash a bit, but it melded together in a way that brought out the best of each individual ingredient. And although a bit time consuming, it was one of the simplest and most satisfying recipes I’ve made in years. Unfortunately, by publisher request I can’t include the recipe (although I’d love to), so you’ll have to buy (or borrow) the book to get it.

The book itself is visually stunning, a nice dust-jacketed hardback with large colorful pictures of each recipe. This is a book that I would have added to my collection regardless, as there are still a ton of recipes that I still want to make, like Baked Cinnamon-Apple French Toast, Quick Pear Streusel Coffee Cake, Glazed Crullers and more. This is definitely one you want to add to your collection if you haven’t already.