On a perfectly rainy Saturday afternoon, I baked my very last recipe from Magnolia Table, Vol. 1. It was a fitting recipe to end with, a rather time-consuming baked Syrian Donut that Joanna Gaines used to bake with her grandfather when she was a little girl. As with most recipes in this cookbook, she shares a little story: "My grandfather was a quiet man, and we rarely had the opportunity to really connect. He and my grandmother had nine kids and lots of grandchildren, so it was rare to spend any time alone with either of them. While we mixed the dough and shaped the donuts that day, he told me stories about his life and the history of our family that I had never heard before. It was a day I will never forget." Joanna goes on to explain that she now loves to remake this recipe on the weekends with her kids and recount the same stories she remembers from her grandfather. Recipe after recipe, generation after generation.
My most favorite foods to make and eat are the ones with great stories to go with them. And what I didn't realize when I started this little mission to cook my way through a cookbook is that for the past two years, I would write my own book of stories along the way. Stories like baking pretty little ramekins of bread pudding and delivering it to Sorbes' doorstep on the first Sunday of quarantine, a Sunday tradition that continued on for weeks after. Or making that delicious spinach and leek risotto for our Good Friday feast, sharing communion for the first time with the kids and then crushing all Easter bunny dreams for Mila. Or getting up at the crack of dawn to bake orange scones and watch the royal wedding just a week from returning home from our first trip to London. Or coming home from a late night of work to find Beau's own Magnolia Table escapade, including some curated photos of his own and a shot of tomato basil soup as soon as I walked through the door. As I thumb through this now very worn, sticky, and flour-stained cookbook, I smile so big as I remember the stories and faces that shared in the messy kitchens, taste test critiques, and butter-gruyere-sugary goodness that this cookbook has brought to our table.
Food has always had this magical power of bringing people together. I still get a feeling of warmth when I eat mom's spaghetti sauce or that chicken casserole with the ritz crackers on top. Beau and I will forever cherish those first few years of marriage when it was just us, our cat, and our first kitchen - without a dishwasher. Years of learning to perfect our very own spaghetti sauce morphed into years of learning to involve our kids in what we love about the kitchen, too. Whether it's teaching Cruz to flip his own pancakes, spending an afternoon with Mila in our aprons baking something sweet, or getting in some competitive fun with another Jorgensen Top Chef night, my hope is that these years investing in cooking and the connection that comes with sharing a meal will carry on a legacy for Cruz and Mila as they grow. And that someday, they will not only know a thing or two about creating a great dish, but they will always find a sense of home around the table.
There were so many fun things I learned from this two year process of cooking through the 150 recipes in Magnolia Table. One of my favorite parts of committing to the entire cookbook is that I tried several things I would have never otherwise attempted. I will never forget making my first hollandaise sauce, and then frantically trying to fix the hollandaise sauce when it quickly broke apart! The breakfast section of this cookbook is really the hidden treasure. Even though my original goal was to cook through this thing in a year, I love that I finished it up during quarantine. Those memories of our Sundays, with a new Magnolia recipe followed by church on the couch in our pjs were definitely some of my favorites of that season at home.
On Mother's day this year, I baked Bevie's Chocolate Roll with Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce and it was absolutely delicious. There we were, all crowded around the kitchen island eating the leftover hot fudge sauce right from the pan, talking about all the recipes we've loved, as well as the very few we haven't loved along the way. I couldn't believe all the recipes the kids could recall. This was their adventure, too. And I hope by watching their mom in the kitchen they learned that investing in something and seeing it through takes commitment, takes some failing and trying again, and leads to a lot of growth and blessing along the way. And that chocolate roll was a blessing all by itself!
As we were devouring it that night and deciding that it may in fact be our favorite recipe from the book, Beau started sharing about the hot fudge sauce his dad used to make when he was a kid, to which he called "Chockie Sauce." Apparently his dad used to make it on Sunday nights and they'd have ice cream sundaes after pizza. As he talked about his dad's sweet tooth with a twinkle in his eye, I decided right then that my next adventure would be to compile my own family recipes and stories for the Jorgensen Table Cookbook. And maybe, just maybe, crack open that Magnolia Table, Volume 2 that I've resisted opening until I finished the first one.
My Favorite Magnolia Recipes, in no particular order
1. Bevie's Chocolate Roll with Hot Fudge Sauce
2. Homemade Biscuits - with the sausage gravy
3. Broiled honey thyme peaches with ice cream and balsamic reduction
4. JoJo's Chocolate chip cookies
5. Buttermilk ranch dressing
6. Sweet pepper and pancetta frittata
7. Flatbread pizza with prosciutto and new potatoes
8. Cinnamon swirl quick bread
9. Joanna's pie crust
10. Baked egg bread pudding with spinach, boursin, and bacon
11.Mushroom, spinach and swiss cheese quiche
Honorable mentions: fresh spinach and leek risotto, green beans with red wine bernaise sauce, and the angel food cake with blueberry compote.
And lastly, a shout-out to all the recipes I've made again and again. I made every thing once, but there were several recipes that quickly became part of the rotation. These are our top make agains...
1. Gaines Family Chili
2. Sheet Pan Nachos
3. Guacamole
4. BLTs with Easy Herbed Mayo
5. After School Banana Bread
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