Andy Gray

The Grays own a lot of cookbooks.

A LOT. If the over / under is 200, I’m taking the over.

Despite shelves filled with cookbooks in the dining room and kitchen, most of the time when I try something new or am looking for a recipe, I turn to the Internet or the emails I get daily from Food & Wine and other sources.

A new year is a time for resolutions, and for 2023 we decided to try to cook something from one of our cookbooks every week.

I went first. We have a few Ina Garten releases, and I decided to pick one of those for a couple of reasons. All of the Garten cookbooks we inherited from my mom, who died last May. I think all of them were Christmas or birthday gifts we bought her. Considering my mom is responsible for my love of cooking (and eating), it seemed like a good place to start. I also heard an interview with Garten on NPR driving back from Cleveland last month around the time this idea was hatched.

I picked “Barefoot Contessa Family Style,” which we bought for mom in 2003, according to what she wrote inside. To be honest, I was kind of underwhelmed by the options, at least for dinner entrees, until I got to the breakfast section and found the recipe for Potato Basil Frittata. We’ve done frittatas for dinner before, and do breakfast for dinner regularly, so it seemed like a good choice.

A little bit of flour and baking powder made the frittata rise, and it was less densely eggy than the ones we normally make. I made it slightly more healthy, but it still has a ton of cheese. I used partly skim ricotta instead of the whole milk variety, and I used 8 ounces of smoked Gruyere instead of 12 ounces of the regular. Twelve ounces seemed like an insane amount, and it certainly didn’t taste under-cheesed.

A Parmesan Roasted Asparagus from “Family Style” was made a few days earlier. It’s a simple side dish we will definitely make again. The frittata also is a keeper.

There is a good chance we’re going to miss a week here and there — or get bored with the idea entirely — but we’ve made it through the first three.

My wife, Michelle, made a pastitsio recipe from one of our more recent acquisitions, “Sea Salt and Honey: Celebrating the Food of Kardamili in 100 Sun-Drenched Recipes: A New Greek Cookbook.”

With the inclusion of eggplant, this recipe was on the non-traditional side, kind of like the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of Greek casseroles — “You got moussaka in my pastitsio.” “No, you got pastitsio in my moussaka.”

Think of it as the best of both worlds. It was a great dinner on Sunday, and the leftovers made a great work lunch on Monday.

Tuesday was my wife’s birthday, so we used a pair of cookbooks. I fixed shrimp and grits from Bobby Flay’s “Bar Americain Cookbook,” one of Michelle favorite dishes. For a birthday cake, our younger daughter, Ali, made a dense, brownie-like Chocolate Hazelnut Cake from her “Morgan Freeman & Friends: Caribbean Cooking for a Cause” cookbook.

Freeman is one of her favorite actors, and we have no shortage of oddball cookbooks like that. Her sister, Anna, has a habit of buying cookbooks loosely based on movies or television shows she likes, even if they have little or no connection to food. I know we have a “Hunger Games” cookbook in the house, and I’m pretty sure we have a “Game of Thrones” one too. Watching those shows, I never wondered, “Gee, what’s the recipe is for the gruel the folks in District 13 eat” or “Hey, I’d love to eat that poultry dish the Starks just bled all over at the Red Wedding.”

But I’m not above a movie tie-in cookbook. In preparation for my next turn in the rotation, I pulled “Cucina & Famiglia” off the shelf. It’s the cookbook actor Stanley Tucci was involved with following the release of his directing debut “Big Night,” which I would call the greatest foodie movie of all time.

I’m not ready to tackle the Timpano, but there’s no shortage of tempting offerings to help keep this resolution going … at least until February.

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com.