The Cookbook Chronicles: Robin Miller

Food Network star and GUIDEPOSTS contributor Robin Miller sat down with us to answer questions from our series Cookbook Chronicles.

Find out her most essential ingredients, her favorite comfort food and more!

What inspired you to start cooking?
I have to say my biggest inspiration for cooking was my mom. She’s one of those straight-from-the-garden type cooks. She will pick fresh herbs and fresh vegetables and go right in and make an amazing salad or beautiful side dish. And she pickled and canned too. These are things that I kind of grew up watching her do; she had fun doing it. So her passion is my inspiration.

What three ingredients are always in your kitchen?
It would have to be pasta. My little boys, Kyle and Luke, love pasta—and it’s affordable and quick.

I absolutely love canned tomatoes. I love them for sauces, soups, stews. They’re a great go-to; they’re a shelf staple because they last. They’re affordable and they can transform any dish. You can have an Italian dish, a Mexican dish, an Indian dish and all with that same can of tomatoes. Plus they’re a great source of cancer fighting lycopene, so I like that too.

Lastly, I would say nuts. I love to have nuts, any kind of nut; blanched, unsalted. This way, for me, you can take an ordinary dish and make it extraordinary. You can make a pesto with nuts and some fresh herbs, you can crust fish or chicken and roast it, and suddenly it becomes this spectacular meal that you could prepare for your guests.

What’s your favorite comfort food?
This is a two-part answer. I love extra thin delivery pizza with mushrooms! We get that delivered every Sunday.

I also love my own homemade chocolate chip cookies. I’m allergic to egg yolks, so I leave out the yolks and just put in the whites. And I throw in an extra entire cup of chips and an extra teaspoon or two of vanilla extract. They’re so good! My kids love them too.

If you were a dish, would you be an appetizer, entrée, dessert or drink?
This has to be a two-part answer, too. I think half of me would be a drink and it would be a margarita, because to me it’s a fun drink and I love to have fun.

The other part of me, I’m a mom first and foremost; so I think my second thing would be an entrée and it would be a hearty pasta dish with lots of vegetables. It’s comforting, it’s hearty and nutritious, so I think as a mom that’s what I would like to be.