This time, we're taking a gander inside the well-stocked fridge that TV personality and cookbook author Carla Hall shares with her husband in Washington, DC.
Hall's fridge is a trove of fun finds, from condiments we know and love to fancy European butter and an ample supply of eggs.
When she's in DC, Hall tends to eat most of her meals at home, and we caught her just after a social-media shoot when her fridge was fully stocked with her staples plus a few unexpected treats.
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Sundae fixings
Hall is serious about her ice cream. At the time of this interview, she said she had at least seven different containers of it in her freezer.
Her favorites are from Jeni's and Tillamook, and her husband loves Chunky Monkey, but the two really don't discriminate.
"We're pretty agnostic when it comes to ice-cream brands. We just like them all," she told Business Insider.
But Hall's a chef, after all, so don't think she's scooping a few flavors into a bowl and calling it a day. She's dedicated a section of her fridge to sundae toppings, including homemade chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, and gooey wet walnuts.
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She also likes to top a sundae with toasted nuts, which she stores on the counter.
Lots of condiments, including multiple mustards
"Condiments, lemons, and pickles" are always in Hall's fridge no matter how empty it gets because they're the basis of any coleslaw or hot sauce.
"I love all the mustards — they all have a different role," she said. She relies on it to add "tang" and "brightness" to dips and dressings.
She had a jar of Grey Poupon Dijon in her fridge and said there's no replacement for a classic bottle of Heinz yellow mustard.
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"As a Southern girl, yellow mustard is king," Hall told BI.
For fried fish, she mixes yellow mustard with hot sauce. And one of her favorite sauces for red meat is a honey mustard, made by mixing equal parts yellow mustard and mayonnaise with a bit of honey.
A chocolate chess pie
"I love desserts. I love sweets," Hall said. "I don't drink or smoke but my drug of choice is probably sugar."
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So it makes sense that the white box in her fridge houses a chocolate chess pie (on top, she's stacked two containers of simple syrup for a baklava recipe test).
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This particular fudgy Southern custard pie is part of Hall's offerings on Goldbelly, and she was taste-testing it for final approval.
A triple stack of eggs
Hall found a storage container for eggs that she loves when filming a segment for QVC.
The clear plastic holder stores two layers of eggs — plus she keeps another carton stacked on top — so she can always see how many are left.
"I hate running out of eggs," Hall said, adding that she cooks them often.
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"My go-to meal when I just don't want to cook, or it's too late, or I want something quick is usually eggs — scrambled, an omelet," she said.
Amaro co*cktail cherries
"I don't drink, but I eat my alcohol," Hall told BI.
She keeps amaro-soaked cherries in the fridge door to add to oatmeal — she's a "big proponent of jazzing up oatmeal."
She also likes using these jarred Italian cherries to add a more nuanced, tart flavor to pie filling made with frozen berries, which can be bland.
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European butter
You'll find both salted and unsalted butter in Hall's fridge. She likes unsalted for making biscuits but opts for salted butter on bread.
But you may only see the really good stuff in her fridge if it's on sale.
"The one thing that I get when it's on sale is any kind of European-style butter," Hall said.
She finds particularly good deals on high-end butter like Plugrà at her local Safeway, where she "stocks up on it."
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Mystery leftovers
If you're curious about the container with reddish contents in the center of Hall's fridge, join the club.
"I was trying to figure out what that was, I have no idea what that is. It looks like a stew," she said.
"Whatever it is, we were getting into it," she laughed.
Plant-based milks galore
Hall has a wide range of dairy products in her fridge starting with chocolate oat milk, which she bought on impulse because it sounded good.
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The fridge also has unflavored nondairy milk, which Hall's husband uses in his smoothies. Their favorite is Califia Farm's oat and almond milk, but they also stock up on shelf-stable boxes of oat milk at Costco, which they can keep in the pantry when their fridge is too full.
Heavy cream
Hall keeps a quart of heavy cream from a local dairy on hand for making whipped cream and finishing soups.
She also uses it for her recent discovery: a recipe for no-churn ice cream that she can make if her freezer supply runs out. To make it, she said, you freeze a mix of cream cheese, store-bought lemon curd, and a splash of heavy cream.
"Oh my god, it's so good," she told BI. "It's a quick little ice cream, and you don't need an ice-cream maker to make it."
