Just as you started running out of distracti-baking projects to do at home, Joanna Gaines swoops in with 145 new recipes to try. The former Fixer Upper star's second cookbook, Magnolia Table, Volume 2, is now available, and this set of dishes provides even more insight into what the Gaines family's life is like when cameras aren't rolling.
There's the creamy chicken and poblano soup, inspired by a dish Joanna and her husband, Chip, ordered on one of their first dates at a now-shuttered restaurant in Dallas. And soft pretzels with cheese sauce, which remind Jo of the first thing she and her daughters grab when they're at one of the Gaines boys' baseball games. There's even the seaweed soup Joanna's mom has made after the birth of all five of Joanna's kids.
"It is Korean custom to make seaweed soup for a new mom after she's given birth because it's packed with all kinds of nutrients and a variety of protective antioxidants that are so healthy for the body," she explained in the recipe's headnote. Her mom now makes a batch of the soup—which features sticky rice, beef tenderloin and plenty of green onions—every season for the family to enjoy.
"Through the process of publishing my first book, I’d say I became even more committed to the value of sharing food and swapping recipes," Joanna shared in a Q&A with PureWow. "There was something about watching my family’s favorite meals brought to life in different ways on so many dinner tables across the country that really made me marvel at the power of food and the ways it builds connections between us."
