Winner of Your Best Dirt Cheap Dinner

Congratulations to My Pantry Shelf, whose Sausage and Kale Dinner Tart won this week's contest for Your Best Dirt Cheap Dinner, earning her a handsome Staub Oval Gratin Baking Dish from Williams-Sonoma, plus big prizes from Viking, OXO and Tiny Prints, and a spot in the next food52 cookbook!

Q&A with My Pantry Shelf

• Describe an early food experience that has influenced the way you think about food and/or cooking. 
• In high school, I worked at Earthbeam, a natural foods store in Burlingame, California. I learned so much about fresh foods and whole grains.  It definitely influenced my habits in the kitchen.

• What's your least favorite food?
• Bland, processed food.

• What is the best thing you've made so far this year?
• Oh, I have been having a real good time in the kitchen this year, so it is hard to choose.  Of late, my favorite is probably focaccia bread I have been making using the recipe from Baking with Julia.

• Describe your most spectacular kitchen disaster.
• I recently left my recipe notebook on the stove, not realizing that the gas burner was on.  You can guess how that turned out.

• What is your idea of comfort food?
• I love to make pasta with a chunky tomato and sausage sauce. 

• Apron or no apron?
• No apron.  I'm not afraid to get messy when I cook.  

• If you could make a show-stopping dinner for one person, living or dead, who would it be?
• I wish I had the opportunity to make a fabulous meal for my grandma Betty.  She was a tremendous cook -- mostly traditional Danish dishes.  She passed away before I became serious about cooking.  

• You prefer to cook: a. alone, b. with others, c. it depends on your mood
• I do love to cook alone and have been known "encourage" my kids to leave the kitchen so I can cook in "peace," but I do love cooking with them as well.  They are already pretty capable for little people.

• When it comes to tidying up, you usually: a. clean as you cook, b. do all the dishes once you've finished cooking, c. leave the kitchen a shambles for your spouse/roommate/kids to clean.
• Here is my chance to publicly thank my husband for the hours upon hours he has spent cleaning up after my adventures in the kitchen.  I usually clean up as I cook, but there is still a pile for him at the end of the day. Thanks Scott!

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• The lovely Staub Oval Gratin Baking Dish My Pantry Shelf has won from Williams-Sonoma; and her bonus prize -- Big Girls Small Kitchen's new cookbook In the Small Kitchen!