A few weeks ago, after I bemoaned feeling uninspired by the current between-season vegetables, one of you told me I would love the Adventure Bowl at Life Alive, a small-chain of organic cafés in the Boston area. I looked at the menu online and immediately thought of my friend Gena and her book, ...
Bake Sale Winning-est Gooey Oat Bars
Do you procrastibake? I meant to do many things this week, but instead I baked. I baked slow-rise refrigerator focaccia. I baked slow-rise, sourdough focaccia. I baked fast-rise, yeasted, freshly milled flour focaccia. I baked slow-rise, yeasted, freshly milled flour focaccia. And when I tired ...
Cauliflower Steaks with Walnut-Caper Salsa
In Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons, potato chips are used as a metaphor for how a dish should taste — Joshua's goal when creating dishes is to make them so tasty you can’t help but take one more bite. And then another. This is how I feel about this dish, which is not a Joshua McFadden creation, but ...
The Instant Pot Miracle: One-Pan Pasta & Meat Sauce
Confession: I've had more fails than successes with my Instant Pot. The fails are always surprising, the recipes I'm sure are going to be home runs, those calling for a million delicious ingredients all thrown into the pot at once, the ones smelling heavenly from start to finish. The math doesn't ...
Cacio e Pepe Spaghetti Squash with Stewy Chickpeas
I've had this recipe for cacio e pepe spaghetti squash bookmarked since last fall, when I first found myself flipping through Skinny Taste's latest cookbook: One and Done. The only thing keeping me from making it has been the spaghetti squash itself, which is something I would cook more often if ...
Curried Lentils with Kale and Coconut Milk
It's getting to be that time of year: when nothing is sounding particularly delicious, when I'm over roasting root vegetables, when I'm not craving anything, when I find myself staring at the pantry, then inevitably reaching for the lentils and spices and coconut milk. I'm not even sure why I ...
Carrot-Ginger Soup with Curry and Coconut Milk
Last week a friend and I met for lunch at The Placid Baker in Troy. We did as we always do: ordered a lot, shared everything, contemplated dessert — macaron? frangipane tart? chocolate cake? — then split that, too. Everything, as always there, was delicious but the soup of the day, a curried ...
Dessert Repertoire: Essential Recipes
A few weeks ago we had over dear friends and their son for dinner. For dessert, I threw a few dark chocolate bars* on the table and let the adults help themselves. For the children, I baked off chocolate chip cookie dough balls I had portioned earlier and stashed in the fridge. But when the ...
One-Bowl Buttermilk Birthday Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
I have been meaning to post this birthday cake recipe for years. These photos, in fact, are from October 2016. I retrieved them from an external hard drive, edited them, then found another folder containing all the photos I had already edited but long forgotten about... good use of time. ...
Kale & Crème Fraîche Pizza + How to Make Great Neapolitan-Style Pizza At Home
I made this kale and crème fraîche pizza last summer on Instagram stories, and I've been meaning to post the recipe here ever since. It's included below along with all the tricks I know to make great Neapolitan-style pizza at home. If you're looking to up your homemade pizza game at home — to ...
How to Roast a Chicken (And Make the Most of It)
There is nothing more satisfying to me than roasting a whole chicken. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. In addition to feeding my family of six, it gives me a carcass with which to make stock and enough extra meat to toss into a salad or add to soup for a meal on a subsequent night. I've ...
What to do with Leftover Roast Chicken? Make a Soup.
This is the simplest of simple chicken noodle-ish soups. The stock is made with the leftover carcass of a whole roasted chicken, and the vegetables and seasonings are classic: carrots onions celery parsley salt and pepper I like the texture of fregola, a toasted Italian pasta, ...
What to do with Leftover Roast Chicken? Make a Salad.
I always feel virtuous when I collect all the leftover odds and ends from the fridge and turn them into another meal. Here, leftover roast chicken bulks up a mix of arugula, sliced endive, and toasted pine nuts. A simple shallot vinaigrette ties it all together, while keeping it light. Fresh or ...
Lightning Fast Sichuan Noodles with Chilies and Scallions
A few weeks ago, upon exiting Christopher Kimball's Milk Street website, a pop-up email capture caught my attention: If I subscribed, I would get "12 recipes That [Would] Change The Way I Cook." What was there to lose? I subscribed, downloaded my PDF, began reading, and soon came across an ...
Teri’s Sliced Orange Salad with Arugula, Fennel & Shaved Parmesan
On New Year's Day my friend Teri texted me a photo of her "Boxing Day salad," a mix of blood oranges, arugula, shaved fennel, thinly sliced red onion and pomegranate seeds. "Fresh and bright," she wrote. "Nice way to wrap up that holiday blitz!" So true, I thought. Like many, I found myself on ...