I’ll admit that I initially bookmarked this recipe for spaghetti squash hash browns from Pamela Ellgen’s The Microbiome Cookbook more out of skeptical curiosity than because I assumed they’d be good. Which is not to say I didn’t have some faith in their tastiness; so far, Ellgen hasn’t steered me wrong — her one-pan pork chops with grapes are a wonderful weeknight option, and the zucchini-based, bean-free hummus (also from this new release) is rather genius. Rather, my skepticism came from a shaky relationship with spaghetti squash.
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Paleo
One-Pan Pork Chops With Grapes and Swiss Chard
As this blog’s archives suggest, I’m a big fan of one-pan meals — see: chicken with potatoes, carrots, and onions; salmon with asparagus and spring onions; and roasted Italian sausages, peppers, and onions. Unfussy but full of flavor, these one-and-done recipes dramatically minimize the post-meal dirty dish count, making cooking dinner during a busy week worlds more appealing.
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Banana-Pecan Paleo Pancakes
Magical, paleo, two-ingredient, grain-free: all of these buzz words have been used to describe these pancakes (or a close cousin thereof). And, here’s the shocker, this crazy recipe, which, at it’s most elemental, is just a cooked slurry of banana and eggs, actually works. Moreover, the pancakes taste good and shockingly pancake-like, especially when drizzled with a little bit of maple syrup.
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One-Pan Salmon and Asparagus With Spring Onions
It may not be as apparent as with produce, but seafood has its seasons. With the rise of aquaculture, frozen fish, and globalization in general, it’s possible to buy salmon all year long, but, like berries, wild salmon is at its peak during the spring and summer months. This recipe pairs beautiful salmon fillets with two other seasonal ingredients: asparagus and spring onions.
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Curry Cashews
As someone who eats a lot of beans, grains, lentils, and nuts, the bulk aisle is (not surprisingly) one of my favorite sections of the supermarket. Assuming your market’s bulk section has a good, healthy amount of turnover, it can be one of the best, least wasteful ways to stock up on everything from steel cut oats to red lentils, and, if you’re lucky enough to live near an excellent co-op like San Francisco’s Rainbow Grocery, loose-leaf tea, spices, alternative flours, and even kimchi.
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Fried Eggs With Roasted Tomatoes and Mushrooms
Inspiration for what I cook, and ultimately write about here, comes in many forms: cookbooks, blogs, meals out, farmers market visits, and glossy magazines all play an important role. Hotel breakfast buffets, not so much. One exception: this simple but much-loved-as-of-late breakfast. Last year, my boyfriend Andrew and I spent a stretch of our trip to Japan at Tokyo’s Park Hyatt. Best known as the backdrop of Lost in Translation, the Park Hyatt also serves up a truly-superlative breakfast buffet. Each morning, I’d find myself piling my plate high with a variety of pristine tropical fruit and a bite-size pastry or two, but the real draw came from the spread of roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes, sausages, and eggs. Typical components of a full English breakfast, this combination is nothing new, but the Park Hyatt’s version was spot-on, and made a critical swap: Japanese beech mushrooms for the standard sliced button.
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One-Pan Roast Chicken With Carrots and Potatoes
What do roasting a chicken, poaching eggs, and cooking a perfectly medium-rare steak have in common? All three are culinary techniques that have a reputation for being far trickier than they actually are; in fact, with a bit of guidance, they’re all quite beginner-friendly. Here, I’m breaking down my basic, but really good, take on roast chicken.
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Roasted Red Onions With Thyme
It feels pretty ridiculous to say, but until relatively recent times (I’m talking the last year or so), I didn’t like onions in most applications. As a background note in soups and stock, sure; diced and lightly cooked, or worse, raw, hell no. Most people have an aversion to a few foods, but most people aren’t food writers, and most people don’t dislike such a fundamental ingredient. (What can I say, I’m an odd one.) So it feels a little funny to now be praising a recipe that has onions at its heart.
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Kale and Sweet Potato Soup With Cumin
In our pantry, you’ll pretty much always find a package or two of instant ramen stashed away. While it serves well as dinner in a pinch, especially when dressed up with a poached egg, sliced scallions, and sriracha, it’s really there for when either Andrew or I are sick with a cold. (Some might crave chicken noodle soup, but I prefer the sinus-clearing heat of instant ramen and other spicy soups.) Andrew recently had the flu, so our stockpile of instant ramen was raided. I only wish I had discovered this kale and sweet potato soup recipe before then, as ramen — while tasty — isn’t exactly the most nutritious option, and this would’ve been the perfect supplement to that.
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Duck Fat Smashed Potatoes
French fries are tempting, but I’ll take a side of duck fat and thyme smashed potatoes over a pile of fries nine times out of 10. (That 10-percent: duck fat fries or shoestring potatoes.) When earthy duck fat meets crisp potato, magic happens. Add a generous dose of freshly-ground pepper and minced thyme — both classic potato pairings — and it doesn’t get much better.
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