Strategic cooking is never a bad idea, but it’s particularly useful during these summer months, when the days are long and hot, park picnics and beaches are beckoning, and social calendars are full. In other words, now is the time to maximize your efforts in the kitchen by embracing make-ahead recipes, like these super-versatile marinated bell peppers. Flavor-packed and tender, they’re an excellent addition to sandwiches (try pairing them with pesto, prosciutto, mozzarella, and focaccia), antipasti platters, or as a stand-alone side for some grilled steak or chicken. They also make for a vegetable-packed, Whole30-friendly breakfast, when topped with a couple fried or poached eggs.
…
dinner
Miso-Avocado Soba Noodles With Kale
As much as I love creamy pasta dishes like bechamel-rich lasagna, macaroni and cheese, and baked pastas, that combination of ultra-rich dairy and pasta is a ticking tummy time bomb, so I try to avoid it unless it’s really, truly worth it. Instead, I typically get my creamy noodle fix by tossing al dente strands with sauces made from non-dairy alternatives like cashew cream, almond butter, or, in this case avocado. It might sound a bit odd, but when blended up with miso, garlic, a touch of lime juice, and olive oil, avocado transforms into a rich vegan sauce. Paired with nutty soba noodles, ribbons of kale, and crunchy sesame seeds, it makes for a guilt-free, totally-craveable dinner option.
…
Spiced Cauliflower With Honey-Tahini Sauce and Almonds
Part of the beauty of cauliflower lies in its mild, mellow flavor. Adaptable and unobstrusive, it’s a blank slate ready to be dressed up how you please. Grated and stir-fried, it approximates fried rice; steamed, mashed, and lashed with butter, it’s a superb stand-in for mashed potatoes; roasted whole and basted with olive oil, it’s centerpiece-worthy. Similarly, it takes to a wide range of seasonings. Here, I’ve gone a more traditional route, preparation wise. Florets are tossed with warm, aromatic spices (cinnamon and hot paprika), then roasted hot and fast. Decked out with toasted almonds, a blizzard of parsley, and an addictive tahini-based sauce, it is shockingly good, especially when paired with some juicy lamb chops, as pictured here.
…
Slow-Cooker Sicilian Chickpea and Escarole Soup
When you think of Sicilian food, I’d wager pasta alla Norma, bottles of Mount Etna rosso, gelato-stuffed brioche buns, juicy blood oranges, and deep-fried treasures like arancini and panelle are some of the first things to come to mind. All delightful, no doubt, but it’s the humble bean- and lentil-based soups, stews, and pasta dishes from the region that I anticipate making the most now that I’m home.
…
Mussels Puttanesca
Between keeping track of sustainability guidelines and preparing it within a fleeting window of freshness, cooking seafood can feel like a bit of a bother. Add in that it tends to be pretty pricey, and it’s easy to see why fish and shellfish often get passed over for other proteins. One completely-underrated exception: mussels. Aside from the somewhat-pesky — meditative, if we’re being generous — task of cleaning them, these bivalves are quite winning. Simple to cook, budget-friendly, and sustainable, they’re a killer choice for a fancy-feeling dinner.
…
Greek Roasted Potato “Poutine” With Arugula
Stubborn and steady, I’m a creature of habit. In many ways, this is a positive: having a routine means I sleep well, usually manage to fit in some form of exercise (I’m a recent morning workout convert), rarely misplace my keys, and pretty much always have the fixings for a healthy breakfast on hand. Of course, I have my share of bad habits as well. Lately, Andrew and I have been trying to break ourselves of one such pattern: our dependence on delivery and takeout.
…
Skirt Steak With Spicy Broccolini and Lemon Mayo
Blood oranges, bitter greens, olives, zippy Etna wines, and marzipan: these are a few of the things I expected to devour in Sicily (check, check, check, check, and check!). What I (perhaps foolishly) didn’t quite foresee was how different my day to day eating would be. With a landscape dominated by wheat, many meals are anchored around pasta and bread. (Pastries, cakes, and cookies are also omnipresent.) A delicious shock, but still, a shock, to the system for someone who typically eats a very-vegetable-centric, lower-carb, high-fat diet.
…
Roasted Acorn Squash With Yogurt-Tahini Sauce
Earlier this fall, Andrew and I ended our Euro adventures with a few days in Germany’s capital. To say that Berlin surprised us would be a great understatement. We had heard about its burgeoning food scene, the tradition of kaffee und kuchen (afternoon coffee and cake), and the abundance of top-notch Turkish food, and yet, it still managed to blow our expectations out of the water. Perhaps we got lucky, or perhaps my restaurant research paid off, but I’d wager there’s more to it than that.
…
Greek Chicken, Chickpea, and Orzo Bowl
As a food writer, I’m not the target audience for meal delivery kits. When I’m cooking dinner, it’s typically to test or tweak a recipe I might post about, I actually enjoy grocery shopping, and I’m a bit of a control freak (did I mention that I like do to my own grocery shopping . . .). Still, after having a number of friends rave about one service or another, I was intrigued and decided to cook my way through a few of the different kits to see how they stacked up.
…
Miso Carrot Soup
With the possible exception of this rosemary-garlic chickpea recipe, there’s no soup that I’ve made more frequently than this miso carrot number. Velvety-smooth, savory, and slightly-sweet (from the carrots and onion), it’s just the sort of good-for-you comfort food that this week calls for.
…