When I first cracked open my copy of America’s Test Kitchen’s newish cookbook How to Roast Everything, my instinct was to flip past seemingly-basic recipes like weeknight roast chicken, roasted thick-cut pork chops, baked sweet potatoes, and this, a gussied-up twist on roasted broccoli, but that would have been a mistake. Sure, I know my way around the kitchen, but with cooking (and many things in life), it’s often small lessons and tweaks to technique that make the biggest impact.
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side dishes
Pomegranate-Molasses-Glazed Carrots With Crispy Chickpeas and Feta
This is not the sort of recipe you make on a harried Tuesday night, when you’re stretched in a million different directions, and efficiency is the core operative. There are no promises of it being ready in under 30 minutes, or of dirtying only one pan*. Instead, this is the type of recipe you break out when you have a moment to breathe, to at-least-partially concentrate on the task at hand, and to get a little lost in the process. Yes, it requires more attentiveness than the set-it-and-forget-it-ness of most recipes today. And, yes, you will need to be puttering about or near the kitchen for most of this time, but that’s time you can spend catching up on a great podcast, making other components of your meal (if you choose to eat this as a side, rather than the main event), or doing a bit of meal prep to help you along in your week.
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Spicy Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Turnips, and Onion With Bacon
Try as I do to resist my urges, I tend to be a bit of a backseat driver when Andrew is cooking. While a desire (or really, an impulse) to tweak and refine are useful qualities to have when testing or developing recipes, it’s hard, verging on impossible to shut off, and is perhaps less of an endearing quality when directed towards one’s significant other. (Sorry, Andrew!) Still, every once in a while, when he hasn’t banished me from our kitchen, our minds and palates come together to create something quite wonderful, like this spicy brussels sprouts, turnip, bacon, and onion situation.
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Summer Squash With Parmesan, Pine Nuts, and Basil
Summer squash, pine nuts, Parmigianno-Reggiano, olive oil, basil, salt, and pepper. You might look at this pared-down list of ingredients, and be tempted, as I initially was, to gild the lily, perhaps with a spritz of lemon juice or a few drops of rosemary-infused oil, but trust me here — or rather, trust Deborah Madison — this recipe doesn’t need it.
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Marinated Bell Peppers With Pine Nuts and Herbs
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.
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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.
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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.
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Honey Whole Wheat Cornbread
Over the years, I’ve auditioned a variety of recipes for stuffing, pie, mashed potatoes, turkey, and cranberry sauce. The one constant at my Thanksgiving table: this hearty cornbread, which makes an appearance both as a side and as the backbone of cornbread stuffing. Sour-cream-enriched, and lightly-sweetened with honey, it is a decidedly Northern take on the cornmeal quick bread, akin to a dressed-up, homemade take on Jiffy cornbread.
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Braised Pearl Onions With Pancetta
With their papery skins and mini-me size, pearl onions are some of the most darling vegetables at the market. That said, I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll never buy them fresh, and wouldn’t suggest you do so either. Why? Because I like you, and because I suspect you have far better things to do with your time than to painstakingly peel a pound plus of these teeny-tiny alliums, when a perfectly good substitute is in the freezer aisle. Thawed and drained, frozen pearl onions work like a charm in this and many other cooked applications.
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Cacio e Pepe Corn
Pasta purists, look away. The idea of dressing up a humble ear of boiled, buttered corn with the trappings of cacio e pepe may offend some, but I, and the genius behind this recipe (the author of Short Stack Vol. 10: Corn, Jessica Battilana) don’t care. Yes, cacio e pepe in its pure form is a glorious thing, but that doesn’t mean it can’t — or shouldn’t — be riffed on. And when you take a step back and think about it, cacio e pepe corn makes a lot of sense; sweet buttery corn pairs wonderfully with nutty Parmesan, shower it with freshly-ground black pepper and some sharp, salty Pecorino and — shocker — you have a winner.
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