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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summer
Angel Food Cake With Lemon Curd
Great angel food cake has a texture somewhere in between a cloud and a marshmallow: ethereally light, with a pleasantly-spongy bite. Lofty, and golden-brown-crusted, it’s one of my all-time favorite cakes. The problem: great angel food cake can be tricky to nail, or at least, that’s what I’m telling myself after baking not one, not two, but three failed cakes — flops, literally and figuratively — before finding success with this recipe.
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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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Roasted Tomato Eggplant Soup
Take a peek into my freezer and alongside the popsicles, frozen fruit, parmesan rinds, shrimp, and sliced bread, you’ll typically find single servings of at least two varieties of homemade soup, ready to be thawed and simmered when hunger strikes. Admittedly, I’m a bit of a soup obsessive — my cookbook collection includes nearly a dozen single-subject titles devoted to it — but I don’t think you have to feel the way I do about bisques and potages to find this a winning dinnertime strategy. Soup freezes wonderfully, is easily defrosted and reheated, and, generally-speaking is a veggie-packed nutritional powerhouse.
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Gluten-Free Plum-Ginger Crisp
Though I don’t have any issues with gluten, I still like to have a handful of gluten-free recipes up my sleeve. When baking for friends who abstain from wheat and other glutinous grains, my typical strategy is to stick with desserts that either omit grains altogether or that contain a small amount, with the hope that it’ll be easier to substitute other ingredients. As we’re in the midst of peak berry and stone fruit season, I recently got it in my head that a crisp would be an ideal candidate for this sort of makeover.
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Pesto Pasta With Grilled Eggplant and Tomatoes
When making pasta at home there are two rules I live by. One: go for the good stuff; by that I mean I don’t bother with whole wheat, quinoa-, or bean-based options, as I’ve yet to find a brand that yields the same perfectly al-dente texture as pasta made with refined flour. And two: either serve it as a side or go heavy on the vegetables (or, ideally, both). Made this way, there’s plenty of satiating fiber and flavor to go around, without any feeling of sacrifice.
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Rick Ross’ Cucumber-Mint Spa Water
Generally speaking, I’m not particularly excited by celebrity news and gossip, with diets being a major exception. It may edge slightly into the realm of “stars — they’re just like us” journalism, but I feel no shame in my fixation (we all have our guilty pleasures). And really, there’s something fascinating about learning how anyone eats, even more so when it involves an individual whose body is so tied to their work. All of which is to say that I’m a frequent reader of the Grub Street Diet series, Bon Appetít’s My Morning Routine, and one-off pieces in the same vein. (Rebecca Harrington’s I’ll Have What She’s Having: My Adventures in Celebrity Dieting is also excellent.)
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Thai Cucumber and Sausage Salad
If you’ve yet to try Chinese sausage (also known as lap cheong, lap chong, or lap xuong), you’re in for a real treat. Sort of similar in flavor to the king of bao fillings — char sui — but saltier, these dried pork sausages add a punch of flavor to fried rice, taro cake, lo mai gai (lotus leaf rice), and other delightful Chinese dishes.
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