I just returned for the summer from my first year of college. It’s weird and bittersweet to be back in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by relics of my upbringing—including a massive collection of French comic books (pictured above: me at age 5 devouring Les Schtroumpfs, aka The Smurfs). My first night home, unable to sleep, I found myself picking through my dusty bookshelves, and I realized that the most powerful childhood memories rested between the pages of books I hadn’t thought about in nearly a decade. Suddenly, I was hurtled back to middle-school summers, seven-hour road trips to visit my grandparents in Vermont, which flew by as I escaped on strange literary adventures through under-worlds and magical rhubarb farms. Now, I marvel at the clarity with which I can recall both the stories and my delight in them.

I found practically all of my reading material when I was 10, 11, and 12 by scouring the children’s section of the Philadelphia Public Library. While I loved finding refuge from the summer heat in the silence of the stacks and blasting AC, I had to suffer through a lot of bad, corny kids’ books to find the gems that line my shelves today. Here is a list of the books that made the searching worth it. Whether you have a bored tween in the house who’s exhausted the classics (Pseudonymous Bosch, Roald Dahl, Lemony Snicket) or you’re lucky enough to have some summer evenings ahead, there’s a sweet escape for you in each one. —Violette Terjanian

Juniper Berry by M. P. Kozlowsky

In a nutshell: Juniper’s parents are beloved movie stars. But something’s not quite right—they’re not their usual selves. Juniper and her next door neighbor Giles discover their parents have been slowly selling their souls, bit by bit, to a demon under the tree in the backyard. Juniper and Giles explore the underground world to save her parents, encountering temptations and oddities along the way.

For people who like: Coraline or Narnia, stories about secret portals, tunnels, and bravery. Also for fans of Pseudonymous Bosch’s Secret Series.

My Name is Mina by David Almond

Age range: 9-15

In a nutshell: The prequel to Almond’s book Skellig (see next pick; I recommend reading Mina before Skellig). The book is written in the form of a diary, from the mind of a young girl named Mina. She is the OG manic pixie dream girl: Mina is homeschooled and ruminates in the handwritten pages about poetry, myths, and math, dreaming of her dead father and wondering about birds. 

I felt such a deep connection to this book that I wrote a letter to David Almond when I was nine. “I LOVED My Name Is Mina.  Mina thinks just like me! I love to write, and My Name Is Mina made me want to write even more.” (And guess what? He wrote me the nicest email back – “It’s great that the book made you want to write – that’s exactly what I want to happen when people read it.”)

For people who like: Harriet the Spy, poetic and quirky books that aren’t plot based—sort of a character study. Excellent personality-inspiration for misunderstood tween girls who like to dream, write, and escape.

Skellig by David Almond

Age Range: 10-20

In a nutshell: Another mysterious and poetic book by Almond. Michael, a 10-year-old boy, is looking forward to moving into a new house when his baby sister becomes deeply ill. One day he steps into his crumbling garage and discovers a strange creature coated with spider webs, eating dead flies and Chinese take-out, and growing wings. With the help of next door neighbor Mina, Micheal brings Skellig out of the garage and into the light. Creepy but beautiful, entertaining, captivating— I couldn’t put it down.

For people who like: Neil Gaiman fairy-tales such as The Ocean at the End of the Lane, mysterious and eerie but moving.

Drizzle by Kathleen Van Cleve

Age Range: 9-12

In a nutshell: Eleven year-old Polly Peabody lives on a magical, world-famous rhubarb farm. The plants taste like chocolate, jewels appear in the soil, bugs talk to her, and her best friend is a rhubarb plant named Harry. But one day, the miraculously-timed Monday rainstorms suddenly stop and the plants start to suffer. Could it have anything to do with her aunt’s sudden desire to sell the farm, and her brother’s mysterious illness? Polly has to restore the rain and save the farm and her family, before it’s too late.

For people who like: The charm and creativity of Roald Dahl books, specifically Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach. Magic and childlike wonder combined with a family-centered plot.

Beswitched by Kate Saunders

Age Range: 10-15

In a nutshell: Flora is on the train, headed to her new private school in England, dressed in her bright red converse. But when Flora gets off the train, she finds herself in 1935, forced to live as an old-fashioned schoolgirl. In order to return to the 21^st century, she has to figure out why she time-travelled in the first place. Her new friendship with a Jewish girl, about to head home to Vienna, just might hold the answer.

For people who like: The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler, Harry Potter – think dark academia and history with all the juicy tween-girl drama.

The Undrowned Child series by Michelle Lovric

Age Range: 11-17

In a nutshell: Adopted girl Teodora is visiting Venice, the floating city of her dreams, and discovers that things are not as they seem. The sinking city also holds an entire secret world, visible only to her, including an underground printing press run by mermaids, speaking statues, strange translucent ghosts, and librarians which transform into cats. Teodora soon realizes the power rests in her hands to save Venice from the sinister forces that threaten it.

For people who like: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, the Percy Jackson series, or Harry Potter – heavily inspired by mythology and magic, and impossible to put down.

Thanks, Violette!

Even if you think you don’t know Melina Hammer, you probably know Melina Hammer. She’s shot and styled for all the major food players in New York (Food52, NYT Cooking, Julia Turshen ) and when one of her artfully chaotic recipe shots appear on my instagram feed, I don’t even have to look at the name on the handle — that rich, textured vibe that is very much at play in this cake photo, is just so distinctly her. Melina also runs the Catbird Cottage B&B at the foothills of the Shawagunk Mountains in New York, and her latest project — lucky us! — is a collection of the recipes that the seasons and the fertile, local land around the cottage has inspired. As a result, the dishes in A Year at Catbird Cottage, look like the way I would eat every night if I could, which is to say, like all the ingredients had been picked up at the local co-op, or pulled right from a CSA box or the ground itself. Think: A Dutch baby packed with pickles, pea shoots, and craggy cheese; a grand aioli summer feast; French toast with wild blueberry compote, Spanish tortilla with pickles and garlic-mustard pesto; this Double Rye Buckwheat Plum Cake that might just be my new favorite answer to the question I ask myself all summer long, i.e. “What is a simple, but special dessert that I can bring to a summer party?” Melina was nice enough to share the recipe.

From Melina: This short cake makes up for in flavor what it lacks in height. Sweet-tart, juicy, earthy and a little boozy, it feels like a real indulgence. The bones of this recipe belong to Claire Saffitz of Bon Appetit cake fame. Over the years, I’ve riffed on it many times, landed on this version, and now lust for it when plum season arrives. Use very ripe plums: once the cake is ready, they’re basically rendered into jam, in the best possible way. The almonds and sprinkled sugar make a superb textural contrast to the moist cake and fall-apart fruit.

Double Rye Buckwheat Plum Cake
From A Year at Catbird Cottage
Makes 8 Servings 

1⁄2 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan
1⁄4 cup rye flour
1⁄4 cup buckwheat flour
3⁄4 teaspoon baking powder
1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt
1⁄3 cup rye whiskey
1⁄4 cup full-fat Greek yogurt
1⁄4 cup melted salted butter, slightly cooled, plus more for greasing the pan
1 1⁄2 tablespoons lemon zest (from 2 small lemons)
3 eggs
3⁄4 cup cane sugar
5 or 6 elephant heart or mix of plums, pitted and cut into halves (see Notes)
2 to 3 tablespoons slivered almonds, for scattering
3 to 4 tablespoons demerara sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Grease the sides and base of a 9-inch springform pan, then tap the flour to coat the surface thinly, emptying out any extra flour.

In a medium bowl, use a fork to mix together the flours, baking powder, and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together the rye whiskey, yogurt, melted butter, and zest. Use an electric mixer to beat the cane sugar and eggs in a large bowl until pale and fluffy, about 45 seconds. Add the yogurt mixture to the egg mixture and whisk to combine. Use a sieve to sift the dry mixture into the wet a little at a time, folding the dry mixture in fully to ensure there are no lumps. Pause occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. This step takes about 5 minutes. Once fully incorporated, refrigerate the batter for 10 minutes.

Pour half of the batter into the pan and bake for 10 minutes. This is so that the plums don’t sink to the base of your pan, and you can see their cheery faces once the cake is done. Chill the remaining batter until needed. Pour the remaining batter on top of the already baked batter, then nestle the plums cut sides up. Scatter with the almonds and sprinkle with the demerara sugar, being sure to emphasize the periphery (the cake will become nice and crispy at the edges).

Bake 25 to 35 minutes more, until a toothpick comes out nearly clean when inserted into the center. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then run a thin offset spatula or butter knife around the edge to separate the tacky surface from the cake pan. Allow the cake to cool fully, remove the collar, and serve. Keeps for 2 days wrapped in parchment or foil at room temperature.

NOTES: Always sift dry ingredients as they are incorporated—it is no fun to discover a lump of baking powder or flour as you take a bite. If it isn’t summer but you long to bake this cake, it can be made with fruit from any season—use sturdy fruit, cut in a similar size as the plums for best effect. I have made this using Seckel pears, poached quince, and rhubarb. All are a delight.

P.S. I’m really glad you’re here, but just a reminder: All the fun stuff these days happens in my newsletter on Substack, which is consistently in the Top 10 most-read food newsletters on the entire platform. You can subscribe here.

Want your family to head in a more plant-based direction, but not sure where to even begin? I hear you! In fact I was you…only a few years ago. Here are a few strategies that helped me make the transition, excerpted from my book, The Weekday Vegetarians.

1. Cook What You Know
You might want to start building a repertoire of vegetarian dinners by first thinking of ways to convert the recipes that you know and love into meatless versions. This could be as simple as omitting the sausage on your pizza or the chicken in your stir-fry. The goal, though, is to create a basic level of familiarity with the dish from both the cooking angle and the dining angle (and if you’re cooking for kids, it will be less likely to incite a tableside revolt). This is especially important if you are serving people who like things A. Very. Specific. Way. For example, if you have been making and loving the same turkey chili for decades, it might be worth starting with that recipe (swapping three bean varieties for the meat) instead of, say, debuting the silken tofu with fermented beans that you’ve been meaning to cook since 2003. Your made-over versions of favorite meals will most likely not taste exactly the same, but they will look mostly the same, and that’s a good start. Going vegetarian doesn’t mean anyone has to give up their favorite dish . . . just some of the ingredients involved in making that dish.

2. Build on Your Current Recipe Repertoire
Before this undertaking, as I’ve established, we ate a lot of meat. Like a lot—at least five times a week you’d find something chicken-, pork-, or beef- driven on our dinner plates. On the other hand, there were usually a few days a week when we ate vegetarian dinners without even thinking about it. Black bean burritos, barbecued baked beans, minestrone, salad pizzas, regular pizzas, macaroni and cheese, butternut squash soup, sesame noodles, pasta with basil pesto and on and on. They were major family favorites, and it was good to know that we could build our new way of eating around meals our kids already loved. Take a look at your own dinner rotation wearing vegetarian goggles and see what you come up with. I’ll bet you’re already further along than you think.

3. Don’t Make It a Big Deal
Especially for those of you with young kids, who you wouldn’t exactly describe as the adventurous type, don’t make any loud proclamations about your new mostly vegetarian undertaking. In fact, maybe don’t even mention it at all and see what happens. Sometimes, when you give something a name, it’s easier to mount a campaign against it. Don’t give them a cause. Give them noodles.

4. Or…Make it a HUGE Deal
On the other hand, kids can be way more game to try new things than we give them credit for. When the girls were young, I decided to cook a brand- new dinner every night for thirty days straight and to spin the strategy as an adventure. We were going to try something brand-new every night! There would be charts and games and (don’t tell all those baby food experts) even prizes if they tried new things! You know your family better than I do. If you think positioning weeknight vegetarian eating as something fun and important will help ease the change, pull out the PowerPoints and the pom-poms and officially launch your campaign.

5. Never Reveal the Meal Plan Ahead of Time
This is especially true if you’re making something you know won’t necessarily be received with open arms. The less time they have to organize their resistance, the better.

6. Use Your Hooks
There’s an entire section in The Weekday Vegetarians about this concept, but it’s crucial to always have one thing on the plate that you or your potential convert is excited about, no matter how simple. If you’re debuting Coconut Curried Red Lentils (page 162) for dinner, maybe consider frying up some homemade fresh Yogurt Flatbread (page 222) alongside them. (What, pray tell, is better than warm bread?) If you’re steaming greens like spinach or kale for a side dish, think about drizzling some Spicy Peanut Sauce on top. Your hooks could be crispy or mashed potatoes, a creamy ranch dressing, garlicky croutons on a salad, or buttery garlic bread on the side. They can even be store-bought hooks, like a can of Bush’s baked beans or that bottled ginger-miso dressing your kid would drink like Gatorade if given the option. The point: Capitalize on the power of hooks to cast a warm, happy glow on the rest of the food on the plate.

7. Think Vegetable Forward, Not Just Vegetarian Sure, most of us become interested in vegetarian eating because we want to cut back on meat, omit meat, or do our part to help minimize animal cruelty or the environmental impact caused by the production of meat. But for me, another huge draw of going vegetarian was what I’d be adding to the dinner table, namely the vegetables themselves. If dialing down the meat means amping up the sugar snap peas in May, grilled Japanese eggplants in July, and caramelly Brussels sprouts in October, well, that’s about as convincing an argument as I need. In other words, if you seek out the freshest in-season produce, you’ll find the vegetables themselves are the best advocates for going vegetarian. I love building dinner around superstar in-season produce. I have fresh asparagus, let’s make that chilled asparagus soup. I have tomatoes and corn, let’s make that show-stopper pasta (page 87). And—decidedly less romantic but still just as relevant—I have half a head of cabbage that’s about to go bad, let’s shred it and make Crispy Cabbage Pancakes (page 132). It’s a new way of thinking about dinner. Once you see how easy it is to use vegetables as a starting point, you’ll realize it’s also extremely liberating.

I love the sour tang that tamarind brings to a dish, but buying and cooking with it has always been very intimidating to me. When a recipe calls for tamarind, do they mean the pods? The pulp? The concentrate? The puree? The ketchupy stuffI drizzle on dal? Well I finally conquered my fears back in March when I took on the Pad Thai recipe from Kenji López-Alt’s magnum opus The Wok. (The recipe was very involved which is why it never made it on to this newsletter — who says I don’t look out for you? — but you may recall my love letter to his game-changing Vegetable Fried Rice?) Kenji offered a solid tamarind primer, and guided me towards his preferred way to look for it, i.e. in pulp form, in a block that looks like this:

You can find it at any Asian supermarket and most Latin markets (I found it at H Mart), and it’s usually in the produce section, underneath the fresh produce displays. (I found it underneath the mango bins.) Once you get the block home, you can break off what you need into a bowl, add an equal amount of very warm water and massage it to loosen the pulp, breaking it up with your fingers until, as Kenji writes, it “feels like very loose, squishy mud with fibers running through it.” Run that through a strainer, pressing it with your fingers or a rubber spatula if you have to, until a puree with apple-sauce-like consistency remains.

It was so easy! So liberating! And overnight, my radar was cranked up to high alert for any recipe that called for tamarind. Which is exactly how I found myself clicking through Susan Spungen’s last newsletter (Susanality, one of the most consistent sources of inspiration on substack in my opinion) to find her tamarind-glazed grilled chicken. We just grilled straight-up whole thighs and skipped the kebab-ing, but alongside some surprisingly sweet corn (with miso-butter!) and a green-goddess dressed salad, the line-up was just the ticket for Sunday family dinner. I love that moment when someone takes a bite and says something like “what on earth am I eating…” in the best possible way, like as if they can’t place the flavor but they know they love it. That’s the kind of recipe this is because that’s the kind of ingredient tamarind is. Even if you’re used to it, as this expert now is, the flavor is still a surprise and delight.

Susan Spungen’s Grilled Chicken with Tamarind Glaze 
(From Susanality)

You can also use chicken breasts here but watch carefully and cook for a shorter time to avoid drying them out.

¼ cup tamarind paste or puree (Susan asked Maya Kaimal to go deep on tamarind, and she explains other ways to buy and prep it)
2 tablespoons soy sauce 
2 to 3 teaspoons freshly grated ginger (grated on a microplane)
2 garlic cloves, grated on a microplane 
1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce
¼ cup ketchup 
1 tablespoon honey
8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, (approximately 2 lbs.) 
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
Olive oil

Combine tamarind paste, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, chili garlic sauce, ketchup, and honey in a small bowl, and stir well with a fork. Set aside.

Season chicken thighs liberally with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Grill over medium-high heat for 10-12 minutes. Turn and cook for 6 more minutes, then brush with the glaze. Cook for an additional 6-8 minutes, turning and brushing with glaze every 2 minutes. Transfer to a platter and top with fresh herbs.

(Photo by Susan Spungen)

As I was rounding up recipes for your Memorial Day cookout last week, I was shocked to learn that while I’ve prepped and referenced it approximately 100 times over the years, I did not have a dedicated post to the BBQ side dish I’ve made more than any other: Double Mustard Potato Salad. We first found a version of the recipe in a Mark Bittman cookbook — I’m talking like late 90s here, that is how much of a keeper it is — and the beauty of it is that you can swap in any mustard, any vinegar, any herb depending on what you have around, but here is the way we make it the most often.

Double Mustard Potato Salad

3 pounds small firm potatoes (red, white, Yukon gold) peeled, and halved (you want the pieces to be roughly the same size, so if you have a particularly large potato, maybe cut into thirds, use your judgement)
1 1/2 heaping tablespoon whole grain mustard
1 1/2 heaping tablespoon Dijon mustard
⅓ cup red wine vinegar (or Trader Joe’s white balsamic)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
1 bunch scallions, white and light green parts only, chopped (about 1/4 cup) or minced red onion

Add potatoes to a large pot and cover with generously salted water. Boil gently, until a knife slides through potatoes easily, about 15 minutes. You don’t want to undercook the potatoes, but they also need to retain their structure.  While potatoes are boiling, add mustards to a large bowl. Whisk in vinegar, salt and pepper, then olive oil. When potatoes have finished cooking, drain, and let cool until they can be handled and sliced. Slice them into thick disks as shown, then gently toss in the bowl allowing the slightly warm potatoes to absorb the dressing. Add herbs and scallions (or onions) and toss to combine.

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The plan for our Memorial Day Cookout is…pretty much the same thing as any other summer cookout in the DALS house: A few grilled proteins surrounded by three or four or five as-fresh-as-possible salads. I like this strategy for a lot of reasons, but chiefly because, when people are coming over, it favors advance planning — I generally make all the salads ahead of time, which allows me to sit back and relax with my guests and our rhubarb-tinted gin & tonics (coming in the May 24 newsletter) while Andy throws some sausage or fish on the grill.

I do set a few ground rules for myself with the menu planning though: One salad must be gluten-free and dairy free; one thing on the table must feel a little indulgent, and check two boxes: Cheesy Carby ; And one of the salads must be protein-heavy which feels like it could anchor the plate for a vegetarian. Below is an example of what I mean by that — it’s my take on an old Ottolenghi lentil salad, which taught me about the value of oven-dried tomatoes. I realize I’ve mentioned this a few times already (you can ask my husband: I tend to seize on things) but out-of-season tomatoes, when roasted low and slow, become sweet and jammy and totally addictive. Here, they play very nicely with the salty feta and a shower of herbs.

Lentil Salad with Jammy Tomatoes and Feta
In the dressing, I use Trader Joe’s white balsamic vinegar, which I like because it’s lighter and not cloyingly sweet like so many others. If you can’t find a nice dry white balsamic, use red wine vinegar instead. Serves 4-6

14-16 small-ish tomatoes (I’ve used Roma and those small-medium size red tomatoes still on the vine) quartered
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon regular balsamic vinegar
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups brown lentils
3/4 cup crumbled feta
3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
10 fresh mint leaves, minced
1 tablespoon finely minced red onion

Dressing
1 teaspoon Dijon
3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 275°. Quarter 8-10 tomatoes and place skin-side down (or else they’ll stick) on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or foil. Drizzle over the olive oil and balsamic vinegar and sprinkle with some salt. Toss the tomatoes gently using your hands to make sure all of them are coated in a little oil. Roast for 1½ hours.

Bring lentils and 6 cups of water (or broth) to a boil and simmer until tender but still holding their shape, 15-20 minutes. Drain and let cool.

Gently toss lentils with tomatoes, feta, dill, chives, mint, red onion, and dressing. Season with salt and pepper to taste. 

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I’m always in search of a vegan main to serve at a barbecue — something that is actually smoky and grilled, not a separate meal that has been prepared at the boring old stove earlier on in the day. So I was drawn to the cover recipe in Rukmini Iyer’s The Green Barbecue coming out in a few weeks. Here, the Guardian food writer threads skewers with blanched gnocchi and vegetables and serves them with a basil-y pesto. How clever is that? And I know this is the opposite of the point, but how good would this whole thing be in a skillet too?

Gnocchi Skewers with Peppers and Lemon-Basil Sauce
Serves 3-4
Reprinted from The Green Barbecue with Permission

1-pound package gnocchi
3 mixed bell peppers, chopped into gnocchi-sized pieces* (don’t use green peppers)
2 tablespoons vegan basil pesto
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for brushing
A pinch of sea salt flakes
A good amount of freshly ground black pepper
8-12 skewers, soaked if wooden

For the dressing:
1/2 lemon, juice only
4 tablespoons vegan basil pesto
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
A pinch of sea salt

Place the gnocchi into a bowl of just boiled water and leave to blanch for 2 minutes, then drain and run under cold water to cool.

Put the gnocchi into a very large bowl with the chopped bell peppers, vegan basil pesto, olive oil, sea salt flakes, and freshly ground black pepper, and mix well to coat. At this point you could refrigerate the gnocchi until you’re ready to grill.

Thread the gnocchi and pepper alternately onto the skewers. Once your barbecue is good and hot, brush one side of the skewers with oil, then lay them over the barbecue at a slight angle (this stops them from falling through) and cook for 4-5 minutes, until the gnocchi are crisp and brown. Brush the tops with oil, then turn over and repeat with the other side.

Meanwhile, mix the lemon juice, pesto, and olive oil with a pinch of sea salt flakes to taste. Once the skewers are cooked through, serve immediately with the basil dressing

*Note: you could also thread skewers with cherry tomatoes and fennel. And you could use red pesto, harissa, or mustard mixed with olive oil as a marinade.

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If you are like me, you might have seen those gorgeous ruby rhubarb stalks at the market, then immediately heard the sound of a stopwatch ticking before complete panic set in. Why? ‘Tis the season for all those spring darlings that disappear seemingly as soon as they show up. (Pretty sure I missed ramp season while I played Wordle last Thursday.) But worry not, at least when it comes to rhubarb. The smartest thing you can do to ensure you making the most of its brief season, is dice up those beauties, then simmer them with strawberries and a little sugar to make a compote. The sweet-tart sauce upgrades anything it touches: French toast, ice cream, pancakes, yogurt, and, as I recently discovered, this very basic no-bake cheesecake inspired by Justin Chapple. (Thanks for the tip, Robin!)

Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote
The ratio of strawberry to rhubarb here is an even 1 to 1, so it’s easy to improvise on the portion sizes. Makes 1 1/2 cups. Keeps in the fridge for 7-10 days.

10 ounces rhubarb (about 4 medium stalks) finely diced
10 ounces strawberries (about 2 cups) finely diced
1 tablespoon sugar

Add the rhubarb, strawberry, and sugar to small saucepan and set heat to medium-low. Once it gets liquidy, turn down the heat to low. Cook for 25-30 minutes total, stirring every few minutes, until the sauce is smooth and syrupy, and completely broken down. (It feels like it will be chunky forever, but be patient, it’ll get there.) Set aside to cool, then pour into a jar or bowl, and chill. Use on pancakes, yogurt, French toast, ice cream, or….

No-Bake Ricotta Cheesecake with Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote
This is a very easy recipe, but does call for chilling time in between steps, so read through the recipe and plan accordingly.

Crust
24 plain graham crackers (1 1/2 of those wrapped packets)
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), melted
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Filling
1 pound fresh ricotta, room temperature
1/2 pound cream cheese, room temperature
3 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

up to 1/2 cup strawberry-rhubarb compote (recipe above)

Pulse graham crackers in a food processor until finely ground, about 10 times. Add melted butter and 1/2 teaspoon salt; pulse until crumbs are evenly moistened. Using your fingers and a rubber spatula, press the crumbs evenly over the bottom and sides of a tart pan. Cover with and refrigerate for one an hour.

Wipe down the food processor, then add the ricotta, cream cheese, honey, lemon juice and zest, and process just until smooth. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the mixture into the chilled crust, spreading into an even layer. Chill for 2-3 hours. (Note: If you don’t think the filling has set enough after 3 hours — a knife should be able to slice through it — and you don’t want to wait much longer, place in the freezer for another 20-30 minutes.)

When ready to serve, remove cheesecake from the refrigerator, slice into wedges, and drizzle compote on top.

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So you’ve decided to become a weekday vegetarian: Congratulations! But the rest of your family is just…not onboard yet. How do you stay the course without becoming a short-order cook on overdrive? The answer: Meet Them Where They Are. Dialing back on meat is a process, and if the goal here is reducing as opposed to eliminating, then wear that hat when you are making some non-veg family favorites. We had dinner with some friends last week who said they are “trying to do the weekday vegetarian thing,” but it’s been hard, especially because one of their kids who, when served spaghetti, will ask “Where are the meatballs?” Presenting: Orecchiette with Peas, Beans and OK a Little Sausage. It calls for only six ounces of sausage for four servings, which actually ends up being enough because catcher’s-mitt-shaped orecchiette excels at trapping the little bits in each bite. And even those little bites of sausage have so much flavor that I really don’t feel like the sacrifice is too huge.

Related: Bean Burritos with or without Chorizo is another good recipe for cooks constantly dealing with a hold-out at the table.

Orecchiette with Peas, Beans and A Tiny Bit of Sausage

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pound orecchiette
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for serving
6 ounces sweet Italian sausage
1 14-ounce can (or 1 1/2 cups) cooked white beans (such as cannellini, Great Northern)
dash red pepper flakes (depending on the spiciness of sausage, you can omit)
1 cup frozen peas (they do not have to be thawed)
1/2 cup pecorino, for serving
mint or basil, for serving

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook orecchiette according to package directions. Reserve 1/4 cup of pasta water then drain the pasta into a colander, tossing in 1 tablespoon of olive oil to prevent sticking. Place pot back on the burner over medium heat.

Add remaining oil to the pot, then add sausage and red pepper flakes (if using) breaking up the meat with a fork. Once it’s cooked, stir in peas, pasta, and half the pecorino, drizzling in about a tablespoon of pasta water at a time until the pasta looks shiny and saucy.

Serve with remaining pecorino, a drizzle of olive oil, herbs, and freshly ground black pepper.

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For those of you looking for ways to use up the sugar snaps now popping up at markets (beyond just snacking on them, which is 100% legitimate when they’re this sweet) might I propose slivering, then tossing them with mint, radishes, crushed peanuts, and spicy peanut sauce? I first ate a version of this last spring, at Goosefeather a local modern Cantonese spot (above) helmed by Dale Talde, and considering how much I’ve dreamed about it since, I’m not sure why it took me this long to recreate the thing in my own kitchen. It’s all there: sweet, spice, heat, crunch, and the perfect controlled hit of decadence with that peanut sauce. Serve the salad alongside basic roasted tofu and rice, or as we head into grilling season, piled next to grilled chicken or fish.

As I hope you know by now, I am generally not a fussy person when it comes to cooking, but the exception to this is when I am making a sugar snap pea salad. I am convinced, CONVINCED, they taste better when slivered horizontally on the bias (as shown), which takes approximately four times as long as just chopping them like a normal person. Choose your own adventure, here, I will not judge you. (But clearly Chef Dale agrees with me.)

Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Spicy Peanut Sauce

9 ounces (about 2 1/2 cups) sugar snap peas, trimmed and sliced
1 medium radish, sliced as thinly as you can manage
12 mint leaves, minced finely
1/4 cup peanuts, crushed or chopped
3 tablespoons spicy peanut sauce (below)
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Combine snap peas, radish, mint, and crushed peanuts in a medium bowl. In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together spicy peanut sauce, apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon water, and toss with the snap peas. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Spicy Peanut Sauce
Makes a little less than 1 cup. Save extra in a jar in the refrigerator for up to 7 days. (You’ll need to add a tablespoon or two of warm water to thin it out if you’re taking it right from the fridge.) Use as a dip for vegetables, toss with sesame noodles or drizzle on top of steamed spinach with sesame seeds.

1 small garlic clove
1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/3 cup warm water, plus more a needed
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
4 drops hot sauce

Combine all the ingredients in a blender or a food processor until smooth. Add more warm water if it is on the thick side. (Up to about 4 tablespoons.)

Last week, I dropped off a little cooler care package with my friend who is dealing with a sick spouse, and the mix felt like a good formula: Beef & Black Bean Chili (something kid-friendly and crowdpleasy) + Lentil Salad with Feta, Dill, and Jammy Tomatoes (something healthy) + Frozen Baked Ziti from the local Italian specialty store (something no-cook on my end). I’m working on a better version of the lentil salad, but here’s the chili recipe for anyone who is interested. Longtime DALS readers know the drill with this one: It’s been turkeyed, three-beaned, chickened, even Beyonded. Beef seems to be the final frontier. (Only on the weekends for us, lol.)

Beef & Black Bean Chili

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
dash red pepper flakes
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 pound ground beef
5 tablespoons chili powder
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes, with juice
3 teaspoons oregano
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 14-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed

Suggested toppings: shredded cheddar, sour cream, sliced avocado, tortilla chips, plantain chips, cilantro

Heat the oil in a medium pot set over medium-low heat. Add the onion, garlic, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring every now and then, until the onion is translucent, about 4 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and cook another minute, until the tomato paste darkens slightly. Add the beef and chili powder, breaking the meat up with a fork, turn the heat to medium-high, and cook until the spices get sizzly, about 3 more minutes.

Add the tomatoes, oregano, bay leaf, and cinnamon and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the flavors have a chance to deepen and meld together, about 30 minutes. Stir in beans and cook until warmed through, another 2-3 minutes. Serve in bowls with desired toppings.

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Like a lot of people, my younger daughter, Abby, got very into cooking during the pandemic. For her it wasn’t about project cooking — she didn’t bake a single loaf of sourdough — it was much more about self-care, about ensuring that she had at least one moment of joy in a day spent mostly staring at her friends and teachers over Zoom. She became particularly adept at making pastas and seemed to be always studying techniques on YouTube videos, and saving recipes from her favorite chefs and instagrammers. But at a certain point I started noticing that the answer to “Whose recipe is this?” was almost always the same. “Ali,” she’d say, throwing her gnocchi into a sizzling pan to make it crispy, a technique I’d never seen before that moment. That pasta with lemon and ricotta? Ali. That addictive “Midnight Pasta?” Ali.

Ali is Ali Slagle, a contributor to the New York Times and The Washington Post, and was of course on my radar, too for how her recipes are so unpretentious and cookable (sorry to use that word but, they just are!), and always somehow exactly the thing you feel like eating. It goes way behind pasta, too. Consider her Crispy Sour Cream and Onion Chicken which begins “Picture sour cream and onion dip slathered on chicken cutlets, dredged in panko bread crumbs, and fried until crisp like a potato chip, and you’ll envision this recipe.” (!!!) Her first book, I Dream of Dinner (so You Don’t Have To) is out this week, and not surprisingly, it’s filled with more of the same. Like way more. All-Corner-Pieces Baked Pasta, Fish & Chips Tacos, Egg & Cheese Sliders, Cheesy Bread Potpie, Mushroom “Orzotto.” I mean, how fun does all that sound? You can see why the kid in all of us would be drawn to her recipes. In honor of the book’s publication, here’s Ali interviewed by Abby, who is now a college first-year.

Abby: First off, I just wanna say I love all of your book obviously, but I was looking through the back of it and I’m trying to get a room or suite with a kitchen next year and I want to cut out and post all of the last pages here and post on my fridge. The ones that suggest meals for specific moods or for when you don’t have enough food in the house and stuff. I loved that, it’s so smart.

Ali: At first that section was like double the length. Like I had a ton of ’em. So I had to give up some of those things, unfortunately, but I’m glad you find what’s there useful. I really wanted the book to have a robust index.

Abby: My first question is, are there any recipes in this book or otherwise that you would specifically recommend to somebody who’s learning how to cook?

Ali: I think when you’re first learning how to cook, it’s always nice to start with either something you really like to eat or kind of variate on something that you might know how to cook. So I think, I don’t know what the first thing was that you learned how to cook, but I feel like for a lot of people it’s often a box mac and cheese or ramen or something. Both of those use a pot of boiling water, so like what else can you boil and turn into dinner? Which is kind of why I organized the book by technique. Because I believe that once you become familiar with a technique, you can see what other ways to use it. I feel like that’s a natural way to learn how to cook.

Abby: Yeah, that makes sense. Would you say the book is for beginners in general? There are really not a lot of ingredients called for in these recipes, hardly ever more than five?

Ali: I think who I had in mind for the audience for this book were people who don’t necessarily consider themselves cooks or aren’t maybe like your mom, who’s like always thinking about food and what to make for dinner. I think especially since the pandemic, everyone has had to feed themselves and cook for their health, so my goal definitely was to appeal to all levels of cooks, because everyone needs dinner ideas.

Abby: Yeah. I think that’s really true. I know so many people who didn’t cook before the pandemic and now like me, I became big really into it. I think a few years, or two years ago, I would not have been interested in even doing this kind of interview.

Ali: What did you first like to cook when you started cooking?

Abby: During the pandemic I watched a lot of Bon Appétit videos. Since the test kitchen obviously wasn’t happening anymore, the editors would do these virtual demos in their home kitchens. Do you remember those? And there was one that was like nine chefs made their favorite pantry pasta. And I think I made every single one. Cause I would be in my house all day for online school and I would have one hour for lunch, and so I would decide to make it like the most elaborate like thing ever so it would be the highlight of my day. That’s kind of what got me into it.

Ali: I mean, I think that’s really the key when you’re beginning, like what do you want to eat?

Abby: I do love the pasta section from your book and was wondering what your favorite is.

Ali: I think Aglio e Olio like had to be in the book, just because it’s like the quintessential pantry pasta to me. It’s basically simmering olive oil with garlic and red pepper flakes, and that’s your sauce. I think it’s a great formula for many pantry pastas just because olive oil, when it’s warm, it carries flavor. So you can kind of bloom so many different things in olive oil to make a sauce. And if you don’t have garlic, you can use either ground or whole spices or scallions or there’s just so many ways to like turn olive oil plus one pantry flavoring into a sauce. In my recipe, there’s like a lot of parsley in it cause I did try to incorporate vegetables or green things when possible, just because like hopefully some nutrition is happening at dinner, but I mean, if we’re being honest, parsley is not essential to the recipe.

Abby: That sounds so good. My friend was in Italy over spring break and he brought me back like this really beautiful pasta and I was trying to think of a way to prepare it. I don’t wanna do anything too fancy to it, so that sounds like a perfect way to use it.

Ali: Definitely.

Abby: My next question is a little bit specialized for college students. What are some recipes or just like tips in general for things to make in like a really under-equipped college kitchen?

Ali: Funny you asked that because I wrote a story recently about why I still cook like I’m in college. Cause I just feel like everyone has limitations when they’re cooking dinner, whether it’s financial or time or enthusiasm or equipment, and in college it’s like all of those things are happening at once. So I remember just making pasta, which I feel is like just a classic college food. We had like a big pot to boil water. So I would make so many grain salads, and I think it’s just cause you can like put beans in them or like canned tuna or anything, and then add like crunchy vegetables, which keep forever. But I still think I eat and cook like that — like I make a big pot of something and then just switch it up based on what produce I might have.

Abby: That’s that’s good advice. And if you were in a dining hall and you had access to some of the things that we have, I’m just gonna list them. We have really good butter because we are in Vermont. We have really bad fake Parm, we have olive oil, we have pesto, we have okay marinara, and red pepper flakes. Like based on that, what, what kind of pasta would you assemble in the dining hall? What would you look for?

Ali: Oh my gosh. This is like Chopped. Yeah. And we’re, we’re making this with pasta that is already cooked?

Abby: Yeah. It’s just like a really just like classic dining hall stuff, like penne or bow ties.

Ali: And do you have any sort of like meat, like pepperoni or…

Abby: Yes, there’s sausage a lot of the time.

Ali: So one direction would be like marinara plus a really flavorful meat, like sausage or bacon or something. And then if you like, like briny things like olive or capers, basically think about ingredients like that which add salt in a developed way. So you’re not just adding salt, there’s also umami a puckery briny thing going on. And you don’t have to cook that sauce to make it flavorful. Think too about heat like spiciness — like if you have red pepper flakes or even adding hot sauce. I feel like the way I survived college dorm food was by putting hot sauce on everything, you know? Also, if you have hot water like in the tea area, you can use that to make a fast pasta fagioli — just basically marinara sauce with a little boiling water, pasta, beans, and then like whatever vegetables, and the pesto…

Abby: Wait, that is a really cool idea, I’m gonna write that down.

Abby: What would in your ideal day of like eating, what would be your breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Like just three meals. This is my favorite question to ask people.

Ali: Oh, wow. Okay. Breakfast: Probably just like really simple scrambled eggs or a really crispy fried egg with really good bread, that’s it. And then for lunch. Hmm. Well, let me do dinner and then I’ll come back to my lunch. Dinner would be like, let’s say we’re we’re in the summer. So it would be either like pan con tomate or some sort of like Caprese or Greek salad and then a protein on the grill. Like just some like really simple grilled chicken and then maybe two, two salads. Yeah, ok so back to lunch. If I eat breakfast, I usually don’t eat lunch, but, I’m a fan of just tuna salad or an egg salad on good bread. I eat a lot of bread, just a lot of toast everywhere.

Abby: That those are good answers. That dinner sounds really that’s sounds like something my family would eat in the summer, like almost every night.

Ali: What would your day look like?

Abby: Okay. For breakfast would be some form of pastry, like a really flaky good pastry with really good fresh fruit, summer fruits like nectarine and cherries and peaches. And then, an iced latte. That’s my breakfast I feel like the breakfast is the only one I had figured out for sure, but my other meals would have to be like pasta or sushi probably, but I don’t really care which one is which. The pasta would probably be Marcella’s bolognese. And then lunch, I would just say sushi because why not.

Ali: Yeah, that’s a great, I would also take your menu as my favorite menu!

Abby: OK, last question. How did you start cooking?

Ali: Well, I like you grew up in a family of cooks. My mom was always cooking, whether it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner or a snack. So I think I learned just by watching her and then she had so many cookbooks, so I would always read cookbooks and experiment when I was little. And when I went to college, I had to figure out how to cook so I didn’t have to depend on the dining hall. And, then I had an internship at a cookbook publisher, so just reading so many manuscripts and cookbooks in progress helped a lot. When I was an intern, I was in publicity and marketing and then after I graduated, I went over to editorial. I learned so much during that time.

Abby: That’s cool. I’m trying to find internships and stuff right now. So I’m just curious how other people do it.

Ali: What are you interested in?

Abby: Well at the moment, I really wanted to find something in podcasting. I love podcasts. I have a radio show, but I would love it to be food podcast. I don’t really have a food podcast that I’m really into right now. Do you have any that you recommend?

Ali: I mean, I love Samin.

Abby: Oh! Me too.

Ali: That one to me was like just the, like the perfect food podcast, cause the questions were so interesting and I learned so much, but then Food 52 has this network of podcasts, and they have been trying some new things. Like on Play Me a Recipe, someone will like walk you through a dish and stuff like that. I think that’s like a cool idea, it’s be fun to hear the cooking. There aren’t really many podcasts where you hear the cooking and sounds, you know what I mean? Which I think is like how many of us watch cooking shows? Like it’s like babbling in the background.

Abby: Yeah that’s cool. Well thank you so much for talking to me. I really, really, really love your book, and I was not kidding. If I end up getting my suite next year with a kitchen, I’m gonna have those pages posted on my fridge.

Ali: Wow, that’ll make me really happy. Thank you so much. It was great to meet you.

Thanks, Ali! We love your book! I Dream of Dinner is available wherever books are sold.

I’d argue that the only phrase that makes more appearances than ‘I could eat this every night’ across all DALS platforms is most likely top with an egg. Especially during these last few years of Weekday Vegetarianism, when often the addition of an egg is just the magic-wand-ish protein we are looking for to transform a dish into capital D-Dinner. So, at long last, for all your future #PutAnEggOnIt needs, my three most favorite ways to prepare them: 7-minute (aka “jammy”), hard-boiled, and sunny-side up….

7-Minute

Once I learned how to make an egg this way, it quickly became my preferred response to “put an egg on it.” Especially for salads, rice bowls, and lentil bowls. (Technique is also in The Weekday Vegetarians.)

4 large eggs

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Using a slotted spoon, carefully lower the eggs into the water, turning the heat down slightly so the boil is controlled and not aggressive. Set your timer for 7 minutes, not a second more or less. 

While the eggs are simmering, prepare an ice bath by filling a bowl large enough to fit your eggs with ice and water. When your timer goes off, immediately transfer the eggs into the ice bath. Remove after a minute or two (I don’t love freezing-cold eggs) and peel gently. 

Recipe shown: Rosa’s Warm Lentil Salad

Hard-Boiled

This is the technique voted Most Likely to Be Made in Large Batches. I often hard-boil 6 to 8 at a time, then dip into them over the next week for an on-the-go breakfast, or a quick lunch (with salad or veg) or snack. Have you ever tried a drop or two of Teriyaki sauce on a hard boiled egg? My friend Olivia taught me that and it’s sick.

4 eggs

Add eggs to a medium pot of water set over high heat. Bring to a boil, then immediately remove the pot from the heat, cover, and set timer for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, remove the eggs to a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking. Alternately you could strain and run under cold water for 30 seconds to cool down.

Recipe shown: Rice Bowl with Egg, Smoked Fish, Quick Pickles and Dill. (Photo by Chelsea Kyle.)

Sunny-Side Up

I don’t make my eggs this way as often as hard-boiled or 7-minute, which might explain why I never nailed a technique for them until recently that reliably yielded tender whites and runny-but-not-too-runny yolks. (I should note here that this is the way I prefer my sunny-side up: delicate; If you like the olive-oil crispy fried kind I’m not your lady.) Well, I finally learned a thing or two about technique beginning with two key points: 1) Make sure you are using a nonstick or a very well-seasoned cast iron skillet and 2) go low and slow with the heat to ensure even cooking throughout. This recipe is written for one, but obviously can be doubled and tripled and quadrupled as needed (though you won’t need more than 2 tablespoons of fat for up to 4 eggs) as long as your skillet is big enough. Just try not to crowd the pan.

1 tablespoon butter or canola oil (I prefer butter)
1 egg

Add butter (or oil) to a nonstick skillet set over medium heat. Crack the egg into a small bowl then, once the butter has melted and foamed a little, gently slide the egg into the pan and immediately decrease the heat to medium-low. Use a spatula or a spoon to shape and contain the egg white in a nice circle (and separate from other eggs if making more than one.) From this point, you want to cook your egg 3 minutes, making little dashes in the whites with your spatula in the first minute or so to help the top part cook. Once the whites are mostly set, cover the pan for 30 seconds. Using a spatula, gently remove egg from pan.

Recipe shown: “Egg Roll in a Bowl“

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Opening photo by Christine Han.

This photo probably looks familiar to longtime readers. What can I say: We are creatures of habit down in South Carolina. If I look back at my dinner diaries, without fail, there’s a Pan-fried flounder with some form of slaw in the line-up. (But that certainly does not mean you have to be south of the Mason-Dixon Line to enjoy it.) I’m calling last night’s slaw a “beet slaw,” because the color of the beets dominated, but you wouldn’t be wrong for instead calling it a “shred whatever’s left in the fridge “salad. In my case that was: Two large-ish beets, 4 small carrots (they were light yellow and white, which is why you can’t really see them), the heel of a Napa cabbage, handful of snow peas (sliced thin, not shredded), half a sliced jalapeño, shallots, chives. With my all-purpose vinaigrette. It really was the winner on the plate, all fresh and bright and crunchy. I’m just going to come right out and say it: a raw beet might be more exciting to me than a roasted one. Here’s the fish how-to:

Basic Everyday Fried Fish
Serves 4

olive oil
1/2 cup seasoned flour, on a dinner plate for dredging
1 egg, lightly beaten, on a dinner plate for dredging
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
2 large filets of delicate white fish such as flounder (about 1 1/4 pounds)
salt and pepper to taste
lemon wedges for squeezing
tartar sauce (store-bought or homemade: few tablespoons of good mayo, one finely chopped dill pickle, squeeze of lemon, pinch of sugar) 

1. Heat about 2-3 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.

2. Set up your dredging stations. One plate flour (salted & peppered), one plate beaten egg, one plate panko bread crumbs.

3. Dredge your fish filets: first in flour, then in egg, then in panko. Add to skillet and fry 2-3 minutes a side until cooked through, adding oil as necessary. Remove from skillet and serve with a dollop of sauce and a squeeze of lemon.

Note: The slaw only fed two of us. The girls are back at school.

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Remember winter? On this sunny, second day of spring down in South Carolina, as I trade in my boots for Birkenstocks, I already feel like it’s shrinking away in the rearview mirror. Also helping things along are these decidedly warm-weather tacos we ate for dinner last night, which made excellent use of the otherworldly shrimp down here. As always, the goal with shrimp this fresh (or any fish, or any in-season anything) is to keep things simple, which you should feel free to interpret as be as lazy as possible. I wasn’t planning on the spicy avocado cream until the last minute when I spied a charred poblano-serrano sauce on Marcela Valladolid’s instagram (she’s an excellent follow, btw) and started scavenging the kitchen looking for anything to achieve that color. Success.

Shrimp Tacos with Cabbage and Spicy Avocado Cream
We served with rice.

kosher salt
1 1/2 pounds shrimp, shelled and rinsed
8 small tortillas (we used 6-inch corn tortillas, but flour would be fine, too)
1 cup cabbage (any kind: savoy, green, red), shredded
spicy avocado cream (below)
toppings: minced red onion, cilantro (didn’t have, wished I did), freshly ground black pepper

Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil and add shrimp. Cook for 3 minutes (exactly) at a rolling boil, drain and run under cold water. Chop roughly.

Prep tortillas: Either grill for a few minutes or, using tongs, flip a few times on a stovetop gas burner, about 1 minute total for each.

Divide shrimp and cabbage between your tortillas. Drizzle with a few dollops of avocado cream, top with desired toppings, and serve.

Spicy Avocado Cream
Makes 1 cup
Use leftover for dip with chips or on sandwiches.

Puree all of the following in a blender until smooth, adding water a tablespoon at a time until it reaches desired consistency. (It should resemble sour cream, but slightly more liquidy.)

1 ripe avocado
1 small jalapeño (seeded and de-pithed as desired for heat; I included one strip of pith with seeds)
1 tablespoon mayo
1/4 cup plain yogurt (or sour cream)
juice from 1 juicy lime
1/4 cup vinegar (red wine, white wine, or distilled)
1/4 cup olive oil
4 scallions (roughly chopped)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
some meaningful grinds of black pepper

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My heart swelled a little bit last week when Abby texted me from college saying she had figured out how to concoct a pretty decent vinaigrette using only dining hall ingredients (“oil balsamic a lil soy sauce onion powder pepper salt sriracha and yellow mustard…i’m surprised yellow mustard works”). Not only that, but she was whisking up a batch with a fork and a drinking glass for her whole table: “can’t believe I ever used the pre-made one,” she texted “it’s just a new level.” This is facts. From a previous text I had also learned that she’s excited about “coded variables” from her stats class, which also sounds useful (I think?) but as far as I’m concerned, college has already armed her with an important life lesson: if you’ve got homemade dressing, you’re gonna be in good shape for dinner. Exhibit A: My new favorite ginger-miso dressing that I could drink by the gallon, and when there’s a jar of it in the refrigerator, I swear I feel like dinner is mostly made. It’s a simplified version of a Samin Nosrat recipe, and now (sound the trumpets!) I’m ready to add it to my rotation of go-tos. Drizzle it on top of any greens or vegetables, then toss in a protein…

…like no-brainer pan-fried tofu cubes and you’ve got a pretty hearty, healthy, umami-packed meal. The salad in the photo is made of spring greens, cucumbers, radishes, thinly sliced red onion, minced red pepper (such boring vegetables! and yet!) I also added some sliced almonds, but wished I had chopped, crushed peanuts. Obviously, you can and should play around with the vegetables, and add an avocado if you’ve got one. I did not.

Greens with Pan-Seared Sesame Tofu and Ginger-Miso Dressing
I love this kind of dinner — I feel both satisfied and weirdly virtuous after eating it.

Make Ginger-Miso Dressing
Makes 2/3 cup

3 tablespoons sweet white miso
1/3 cup neutral oil (like grapeseed; olive oil is fine too if it’s what you’ve got)
¼ cup seasoned rice vinegar
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 two-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1/2 small jalapeño, seeded and chopped

Add all ingredients to a mini food processor and whirl until emulsified and smooth. Add water, a tablespoon at a time, if you need to adjust the consistency to be dressing-drizzly.

Make Pan-Seared Sesame Tofu
Makes enough for a salad for 2 (can be doubled)

1/2 14-ounce block firm tofu (I used Trader Joe’s super firm brand), cut into 1/2 inch cubes as shown
2-3 tablespoons oil (neutral or olive)
Drizzle Maggi Umami (1-2 teaspoons) or soy sauce
shake or two of roasted sesame seeds

Add oil to a heavy bottomed skillet and turn heat to medium-high. Add tofu and let sit undisturbed for 5 minutes to get a nice sear. Using a spatula or tongs, toss the tofu, flipping and arranging the pieces so they brown on a second side, about 2-3 minutes (again, let them cook undisturbed so they brown). Drizzle the umami sauce all over the tofu, toss again, then toss in the sesame seeds. Remove from heat. Let cool for a minute or two so it’s not piping hot, then add to salad, grain bowl, tacos, sandwiches, etc.

Make Salad
Combine your favorite greens with the pan-seared sesame tofu, and any of the following: shredded red cabbage, shredded carrots, edamame, chopped avocado, sliced radishes, cucumbers, minced scallions or red onion, finely chopped red bell pepper, cubed or sliced avocado, cooked, cooled, and chopped broccoli or green beans, crushed peanuts or sliced almonds.

Toss with the ginger-miso dressing.

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Does the world need another fried rice recipe? I didn’t think so until I made Kenji López-Alt’s Basic Vegetable Fried Rice from his new, somewhat astonishing book The Wok. The dish, which I consider to be an absolute cornerstone of a Weekday Vegetarian’s repertoire, has always been something I’ve kind of made up on the fly. Ginger here, soy sauce there, eggs before the vegetables…or, hmm, maybe after? BREAKING NEWS: If you uses actual technique, your dinner — and by extension your day, your life — will be just a little bit better. And if you can rely on anyone for technique, it’s Kenji. The onetime Serious Eats columnist who now writes a column for the Times (and whose YouTube show, where he straps a GoPro to his forehead while making dinner, is absurdly addictive) made a name for himself with his precise, exhaustively scientific approach to cooking. (Though, he’s also trying to get away from this characterization, which I learned about from Helen Rosner’s Q&A with Kenji in the New Yorker.)

From his recipe, I learned three very important things about fried rice:

1. Prep the Egg First I’ve always stirred the whisked egg into everything at the end; Kenji gives an option to cook it in the wok before anything else, which allows you to fold it in to the rice and vegetables at the end. This means larger, fresher pieces of egg, which I love.
2. You Don’t Need a Lot of Sauce According to Kenji, this is the downfall of most fried rice dishes. As he asks: Why go through all that trouble of crisping up the rice if you’re just going to drench it in too much sauce. Be judicious.
3. Gather Your Mise en Place Make sure everything is ready to go once you turn the heat on. Things cook fast and you want to be prepared.

Here’s the recipe.

Basic Vegetable Fried Rice
This very simple fried rice is a blueprint for all of your future fried rice adventures. Feel free to omit or replace any of the vegetables. If using fresh rice, rinse the rice well before cooking, and once cooked, transfer it to a rimmed baking sheet set by a breezy window or under a fan for 1 hour before continuing with Step 2. From The Wok: Recipes and Techniques, by J. Kenji López-Alt

Note From Jenny: For vegetables, we used about half a small head of Napa cabbage, a handful of bean sprouts, and 1 cup of (trimmed) snow peas. We also added about 2 teaspoons of minced fresh ginger.

2 cups cooked white rice
1/4 cup peanut, rice bran, or other neutral oil
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into small dice
2 scallions, thinly sliced
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon light soy sauce or shoyu
1 teaspoon roasted sesame oil
4 ounces frozen peas, thawed
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

If using day-old rice (see note), transfer to a medium bowl and break the rice up with your hands into individual grains.

Heat a wok over high heat until very lightly smoking. Add 3 tablespoon of the vegetable oil and swirl to coat. Reduce the heat to medium, pour the eggs into the center of the wok, and cook, swirling the wok, until the offs are puffy and golden brown around the edges, about 30 seconds. Use a spatula to release the eggs from the bottom of the wok, carefully flip, cook for another 15 seconds, swirling, then transfer the eggs to a bowl and set aside.

Return the empty wok to high heat until lightly smoking. Add the onion and carrot and cook, stirring and tossing constantly, until lightly softened and fragrant, about 1 minute. Transfer to the bowl with the egg.

Return the empty wok to high heat until lightly smoking. Add the remaining tablespoon oil and swirl to cat. Add the rice and cook, stirring and tossing, until the rice is pale brown and toasted and has a lightly chewy texture, about 3 minutes (see note). Add the scallions and garlic and story-fry until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Return the vegetables and egg to the wok, using the spatula to break up the egg into small pieces as you toss everything together. Add the soy sauce, sesame oil, and peas.

I feel like The Wok is going to be one of our “Saturday Night Cookbooks,” i.e. something we cook from when we don’t feel like going out to dinner, but we want our dinner to feel special and weekend-worthy. Two Saturdays ago we hit H Mart and loaded up on tamarind pulp, dried shrimp, pho and other groceries we never have on hand to execute his perfect pad Thai. Winner.

Just a reminder, that I have a podcast! It’s available to paying subscribers of my newsletter and the next episode, featuring Matt Rodbard, co-author of Food IQ, drops Friday, March 4. A subscription costs $5/month or $50/year. You can subscribe here.

In addition to the podcast, a subscription comes with my weekly Three Things dispatch (a trio of recipes, books, whatever that I’m excited about) plus a second email most weeks, which falls under the category of things that will “surprise and delight” you, including things like: a meal plan (plus shopping list), bonus recipes, access to Zoom calls with me (next one is happening in March!), deeper-dive personal essays like My Formula for a Meaningful Day, live Q&As with travel, books, and cooking experts, and how to work the recipes from The Weekday Vegetarians into your everyday dinner life.

I really hope you’ll join me!

Podcast logo by Robin Helman

A few weekends ago, Abby was home from college for a mini-break, and right before dinner one night, she came into the kitchen to tell me her friend Alex was going to stop by. It’s dinnertime, I said. Will he be eating with us? She (somewhat annoyingly) couldn’t confirm one way or the other, but I decided to be prepared just in case — you know how I panic when feeding The Species Known As Teenage Boys — and an extra helping of what I was making (tofu with greens!) somehow didn’t seem like it was going to do the job. So I did a quick scan of the fridge. Here is what I pulled out:

Mustard, onions, shredded cheddar, 1/2 Napa cabbage, frozen pie dough, thyme. Nothing very fancy, right? And yet, this was the result:

I ended up cooking down the onions and cabbage and wrapping it all up in the pie dough. It feeds about 3 people (maybe 2 teenage-boy people), and the crust is pretty rich, so just a simple green salad rounds it out for a meal. Alex ended up not staying for dinner, but I ended up eating it for lunch the next day (like all galettes it’s better at room temperature) and it only took 30 minutes of my life anyway.

Cabbage-and-Onion Tart with Cheddar & Mustard

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, sliced
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
7 ounces cabbage (Napa or Savoy), sliced
1 9-inch store-bought pie dough (or this one if you want a homemade option)
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1-2 ounces shredded sharp cheddar (you can omit to cut back on richness or swap with a sprinkling of nutritional yeast)
1 egg, whisked
fresh thyme, for serving

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Add olive oil to a large deep skillet set over medium heat. Add onions, salt, and pepper and cook until onions soften and start caramelizing, about 10-12 minutes. Add cabbage, turn up heat, and continue cooking until the cabbage browns a bit and onions are softened. (It doesn’t have to complete cook down since it’s going in the oven.)

Meanwhile, place pie dough on a parchment-paper lined cookie sheet and spread the middle with mustard, leaving a 1-inch border. Sprinkle on cheddar, then add onion-cabbage mixture, flattening slightly with a spoon. Wrap edges of the dough around the filling as shown. Brush the exposed dough with egg wash.

Bake for 18-20 minutes until crust is golden. Let cool slightly (makes it easier to slice), and serve with fresh thyme leaves.

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When we were first trying to get our kids on board with the whole Weekday Vegetarian thing, we were never quite sure if we should tweak old recipes that they had an attachment to, or just ignore them completely. Sometimes we got lucky and just swapped beans for meat in a favorite dinner and no one was any worse for the wear, like when we replaced chicken with crispy chickpeas in our everyday Caesar salad. Other times, like with a turkey chili we’ve been making since the girls were in diapers, we had to slowly get them used to the idea that a beloved meal was not going to taste exactly the same. In the case of that chili, which already called for black beans, we just kept gradually changing the ratio of ground turkey to beans in favor of the beans. (The inclusion of dark chocolate, inspired by traditional moles, helps replicate a little of the depth that was missing once the meat completely disappeared.) We also switched out crumbled tortilla chips for plantain chips—a favorite snack we usually have lying around. They add a nice sweetness along with the necessary crunch. Eventually everyone came around.

Three-Bean Chili with Chocolate and Plantains
For the meat-eating hold-out: Stir in cooked chicken chorizo sausage crumbles or cooked ground turkey or beef. Recipe from The Weekday Vegetarians. Serves 4.

3 tablespoons oil (any kind: olive, canola, whatever)
1 medium yellow onion, chopped 1 garlic clove, minced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Dash of dried red pepper flakes, or to taste
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 1⁄2 cups cooked kidney beans, or 1 (15-ounce) can, rinsed and drained
1 1⁄2 cups cooked pinto beans, or 1 (15-ounce) can, rinsed and drained
1 1⁄2 cups cooked black beans, or 1 (15-ounce) can, rinsed and drained (you can drain and rinse all beans in the same colander)
1⁄4 cup chili powder, or 2 teaspoons adobo sauce from canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (this is the spicier option!)
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, with juice
1 ounce dark chocolate, roughly chopped
2 teaspoons dried oregano 1 dried bay leaf
Dash of ground cinnamon

Serving (all optional)

Plantain chips
Pickled Onions
Avocado chunks
Sour cream (omit for vegans)
Shredded cheddar (omit for vegans)
Hot sauce
Chopped fresh cilantro

Heat the oil in a medium pot set over medium-low heat. Add the onion, garlic, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring every now and then, until the onion is translucent, about 4 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and cook another minute, until the tomato paste darkens slightly. Add the beans and chili powder, turn the heat to medium-high, and cook until the spices get sizzly, about 3 more minutes.

Add the tomatoes, chocolate, oregano, bay leaf, and cinnamon and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the flavors have a chance to deepen and meld together, about 30 minutes. Serve in bowls with plantain chips and your desired toppings.

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