12 recipes we've gotta make this fall
plus: one-pan lemon chicken and an interview with jessie sheehan
Monday, September 23, 2024
Good afternoon!
The $4,999 Uncrustables painting (I love it) [NYTimes, unlocked]
Tupperware files for bankruptcy [NYTimes, unlocked]
Justine Doiron Wants Her Food to Speak for Itself [Psst: I’ll be interviewing Doiron at her NYC launch 10/28, tickets here]
We are kicking off my favorite cooking season right now — that is, the intersection of peak harvest and temperatures beginning to drop just enough that cooking doesn’t cause me to melt. This calls for fresh agenda in the form of a fall cooking bucket list. Below, 12 Smitten Kitchen fall essentials, unmissable (I’m a little biased) recipes I come back to every year and think deserve an audition for your repertoire too. There’s salad, there’s soup, a heavenly galette, one of the best pasta bakes, ever, the coziest chicken and rice, a perfect pumpkin bread, and caramels that could turn the most candy-resistant into a devoted fan.
Plus, I’ve got a new recipe for lemon chicken with potatoes and chickpeas, a new podcast episode out today, and an interview with the wonderful Jessie Sheehan, whose cookbook Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes is out tomorrow. If you’re around this Thursday, I’ll be interviewing her about the book at Archestratus Books + Foods (tickets here).
Cheers!
Deb
The Smitten Kitchen Classroom Wishlist Project 2024 is going strong! In the US, a tremendous number of teachers don’t get the funding they need to set their classrooms up for success. Most will end up paying out of their own pockets to buy educational materials, which is all wrong. I’ve asked teachers to send me their wishlists in hopes that we can help clear as many as possible, as we did the last two summers. Help out if you feel you’re able — you will unquestionably make a teacher’s (and their students’) day! [Project information. Direct link to spreadsheet.]
My podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, launched this spring. Our newest episode, out today, is all about Caesar Salad — which just turned 100! You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts, such as Apple, Spotify, and more.
lemon chicken with potatoes and chickpeas
New! A one-pan lemon chicken with potatoes and chickpeas perfect for busy times, or perhaps four times in a single month, if you’re us. The chicken thighs are bronzed and crisp; the roasted potatoes and chickpeas infuse with the lemony onion and garlic drippings. It’s perfect.
fall bliss salad
A favorite centerpiece salad that feels like the epitome of late fall with roasted squash, toasted pepitas, pomegranate, and a showstopping sherry-shallot vinaigrette.
squash toasts with ricotta and cider vinegar
One of my favorite fall combinations, ever, here roasted winter squash is half-mashed with a tangy mess of onions (cooked down with cider vinegar and maple syrup), heaped on ricotta or goat cheese toasts and finished with fresh mint. It's ridiculously good with green salad and could make a squash convert out of anyone.
spiced cauliflower soup
This spiced cauliflower and potato soup from Madhur Jaffrey is vibrant and totally hits the spot on a blustery day. We like to add a little rice, a swirl of yogurt (optional if you want to keep it vegan) and a few wedges of toasted naan on the side. Double it if you can; I’m always glad when I do.
miso sweet potato and broccoli bowl
Wild rice, roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli and a miso-ginger-tahini dressing all piled into one bowl make this one of my favorite everyone-approved weeknight dinners -- use any kind of rice or combination of vegetables you've got; the dressing is the star.
winter squash and spinach pasta bake
Inspired by Ottolenghi, this pasta bake is savory fall brilliance. Everything is tossed raw into a springform for a long bake and what emerges is resplendent: layers of tender squash and spinach with noodles, soft in the center and burnished to a snatch-able crisp on top, the aroma of garlic and toasted cheese everywhere.
everyday meatballs
My everyday meatballs are one-bowl, one-pot, frying-free and have so much flavor, they work as a standalone dish or with a side of salad, and by "salad" I mean garlic bread. Make a big pot of these on Sunday, bake some mozzarella and parmesan on top, and let everyone scoop it onto segments of bread and see if anyone lets you make anything else for a party ever again.
butternut squash and caramelized onion galette
It's my favorite time of the year in the Northeast -- crisp air, leaves in every color, and, most importantly, it's finally butternut squash and caramelized onion galette season. It's my every-October-without-fail thing, and I hope you make it yours too.
chicken rice with buttered onions
The most cozy, comforting fall dish that's gone into heavy rotation at dinnertime because the ingredient list is short, the chicken tender, the rice flavorful, the leftovers reheat phenomenally, and it's budget-friendly. You cannot imagine a better aroma to come home to.
pumpkin bread
It's time! I want this to be the last recipe for pumpkin bread you'll ever need: towering with a crisp cinnamon-sugar lid that's impossible not to pick off in deeply satisfying bark-like flecks. It's also one-bowl and uses a full can of pumpkin in a single loaf. I refuse to believe that an October day cannot be improved by one of these coming out of the oven.
mom's apple cake
My mom's apple cake is an avalanche of apples, a tiny bit of batter, and a cascade of cinnamon baked into a hulking mass of fall awesomeness in a tube pan that people will demand you make again and again. It's for new neighbors, and rainy afternoons. It's also dairy-free and gets better the longer it lasts.
cranberry-orange breakfast buns
These tender breakfast buns infused with orange zest and wound with a brown sugar cranberry filling that becomes almost jammy as they bake are exquisitely good right now or for any holiday breakfasts you have ahead. Don't miss them; they’re one of my all-time favorites.
apple cider caramels
This is my favorite candy I've *ever* made. It compacts a whole bottle of fresh apple cider into a salt-flecked, cinnamon-y, buttery caramel that is so loud with everything awesome about fall, no October is complete without it. [Video below!]
I’ve written three cookbooks and I’m a tiny bit biased, but I think you’d love them all. Wondering what you might cook from Smitten Kitchen Keepers now that school’s back in session and the leaves are changing colors? I thought you’d never ask! Try the peanut butter, oat, and jam bars, spiced sweet potato oven fries, tangy baked eggplant and couscous, and weeknight lemon chicken wings. To finish, I recommend the apple butterscotch crisp, the pumpkin snacking cake, and/or the apple cider old-fashioned. Were you looking for a list of all the recipes in each of my cookbooks? I’ve added these in a separate page and hope it makes it easier for you to find everything you want to cook.
AN INTERVIEW WITH JESSIE SHEEHAN
My shelves are full of wonderful cookbooks I don’t get to talk about enough, so I’ve added this section so you can get to know the cool people behind them. Today we're chatting with Jessie Sheehan. Her cookbook Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes: 100 Easy-Peasy, Savory Recipes for 24/7 Deliciousness is out tomorrow, 9/24.
1. What inspired your cookbook?
At the risk of sounding cheesy (pun intended) Salty Cheesy Herby Crispy Snackable Bakes is truly inspired by exactly how it is I like to bake at home. It is a book of super simple, easy recipes that require minimal lift, but offer up maximum deliciousness. They are the kind of recipes that I crave and then make, for my family and me on the regular. This book is the savory sibling of my last book, Snackable Bakes, a book of easy-peasy sweet recipes. And embracing cheese and herbs and salt for this book, while still holding strong to the Snackable Bakes ethos (short, pantry friendly ingredient lists, no special equipment, quick assembly) seemed like a natural progression. Although it did require me to get comfortable with my spice drawer in ways that surprised me, as I definitely found developing savory baking recipes far more difficult than developing sweet ones.
2. What recipe are you the most proud of in the book, or felt the most triumphant when you got it right?
I’m really proud of my creamed greens pie - and really all the recipes in the Brunchables, Lunchables, etc. chapter, as this is the chapter of recipes you can actually whip up for a meal - I mean yes, you can eat snacks for dinner, but it’s sometimes nice to make an actual “main course” and the creamed greens pie is just that. My vision for the recipe was this: I adore creamed spinach - particularly when served along side, well, bloody (sorry!) steak at Peter Luger’s and I wanted to make a pie that gave me all the creamed spinach vibes I craved, and then some. So I added kale and Swiss chard to the mix and cooked this all a bit on the stove top with some cream, and then transferred it to an unbaked pie crust (the crust is made from my magic melted butter pie dough (which I am also proud of because, believe it or not, it still has some flakiness to it, in part due to the little bit of baking powder that I add to the dough, despite the fact it is made with melted butter). Forty minutes later you’re eating slices of creamed greens nestled in buttery pie dough. Yum.
3. What recipe is so low-effort, high-reward that it's worth cooking for dinner tonight, even if we're tired and don't want to cook?
Okay, so here’s the thing: because everything in the book is low effort, high reward, I hardly know where to begin . . . BUT, the first thing that comes to mind, that arguably (according to my recipe tester) is not really a recipe at all, is my “recipe”for Ritz Crackers (I had to call them “butter crackers” in the book) with pickles and melted Monterey Jack cheese. Essentially you layer slices of a briny sour pickle on the crackers and top with squares of cheese, place into the oven for 3 to 5 minutes, until the cheese is melty and voila: one of the tastiest treats in the land that is quite snack’y and quite special. I’m not saying you could eat a bunch of these and call it dinner, but I’m not saying you couldn’t . . .
4. What's something you wish more people knew about your book?
I am not sure why, but I live in mortal fear that Salty Cheesy is going to be thought of as an appetizer book, a snack book, an entertaining book. And although there are plenty of snack’y items in it (hello Ritz and pickles and cheese) I really hope people think of it as much more than that - there are breakfast recipes (both muffins and biscuits and scones but also a strata and a dutch baby) and lunch recipes (like bread pudding and quiches) and dinner recipes (like spaghetti pie and galettes) - and I want it to feel like a book you could pull off your shelf for any meal of the day, as well as for those moments when you need something for a party or because you’re having a few peeps over or because you want a dinner of a few little things, as opposed to one big one. In short, I want people to know that Salty Cheesy is a versatile little number, and I hope people recognize all the variety it offers.
Thank you, Jessie! You can preorder Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes right here.
apple cider caramels
shop my favorites
Ever wonder where I get my cutting boards, paring knives, offset spatulas and more than you see when I cook? I've created a page on Smitten Kitchen with links to some of my favorite kitchen items, the ones I'm asked about the most — yes, including the the Smitten Kitchen x Staub Braiser, which is back in stock! For each item, I've attempted to provide a range of shopping links so we're not just focusing on one giant retailer.
See you next week!