10 great things to cook in june
plus: grilled feta with asparagus chimichurri
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Good afternoon!
Fudgetown, USA [Taste]
The Woman Who Made America Take Cookbooks Seriously [The Atlantic]
June is the best month. Sure, I also say this about October, when the air is crisp and the leaves explode with color. I sometimes say this about April, when the trees erupt with pink and white blossoms and we can go outside with fewer layers again. But only June has strawberries, sugar snaps, and also my birthday. And if you’re about to say “I knew you were a Gemini!” no seriously, why does everyone say that to me?
June is also a ideal month for cooking as the farm stands and maybe your own garden patch begin to yield the only things I’m going to want to eat for the rest of the summer. Below, a collection of recipes to get your summer cooking engines started, plus a new recipe for grilled feta with asparagus chimichurri I can’t stop making.
Cheers!
Deb
P.S. If you’re around tomorrow evening in NYC, I’m jumping in to interview Sara B. Franklin about her new book about the legendary editor Judith Jones at McNally Jackson Seaport. Tickets and details here!
My podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, launched two months ago and our seventh episode, out last week, is all about Grilled Chicken. You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts and I’ve set up a new podcast tab/page where you can keep up on it here, too. We will have new episodes every two Mondays. We’ve been working on this behind the scenes for the last year — I hope you enjoy listening along.
grilled feta with asparagus chimichurri
New! There are few things I love more than passing off a big block of cheese as a light meal, especially when potlucks and apéro hours beckon on a holiday weekend. Before yesterday, I’d never smooshed warm feta on crostini and spooned grilled asparagus and charred red onion tossed in chimichurri sauce over it but it’s so good together, I now don’t want to ever stop. Thank you to Jessica Merchant for inspiring the grilled feta/chimichurri combination!
hummus heaped with tomatoes and cucumbers
A small-diced salad heaped on a great swirl of hummus to be scooped with grilled pita wedges is the only thing I want to eat for the rest of the summer. With a few chocolate ice cream sandwich intermissions, for balance and stuff.
beach bean salad
This is my platonic ideal of a summer bean salad -- one that keeps well, gets better as it marinates, and travels fantastically to anyplace your sunny afternoon takes you.
poolside sesame slaw
A colorful, crunchy salad with optional protein and the best miso-sesame dressing I know how to make, designed with portability in mind. It wants to tag along with you on the good life, lounging by a sparkling blue pool this weekend (just tell me what time to arrive) or wherever the warm weather takes you.
linguine with pea pesto
This is the dish that converted me to shelled peas, some blended with parmesan, garlic and pine nuts, some left whole, all tangled with linguine for an especially pretty weeknight meal.
summer ricotta with grilled vegetables
A love letter to homemade ricotta and my favorite way to serve it in the summer, that is with whatever vegetables and bread look good, grilled. It's great for potlucks, host gifts, and it's also the warm-weather light meal of my dreams. I hope you're inspired.
smashed chicken meatball sliders
A smashed chicken meatball slider with barbecue sauce and a buttermilk slaw we would happily eat for dinner once a week all summer. The meatballs are inspired by Jessica Merchant, who we should all be following if we're not already.
garlic lime steak and noodle salad
A salty-tangy-sweet-spicy steak salad with an emphasis on fresh colorful ingredients has become a summer staple around here. We serve it assemble-your-own style, so everyone can fix their plates with as much or as little of each element as they wish. I think our weeks will be better with this in it.
strawberry-rhubarb crumble
At the bright pink intersection of rhubarb and strawberry seasons (that is, exactly now) is this, one of those Why Do I Even Bother Making Other Desserts desserts, a generous balance of rubbly, buttery, lemony crumbs and perfectly cooked berries and rhubarb. It wants to be your favorite, too.
chocolate pudding pie
Don't let anyone tell you that only fruit pies are welcome in the summer. The cold, richness of homemade chocolate pudding in a crisp, buttery pie shell with a raft of whipped cream and confetti of chocolate shavings on top will make a commotion heretofore unseen since strawberry met rhubarb.
easy strawberry lemonade
An easy, lazy strawberry lemonade that is the most vivid and delicious I've ever made. It tastes the way cotton candy smells at a carnival, and that's about the highest praise I can give anything.
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 for these warm summer days? I thought you’d never ask! Try the zucchini cornbread and tomato butter, two-bean salad with basil vinaigrette, spinach spiral bread, tomato and corn cobbler, and lamb skewers with crackly vinegar glaze. To finish, I recommend the big crumb pie bars, the blondie chipwich, and/or the strawberry summer stack cake. 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.
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 new braiser! 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!
