10 unmissable december recipes
plus: a gift with every braiser purchase and my cookbooks are on sale
Monday, December 2, 2024
Good afternoon!
What’s Wrong With White Bread? [NYT, unlocked]
The Great Grocery Squeeze [The Atlantic]
Welcome to December! Here in NYC, it arrived on a gust of icy wind but the lights are going up in store windows and restaurants, making everything glowy and more charming than one would expect when the sun sets at approximately 3pm each day. The tree stands are out on the sidewalks and I love walking through and taking a big inhale of the fresh-cut scent. Today is a perfect time perfect to kick off a festive and cozy cooking month. Below, 10 beloved, quintessentially December Smitten Kitchen site favorites — the salads, soup, lasagna, brunch favorites, cake and drinks that put me immediately in a holiday mood. I hope you try a few and see if it works its magic on you too!
Cheers!
Deb
shop my favorites
Ever wonder where I get my cutting boards, paring knives, offset spatulas and more than you see when I cook? The Shop page has links to some of my favorite, most heavily used, and long-running kitchen items, the ones I use the most. Including…
… The Smitten Kitchen x Staub Braiser, which is back in stock. This 11-inch, 4-quart braiser is a lower profile enameled cast-iron Dutch oven. It works as well as a deep sauté pan as it does a soup pot, roasting pan, or even casserole dish that perfectly fits a pasta bake. Not a week has gone by in the decade I’ve had mine when I don’t use it at least three times.We’re running a special while supplies last that if you enter the the code “SMITTEN” with your braiser purchase, you’ll also receive a magnetic trivet as a gift. We are also doing a limited run of a stunning dark green color that will be available in mid-December, just in time for the holidays. I’ll let you know the moment it’s available to order.
Your braiser purchase contains three new recipes (two savory, one sweet) by me that work perfectly in your new pot. If you’re looking for even more ideas, I created a category on the site to highlight some of my favorite dishes I make in mine.
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 your holiday tables and New Year’s parties? I thought you’d never ask! Try the endive salad with apple matchsticks, carrot tarte tatin, fettucine with white ragu, and raclette tartiflette. To finish, I recommend the thick molasses spice cookies, the family-style crème brûlée, and/or the white Russian slush punch. 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. Note: All three books are steeply on sale right now for Cyber Monday on Amazon: Smitten Kitchen Keepers for $12.83, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook for $14.92, and Smitten Kitchen Every Day for $18.29.
“One of the winning elements of ‘The Recipe’ is that it’s not prescriptive — rather than settling on one universal ‘perfect’ recipe, the chefs explain their personal preferences, then give listeners the information they need to make their own adjustments. By breaking their recipes down ingredient-by-ingredient, digging into what each one is doing, they make the science of cooking approachable and fun.” — New York Times, 7 Podcasts to Inspire a New Hobby
The latest full episode of my podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb is all about Chicken Noodle Soup! You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts, such as Apple, Spotify, and more. Last week, we ran ran an excerpt of the new special audiobook edition of Smitten Kitchen Keepers, Smitten Kitchen Keepers: A Kitchen Counter Conversation. You can listen to it here.
eggnog waffles
A quick-yeasted waffle (yes, you can have it for breakfast this morning!) with the flavors of eggnog for a happy weekend in December.
rolled spinach omelet
I'm completely obsessed with this omelet that's angling to be your holiday brunch centerpiece. The ingredients are simple (frozen spinach, cheddar, eggs), the process is quick (hand-whisked, bakes in 15 minutes), but the presentation is gorgeous enough for a fancy table. I hope you love it too.
short rib onion soup
For peak December coziness, I merged two of my favorite things: onion soup and braised short ribs, into a decadent, rich stew-like soup that's as welcome at a casual drop-in as a big holiday dinner. Or, make it to just spoil yourself - you deserve it.
twice-baked potatoes with kale
These are indulgent (baked potatoes, cheese, sour cream, hooray) but also contain an entire bundle of greens (meaning they're basically a salad, right?), and they make for a perfect cozy December dinner.
zuni cafe's roasted chicken + bread salad
There’s good roast chicken, and then there’s Judy Roger’s legendary approach — dry brine (a fancy term for salting and leaving it), crazy crisp skin and a salad that’s akin to deconstructed stuffing. This is one of my favorite luxurious but low-key dinners.
mushroom lasagna
This lasagna has a creamy sauce, cheese and four layers of pasta and still manages to be one of the most simple, lightweight and unforgettable lasagnas I've made. Don't like mushrooms? Use another sautéed vegetable. But promise you'll make this.
roberta's roasted garlic caesar salad
Nothing breaks up the decadence of a holiday dinner like a crisp, green, and complex salad, and this one is particularly epic. A few tweaks -- roasted garlic, pecorino, and spicy candied walnuts -- make this our Special Occasion Caesar. We're worth it.
gingerbread layer cake
Poured thin, sandwiched with whipped mascarpone cream, stacked high and a little messy, and crowed with the festive-est berry tiara, my favorite Christmas cake gets a foolproof glow-up.
vanilla custard slices
Two crisp layers of puff pastry encase a thick, rich, perfectly-sweetened vanilla custard from Edd Kimber. Think of the custard slice like a rustic Napoleon or mille-feuille -- for everyday, but still elegant enough to feel special. I bet yours will disappear as fast as ours did.
homemade irish cream
I used to think that people who made their own Bailey's-style Irish cream were crazy. Then I tried it (it takes 5 minutes, has basically 3 ingredients) and it's so unbelievably good, I haven't bought the bottled stuff in years. Instructions included for bottling it up for lucky friends and family.
short rib onion soup
See you next week!
