Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Good afternoon!
It’s me. This too: I guffawed. [TikTok]
The Zuni cookbook is canon. [Taste]
… not from an airport this week! (But I returned from one yesterday evening.) I just wrapped up a few quick stops around the country and spent almost every minute of every airplane and Uber ride dreaming of all the things I’d like to cook when I got home. Naturally I woke up on my first morning home and no longer knew who that ambitious person was, but perhaps after a second very tall cup of coffee, I shall relocate her. Meanwhile, I’m looking ahead to February. As far as dead-of-winter months, I think February is a good one. It’s got the Taylor Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day. My new podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt launches. And I even get a real vacation in the third week to one of my favorite places. Plus, there’s so much good cooking to be done when the weather pushes us to spend more time indoors. Below, 11 great recipes that will hopefully pique your February cooking interest. I hope you try them all.
And for those of you who like motion pictures, a few recent recipe videos from the archives:
Challah French Toast with Whipped Cottage Cheese and Berry Compote | Reel, TikTok (Recipe in caption)
Cheers,
Deb
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 in the depths of winter? I thought you’d never ask! The soup section is one of my absolute favorites with everything from a perfect weeknight ginger garlic chicken noodle soup, simple black bean chili, winter squash soup with red onion crisp, slow-simmered lentils with kale and goat cheese that you scoop onto grilled bread, cozy chicken and dumplings, and a creamy tomato chickpea masala I could probably live on if allowed. To finish, I recommend the oatmeal date shortbread, better-than-classic pound cake, and/or toast with chocolate olive oil spread. 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.
warm butternut squash and chickpea salad
One of my favorite dinner salads tosses roasted squash with something of a deconstructed hummus: lemon, tahini, olive oil and garlic, leaving the chickpeas whole. It's crazy filling, habit forming and the leftovers are a thing of desk lunch envy.
silky cauliflower soup
This is one of my favorite simple soups because it has five ingredients you might even have around, takes about 30 minutes to make, and tastes incredibly rich for something so light and simple.
mushroom bourgignon
A hearty vegetarian bourguignon with 100% of the comfort and luxury in about 25% of the time, this is the only thing I want to eat on a cold day in February.
ginger fried rice
Skip the crowds and make the best fried rice of your life at home. Throw in vegetable potstickers and the most delicious party meatballs, ever, and tell us what time to come over (but good luck getting us to leave).
charred cauliflower quesadillas
Charred cauliflower, blistered poblanos, lime juice, an unholy amount of cheese and just enough sunset-hued slaw to declare it a balanced meal.
italian stuffed cabbage
The second I made this, it became one of our favorite winter meals. Budget friendly, hearty, so simple it involves not a single chopped vegetable, I had no idea stuffed cabbage could taste like this.
stromboli
A very layered stromboli inspired scaccia ragusana, but this one is deeply American, with the flavor of a great pepperoni pizza. You can make a humble packet that looks like a pizza croissant inside or a pizza babka loaf. Why choose?
sweetheart sablés
An exceedingly cute procrastibaking project for those of us with real work to avoid. Don't be put off by their Pinterest-y veneer: these cookies are both easy to make and taste even better than they look.
salted caramel brownies
Intensely rich, almost gooey but still bittersweet one-bowl brownies with pockets of salted caramel throughout are exactly what we need right now, like you even needed to ask.
blood orange, almond and ricotta cake
A cake so rich and tender, you might forget that it's gluten-free, and so sunny and bright, you might forget that the air outside is so cold it hurts your face. Or, at least forgive it for the duration of your next cake break.
pomegranate grapefruit paloma
Fizzy, dark pink and tart-sweet, all with a proper kick of tequila, this is a very good festive-feeling winter-but-dreaming-of-summer drink.
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. I recently added several new favorites I’ve bought in the last year. 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!