beans! and lentils!
plus: an interview with 15 Minute Meals author Ali Rosen
Monday, January 8, 2024
Good afternoon!
Bravo to us, we made it through the first week of the year! I was dragging, my friends, but I had this idea in my head that the way I started the year would be an indicator to the year I’d have so I made myself to do everything I’d set out to do and now I’m ready, but 8 days into the year, for a vacation. I hope you eased into the new year with more… grace, and less agita.
This week is all about legumes in the Smitten Kitchen. If I had two fewer children (“but Deb, you only have two…”) I would be happy to eat beans and/or lentils for at least 4 to 5 meals a week but I must accommodate the masses. Thus, below is basically my dream menu, one I dip into as often as I can. I hope you find a ton of inspiration here and find a few new favorites.
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.
white bean soup with crispy kale
A simple soup palette with a variety of crispy, salty, and creamy finishes that make soup nights more fun. Yes, I just said fun. About soup. This one is.
sweet potato salad with pepita dressing
I was a sweet potato salad skeptic, so I challenged myself to make one I would love -- bright, crunchy, a little acidic and spicy, no creamy dressings or heaviness, made right in a sheet pan. This is naturally vegan and basically a cinch.
warm lentil and potato salad
This warm lunch salad is basically pantry perfect: lentils, potatoes, shallot, capers, tiny pickles, vinegar, Dijon, and olive oil. It’s perfect solo, with greens, as a side, or with a softly-cooked egg on top.
bean and vegetable burritos
My core recipe for a perfect-every-time vegetable burrito, one that’s filling, hearty, and exactly the way I like it: rice optional, ingredients that flex to what you have around, and as good from the freezer as they are fresh.
curried lentils and sweet potatoes
A hearty and complex vegetarian stew with flavors that bridge the winter chill and the longer, sunnier days ahead. A few crunchy finishes make each serving feel fresh, while the leftovers keep fantastically.
stuck-pot rice with lentils and yogurt
Cooking your rice until it sticks to the pot (something I was already an expert in) is raised here to an art form, because the crunchy bits are the best bits. Lentils, caramelized onions, cumin, yogurt and lemon juice give it a mujardarra vibe that I find hard to share.
roasted leek and white bean galettes
Are you tasked with finding a vegetarian dinner main that’s a) not just everyone else’s side dish, b) ideally contains protein? These mini-galettes are the show-stealing answer.
red kidney bean curry
It felt so chilly this morning, all I could think about was this spin on rajma, a longtime favorite weeknight dinner. It's a spicy mix of beans, chopped and sauced tomatoes, ginger, onion, garlic and spice that can be on the table in 15 minutes. Eat with rice or toasted naan and a dollop of yogurt, repeat regularly.
falafel
I once presumed making falafel would be complicated, best left to the experts. Once I learned how staggeringly simple it is -- oh and by the way, vegan, gluten-free, and so quick to assemble, you might decide you have time enough leftover to make homemade pitas worthy of your perfect falafel -- I see exactly no reason not to make it all of the time.
pancetta, white bean and chard pot pies
If you're limiting your pot pies to chicken, you're totally missing out on some hearty, bubbling, flaky bronze-lidded fall dinner bliss. This one with some beans, greens, and (optional) pancetta beneath the lid is one of my favorite recipes from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.
sheet pan meatballs with crispy turmeric chickpeas
A dinner packed with flavors, textures, and color. We like to scoop it all into bowls with salted lemony yogurt, lightly pickled onions, and pita wedges and I always wonder why we don't make it more often.
three-bean chili
This is my ideal three-bean chili. You can make it on the stove, in a pressure cooker, or a slow-cooker. You can use a little or a lot of heat. Few things taste better on a snowy weekend.
a really great pot of chickpeas
8 arguments for turning a pot of deeply flavorful, deeply economical, brothy chickpeas into dinner -- from a swirl of olive oil or salsa verde, sprinkle of parmesan, handful of wilted greens, spoonful of tomato sauce to burrata or an egg on top or even ladled over grilled garlicky toast. We're just getting started.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ALI ROSEN
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 Ali Rosen. Ali’s cookbook, 15 Minute Meals: Truly Quick Recipes That Don’t Taste Like Shortcuts, comes out tomorrow (1/9) and could not be more timely.
1. What inspired your cookbook?
It’s sort of counterintuitive, but the burnout from cooking 3 meals a day for my family during covid inspired 15 Minute Meals! A lot of my favorite quick and easy cookbooks were quick on prep but still took a long time to fully get onto the table (preheating the oven and then prepping a sheet pan meal might only require 15 minutes of active time, but it can be over an hour from the moment of, “huh, everyone’s hungry” to “dinner is ready”). So I started trying to find ways to shave time off—if I didn’t include chopping and sautéing onions, how would that affect flavor? If I use anchovy paste/fish sauce/miso paste etc for umami can I cut out braise time? If I used ground meat instead of a full piece would it still taste good?
The other essential component was the realization that we are living in a golden age of ingredients. Canned or frozen beans, fish, vegetables etc are all now available in much higher qualities, so those shortcuts often aren’t a real compromise. And flavorful ingredients and sauces that used to be considered specialty (sriracha/chili paste/gojuchang as spice additions, for example) are now available at grocery stores across the country (or only a two day ship away). So with that motivation (from wanting good food but without the time to make it!) and the gradual acceptance of shortcuts that didn’t feel like compromises, I started to feel like this was a way of cooking that deserved a book.
2. What recipe are you the most proud of in the book, or felt the most triumphant when you got it right?
This feels like trying to choose between my children! But I think the recipes that are fancy-seeming enough to serve to guests but still only take 15 minutes are the ones that feel most like a triumph. The cover recipe is Hoisin Beef Wraps, and it uses hoisin sauce and pickled ginger (both on Amazon if you don’t have a large grocery store! Still easy!), so it has a ton of flavor but with no work. And I love the crunch and nuttiness of peanuts in there, so it’s a special one to me.
It might be tied with the Seared Tuna with Endive and Orange, just because it shocks people at how simple it is to make, but looks sort of fancy!
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?
Oh man, again, this is so hard because I feel like low-effort, high-reward should be the subtitle of this book! But maybe because it’s so cold right now I’m a little in love with the Gingery Chicken and Rice Soup. You blitz the ginger and garlic in the blender with coconut milk, so you don’t have to peel or chop either, and that makes it feel a little sneakily easy.
But I’m also making the Spicy Tuna Rice Bowl a lot because the secret ingredient is cornichons, which add the most delectable tang to the tuna and sriracha combo.
4. What's something you wish more people knew about your book?
That 15 minutes means ONLY 15 minutes, and the recipes are structured to use all the time, from start to finish. So if there’s a diced cucumber in the recipe, the ingredient list will say 1 cucumber (not 1 diced cucumber) and then have the step for chopping in the recipe. I had dozens of recipe testers of varying skill levels testing and timing to make sure things worked in every kitchen for every type of home cook. So I guess the main thing I want people to believe is that THEY can make great, flavorful, interesting meals in only 15 minutes, and not think it’s a gimmick! I’m a tired working mom, so I don’t have any time for gimmicks, I promise!
Thank you, Ali! You can order 15 Minute Meals right here.
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!
