july 4th: everything worth cooking
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Good morning!
How to Embrace Sobremesa, the Mexican Art of Lingering at the Table [Food & Wine]
The Century-Long Saga of the Caesar Salad [NYTimes, unlocked]
My kids left for four weeks of sleepaway camp last week and I promptly lost my bearings. What day is it? What is a “responsibility”? What does one eat when there’s nobody to complain about what you cooked? We’re stumbling around, unmoored. Please bear with me while I consider for only the first or second time in nearly 15 years what I might do with my time and energy if it’s not entirely bound up in two (unconditionally charming and impeccably mannered — can you tell we miss them to the point of near-hallucination?) children.
I won’t lie, however: It’s been feeling like a very long holiday weekend and we don’t mind much at all, which perfectly segues into what is actually a very long holiday weekend for everyone else. Welcome. I think you’re going to like it here. We’re eating all of our favorite foods (ribs! watermelon! cake!) with all of our favorite people and nobody is setting an alarm clock. We’re going to spend so much time outside, we could be a bit feral and definitely freckled by Monday. There will be fireworks and fireflies and lemonade and that corn salad if you’re not already obsessed with, you might soon be. I cannot imagine a better place to be.
Cheers!
Deb
My podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, launched this spring. Our tenth episode, out this week, is the second of a two-part Mailbag episode where we answer as many of your questions as we can. You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts and I’ve set up a podcast tab/page where you can keep up on it here, too. We will have new episodes every two Mondays and I hope you enjoy listening along.
chile-lime melon salad
This is my kind of fruit salad -- a little salty, a little sweet, a little spicy -- inspired by the cups of seasoned fruit you can buy on the street in Mexico. The moment I have a bite, I can no longer remember why I'd ever eat anything else on a hot day.
rosanne cash's all-american potato salad
A classic, perfectly seasoned, never overdressed, a little crunchy, always-disappears-first potato salad is a non-negotiable part of our July 4th spread and this is my forever go-to. Just make it; you'll be so glad you did.
pasta and fried zucchini salad
Not your usual pasta salad, this one has a pesto-like sauce, capers, lemons, peas, and zucchini and it's anything but boring. You serve it warm but I can attest that cold from the fridge leftovers will make for a perfect lunch tomorrow or the day after.
corn salad with chile and lime
Loosely modeled on the flavors of esquites, this salad has a creamy, cold and sharp dressing below, warm charred corn in the middle, and a mix of lime, pickled onions, and chile powder on top. The result is basically inhale-able. I could eat this every week all summer long.
broccoli slaw
A forever summer staple that's secretly a love letter to buttermilk-and-cider-vinegar ranch dressing, but the homemade kind. It makes great "buckets" of broccoli inhale-able, and converts all broccoli skeptics. I hope you love it, too.
drop cornbread biscuits
If you're looking for the easiest last minute addition to your table, you cannot go wrong with these craggy, never-fail cornbread drop biscuits, especially slathered with some honey butter.
oven ribs, even better
Holiday weekend agenda: Ribs party! Trust me, nobody would dream of missing it. No grill required, these are perfect from the oven every time and the recipe has been updated and streamlined with cooking times that adjust to your schedule and the simplest, most balanced rub yet. Your friends are going to ask you to make this an annual feast.
slow-and-low dry rub oven chicken
What if we gave chicken the oven ribs treatment, that is thickly coated with dry rub and cooked until falling apart and then finished with a sauce from the drippings? Indoor barbecue magic, is what.
flag cake
This is not only the most delicious flag cake I've made (in my totally unbiased opinion), it's also the easiest: one-bowl cake, dreamy cream cheese frosting, plus all the fresh berries. [Video below!]
confetti cookies
For a little extra joy right now, may I recommend a really easy sprinkle cookie recipe that tastes even better than it looks? They're plush, complex, fragrant, and also, you know, really cute. You're going to love them.
frozen watermelon mojitos
There is no time like a heat wave to find new, amazing things to do with watermelon, in this case, freezing it in cubes and blending it with lime juice, rum, and mint for the best frozen mojito I've ever had. (P.S. It's also extremely delicious without the rum.)
cucumber lemonade
This is the most refreshing thing I know how to pour in a glass on a gloriously sunny, summery week. Can you put gin and a splash of seltzer in this? I can't believe you'd even have to ask.
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.
flag cake
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!
