"we've got food at home!" - pantry favorites
plus: an interview with diane morrisey
Monday, March 24, 2025
Good morning!
In our recent podcast episode on Crispy Chicken Cutlets, Kenji talked about the different kinds of panko. Here’s a video explainer from ChefSteps.
The Great Salt Shake-Up [The Atlantic]
I love the long-running “We’ve got food at home!” meme, the result of generations of parents being begged their kids to stop for fast food and the weary adults insisting that there’s no need because there’s food at home, even though it ends up absolutely nothing like the burger and fries they were dreaming of. Of course, as the (reluctant!) adult and slightly less reluctant home cook in this storyline, I totally get it. Not only do we save money and are far more likely to eat something with actual nutrients, but more and more, I simply prefer almost anything I can make at home over what I buy prepared because it’s always made exactly the way I want it. Plus, there is a particular satisfaction (one I also get from watching Emily Mariko cooking videos) in finding ways to use everything you already got in the kitchen without an extra trip to the store. It feels like winning at adulthood.
This week’s newsletter aims to help us along with recipes that largely focus on ingredients you might already have in your cabinets. Plus, this week we have an interview with the internet’s beloved Diane Morrisey, whose new cookbook, You Got This! Recipes Anyone Can Make and Everyone Will Love, is out tomorrow.
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 now that flowers are budding and the air is warming? I thought you’d never ask! Try the pea, feta, and mint fritters, toasted ricotta gnocchi with pistachio pesto, baked orzo and artichokes, and fettuccine with white ragù. To finish, I recommend the bee sting bars and the carrot cake with brown butter and no clutter. 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.
“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
“J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and Deb Perelman’s new podcast gets to not only the heart of how they make their recipes—but also the why behind each decision, too.” — Esquire, The 26 Best Podcasts of 2024
The latest full episode of my podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, is all about Broccoli Cheddar Soup! You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts, such as Apple, Spotify, and more.
split pea soup
Split pea soup may never win the winter soup Olympics. It generally does not cause young children to stand up in their high chairs and cheer its arrival at the table. But I love this cozy, homey soup, especially when I make it my way: heavy on leeks, vegetarian, with a mix of punchy finishes and, before you even ask, InstantPot directions too.
smashed chickpea salad
This salad is a forever site (and Deb lunch) favorite, just lightly crushed chickpeas with minced red onion, parsley, lemon juice and zest, enriched with olive oil. It's great straight from the bowl but possibly even better on a slice of toast atop a layer of tahini dressing. (Instructions for all of the above and then some more ideas in the recipe.)
pasta puttanesca
No sweet, mellow tomato sauces here: puttanesca is spicy and bright and, best of all, a throw-together, quick to make dish from pantry ingredients, absolutely perfect for a weekday night.
spaghetti pangrattato with crispy eggs
One of my favorite things to make when I think I don't want to cook: spaghetti tangled with intensely seasoned crunchy breadcrumbs and a broken crispy fried egg comes together as a quick, perfect bowl of undiluted comfort. Weeknight dinner agenda, set.
quick pasta and chickpeas
A 20-minute, 5-ingredient (I bet all 5 are in your kitchen right now), abundantly flavorful dish that I cannot resist adding one slightly crispy and dramatically sizzling finish to. Have you made it yet? Few dishes make me feel rewarded for waiting until the last minute to figure out dinner. [Video below!]
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.
corn and black bean weeknight nachos
In my forever quest to have more nachos in my life, I've found that 3 vegetables, 9 salad-y toppings and 0 skimping on the melty cheese is the magic formula.
taco torte
Vegetable, bean, and cheese tacos, stacked like a lasagna and sliced like a cake are always a good idea.
best cocoa brownies
For the softest-centered brownies with the chewiest candylike lid, no melted chocolate is required.
easy jam tart
This tart has a short ingredient list and requires no rolling pin or heap of just-picked fruit to taste amazing. It's basically begging you to make it on a Monday night.
AN INTERVIEW WITH DIANE MORRISEY
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 Diane Morrisey. Her new cookbook, You Got This! Recipes Anyone Can Make and Everyone Will Love, is out tomorrow, 3/25.
1. What inspired your cookbook?
I learned from a young age that food is a powerful way to express love and create connection. In my house, food was always at the center of everything. It was the great uniter. I grew up observing my Mother and my Grandmother, who lived with us, and learned very early on the concept that Food is Love. Their cooking made us feel secure, and that is the feeling I always wanted to replicate with my own family. Feeding and providing for my family and friends is my daily love letter to them.
When I got married in 1993, I really didn’t know how to cook. I mean I could hold my own in the kitchen, but I wasn’t really that comfortable and would never think to riff off a recipe. The birth of the Food Network in 1993 coincided with my marriage and I was blown away by the format of constant cooking shows. I absorbed each half hour show like a sponge and before you knew it, I couldn’t stay out of the kitchen. I learned through my own experience that cooking is 10% confidence and 90% being able to read a recipe. The biggest hurdle people face is confidence and I learned through my social media channels that so many struggle with that. My message has always been about empowering the home cooks and letting them know that, “They Can!” I use my past experience as a teacher to explain my no-nonsense approach to cooking and encourage them to just get in the kitchen and try! The more time you spend in the kitchen, the more comfortable you will become and with that comfort level comes confidence. And once confidence is part of the equation fun and creativeness sets in and that is when cooking becomes something you really enjoy and not something you dread!
As a Mom to 6 children, I know all too well the challenges of getting dinner on the table every night. Whether you are single, a parent, a recent graduate, married with no children, or oversee a house full of people, this book will help you up your dinner-time game and enjoy the process and end result. It is filled with delicious and beautiful pantry-staple meals that anyone can rely on. Some are classics with a twist, some add a little something to pump them up without adding much extra fuss, other recipes have a little more flair… but all of them will make you feel like you got this.
2. What recipe are you the most proud of in the book, or felt the most triumphant when you got it right?
If you know me, it probably won’t surprise you that the answer to this question has a pull on my heartstrings. I am proud of all the recipes in the book but my Grandmothers Braciole recipe has a hold on my heart. Food nostalgia can transport us to the past, connecting us with people and places that we hold dear and this recipe is probably is the best example of that. My Grandparents immigrated from Italy and they lived with us. This dish reminds me of Sundays with Grandma. There was always a pot of Sunday Sauce simmering away on the stove and that gigantic pot always included her braciole. It was one of the first recipes that she ever taught me how to make and my own family has grown to love it as much as my brothers and sisters and I did. There was no way that this recipe was not making it into the book. I know she would be so proud and that makes me so proud.
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?
I’m the biggest fan of sheet pan dinners. They are crazy convenient, simple to assemble, easily customizable and they ensure that cleanup is a breeze….In other words, they are my best friend mid- week. My Glazed Salmon and Broccoli Sheet Pan Dinner is one of my go-to recipes when I am short on time. It uses basic ingredients that I always try to have in my pantry or fridge, uses only a single sheet pan, and takes 30 minutes from start to finish! Simple and delicious, it’s convenient and quick and has everything in it that I love.
Recipes like Spaghetti with Spicy Breadcrumbs & Lemon, Gochujang Sesame Noodles with Broccolini and my Grandmothers Pasta Fazool are 3 ridiculously easy recipes that I taught to a few of my kids before they left for college. Knowing they had a few simple, pantry-based recipes in their arsenal rested my Mother’s brain knowing they wouldn’t starve without me, lol.
4. What's something you wish more people knew about your book?
There are so many cookbooks out there full of wonderful recipes and I own so many of them. But when it comes down to it, I love it when a cookbook tells a story. I enjoy reading the headnotes to the recipes in my cookbooks and feeling a connection with the author, like I’m talking to a friend. The cookbooks that I pull off my shelves the most do this. And I believe that mine does it as well. The book is filled with many amazing and do-able recipes, but I’ve also woven a bit of my family life into my cooking storytelling. To me it is all intertwined and at the end of the day I’d love to think that the idea that Food is Love resonates in its pages.
Thank you, Diane! You can preorder You Got This! right here or purchase a signed copy here.
quick pasta and chickpeas
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 the Smitten Kitchen x Staub Braiser (which is back in stock!). 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!
