Back in 2013, Liza Shaw joined me at Food Lit to discuss Charlotte Druckman's Skirt Steak: Women Chefs on Standing the Heat and Staying in the Kitchen. Since then Liza has taken on more heat by opening Merigan Sub Shop and was recently featured in the Chronicle's food section. My family loves beans and greens are often in our CSA box, so I had to try her recipe.
This is a recipe I've been trying to make for a while, but it is just more effort than I usually put in. Last night I swore at the cookbook and threw it on the floor after realizing too late that the quinoa had to be cooked in advance. But now that I've made it, I have to say: this stuff is crazy delicious and worth all the work.
This meal is packed with protein, whole grains and greens. It can be easily assembled from ingredients cooked the night before or earlier in the day and it tastes great. That's a triple win, in my book.
The photos are beautiful and the concept is great, but so far I'm striking out with this cookbook. First the cruncny farro, now a dinner that elicits "Ew! Crusty? Brown? I won't eat it!" To top it all off, I singed the crust.
Buzzfeed suggested this as a make-ahead weekend brunch item, but I made it for dinner instead.
This tart was a surprisingly successful quick meal, though as you can see, not my prettiest. Pizza dough instead of pastry is a great idea! With a little prep-ahead and someone at home to preheat the oven this is a snap. It takes about 5 minutes to assemble and 30 to bake. Home by 6? You'll eat before 7.
These little pancakes are a perfect way to use up chard when you don't feel like eating chard. Or feed it to your kids, when you know they won't want to eat it otherwise.
My French friend Laure, author of the blog Frog Mom, recently reminded me of this book when she served us a simple soup for dinner. Packed with nearly 200 recipes, there is always an appropriate option for something warm and comforting within its pages. Which I surely needed after swimming in the icy cold river at Hyde Park with her.
A recent favorite that we cooked for dinner while visiting my Mom in Tucson. She liked it so much that she makes it for herself at home (and probably shares some with her dog). The recipe is from thekitchn.com.
Our crockpot is going to get a lot of use this week. We're back from vacation, the fridge is empty and the produce box doesn't come until Thursday. Plus, I'm much too busy to deal with anything complicated or time consuming.
Chicken soup has long been recognized as a balm for troubled tummies, a warm and healthful food for cold, turbulent times and a delicious way to stretch one last meal out of nothing more than the leftovers from a roasted chicken and a few kitchen staples. My kids have loved it unquestioningly since they were babies and I still enjoy it myself.
Sometimes dinner needs to be fast and furious, and a plan made in haste can go badly awry. But occasionally a crazed forage through the pantry yields exciting surprises, like last night. In this case, Nigel Slater's Indian Inspired Spinach and Potatoes were on the menu (from Tender, my second favorite kitchen garden cookbook), but after dumping my son in front of TV and gearing up for dinner, I found no spinach and only a single potato in the house. Luckily, we had some sweet potatoes leftover from a past CSA box, fresh chard, spring onions and green garlic, all of which remade a semi-traditional take on saag aloo into a delightfully Springy Californian version. For a little extra protein that the kids would eat I warmed some frozen chickpeas with a little bit of curry powder and tossed those on top.