Three Things

Signature recipes, gluten-free/dairy-free dinners, a new app for book lovers

Greetings easter and readers! Hope you had a nice weekend. It feels like I spent almost all of it watching various soccer matches— my daughter’s game, the North London Derby, the first four episodes of the new(ish) All or Nothing season on Arsenal (I wish Mikel Arteta would follow me around and give me pep talks! I love him!) and even a local U10 game that I wandered by on my way back from a run. (I can’t help myself!) On the menu this weekend, Salmon Salad and Great Grandma Turano’s meatballs, a family recipe so beloved my house that it’s enshrined on the recipe door. Also: subscribers…This week is Menu Plan Week! Look for a five-day dinner line-up (plus shopping list) in your inboxes before Friday. **Reminder that Menu Plans and all bonus content are for paying subscribers; you can press this fun little orange button to join the fun »»

And now, your Three Things…

1. The Sure Thing Strategy

When I had young kids, a lot of activities fell off the priority list — happy hour drinks with coworkers, catching the newest Wes Anderson movie in the theater, mascara — but I was determined to continue having people over for dinner. For whatever reason, it was the kind of activity that reliably brought me joy and connection, not just with friends and the community but with my old pre-mom self. As a result, I was always in search of easy, no-stress menus for entertaining, and the words “make-ahead” generated the same kind of endorphin rush that, say, “sample sale” once had. And I managed to land on a menu strategy that seemed to work. As I wrote ten years ago in Dinner: A Love Story:

One strategy I fall back on when I’m menu planning for dinner guests is to “Cook a Signature,” i.e….a much-heralded recipe that has been developed by one of the Greats (Julia, Jacques, Marcella), a time-tested, guaranteed showstopper that has already been ingested and enjoyed in millions of homes before yours, sometimes even on holidays and special occasions. They’re sophisticated. They’re special. They’re classic. They say, “I know something about food.” Of course, you still have to cook it…but there’s a lot less stress involved when you know you’re going with a sure thing.

There’s another way to say Sure Thing these days. Kristen Miglore has been writing Food52’s “Genius Recipe” column for over a decade, devoted to this very concept of the tried-and-true, and has just come out with her third collection in cookbook form: Simply Genius. I like it more than the first two — and not just because Our Pork Ragu is in there! — but because she focuses on iconic, dependable recipes that teach. As Food52 founder Amanda Hesser writes in the introduction, “a genius recipe is one that changes the way you cook, and one you’ll want to cook for the rest of your life.” And unlike the kinds of signature meat-based meals I used to rely on a decade ago (Julia Child’s Coq au Vin, Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese, Nobu’s Miso-Glazed Black Cod) there are tons of vegetarian, 21st-century feeling recipes in this book, like Go Get Em Tiger Ria Dolly Barbosa’s Soccata with Tomatoes and Kale, which uses hydrated chickpea flour instead of eggs to create a custard-like quiche. As the recipe headnote says “This is the rare recipe where it really doesn’t matter if your brunch crew is vegan, omnivore, or anything in between.” Also, it’s mostly make-ahead! A descriptor that still warms my heart all these years later! I think those of you who are more in the brunch party lane than the dinner party lane will especially appreciate it. The recipe is over on DALS today.

2. Dinner Prompts

About a year and a half ago, my daughter was dealing with a mysterious medical issue which I will describe only as incredibly frustrating. She’s fine now, but it was the kind of thing where no doctor (there were many) could say exactly what it was or what treatment or medication (even more many) might fix it, and we found ourselves in a place that probably a lot of you have been, wondering if there was maybe a dietary solution. We were officially Weekday Vegetarians at this point, but for those few months, we shifted to gluten-free, dairy-free eating and I’m not going to lie, it was hard. And it was really hard not to slide back into making dinners anchored by an animal protein. To help myself along, I taped this list of GF/DF dinner ideas (shown above) inside a kitchen cabinet door and would refer to it when my mind was a complete blank. The stars indicate vegetarian options, and I wanted to share links to the recipes I relied on the most…

-Broiled Romaine Salad with Crispy Chickpeas and Vegan Caesar (shown)
-Veggie Fried Rice (swap in tamari for soy sauce)
-Priya Krishna’s Khichdi (swap in oil or Miyoko’s vegan butter for ghee)
-Andy’s Frittata (scroll down a bit)
-Veggie Burgers with Udi’s Gluten Free buns (swap in tamari for soy sauce; omit flour dredge)
-Brothy Beans with Vegan Pesto (swap in Romesco for Burrata)
-Three-Bean Chili

From The Weekday Vegetarians:
-Roasted Butternut Squash & Black Bean Tacos (shown), page 101
-Sunday Enchiladas (page 104-106 (use corn tortillas; swap in Bob’s Red Mill GF flour for all purpose in sauce)
-Grain Bowl with Crispy Chickpeas, Roasted Vegetables, Pickled Onions, page 49 (swap in quinoa for barley)

And to answer your obvious follow-up question: We’re still not sure how much the diet helped — it’s possible that the issue also just ran its course — but I’ll say this: When you’re at your wits end with these kinds of things, as we definitely were, it does feel good to do something.

3. How to Find a Good Book

Have you heard about Tertulia? It’s a new-ish app that all my booky friends are suddenly talking about. You type in the kinds of books and categories you want to hear about and the people/sources whose taste you trust (reviewers, social media follows, awards, podcasters, book club hosts, critics) and then you get a list of suggestions along with mini-reviews and purchasing options. The goal is essentially to capture a customized, word-of-mouth vibe, and so far I am digging it. P.S. My book club is getting back together after a five-year hiatus! This is our first pick.

Have a great week!

Jenny