Three Things

Low-effort, high-reward sheet-pan dinners, meal-planning basics, an exercise mantra that never gets old

Greetings eaters and readers! I’ve been feverishly watching the mail in anticipation of a special delivery: My advance copy of The Weekday Vegetarians: Get Simple, supposedly arriving any day now. Only a few short months until I can share a whole new roster of highly cookable recipes with you, and I think first up will be this easy, homey Greens Pie (pictured), which I made for lunch guests the other day to great applause. (OK, fine it was my mom.) In other news, Central Park is glorious right now, and my new favorite weekend ritual is grabbing coffee, walking across the park or around the reservoir, and then depending on the motivation level, dipping into a museum. The three exhibits on my radar right now (at least within walking distance) are: The Harlem Renaissance at the Met, the Jenny Holzer Light Line show at the Guggenheim (opens 5/17), and Lost New York at the New York Historical Society. Speaking of the historical society, happy publication day to The Year of Living Constitutionally by A.J. Jacobs, who most of you probably know for the way he immerses himself in experimental living, often to hilarious effect. (Remember his book about thanking every single person involved in producing his morning cup of coffee, from the South American farmer, to the barista, truck driver, logo designer, and the person who did pest control at the warehouse?) This time he attempts to get in the heads of the Founding Fathers while committing himself to eighteenth century living — which is how he winds up wearing a tricorne hat and carrying a circa-1700s musket around Manhattan, entertaining by candlelight, and trying to pay for vegetables at the farmer’s market with gold. (The vendor wasn’t having it.) And now, sound those trumpets, this week’s Three Things…

1. A Few Sheet Pan Dinners

Not that the recipes we run in my Cup of Jo food column aren’t always great, but the past few have been particularly on-the-money in terms of low-effort-high-reward, if you know what I mean. The latest example of this is Sara Forte’s Blackened Salmon with Tropical Pico from her wonderful new book, Around our Table. It looks complicated because it has a long ingredient list, but I promise, it’s really not a lot of work if you do a little advance planning, and the flavor pay-off is VERY VERY REAL. (Plus, I’m now addicted to the technique of slow-cooking a salmon at 300°F, then blasting it for the last few minutes to get that golden char.) As long as we’re on the topic of sheet pan cooking, here are a few other recipes that might pique your interest: Also in the low-effort-high-reward category, Yasmin Fahr’s “Sausage meatballs” with Halloumi and Tomatoes (I swapped in eggplant for the sausage recently and its stock remained high); Crispy Ramen and Cabbage from Olga Massov and Sanaë Lemoine; and my old-school Panko-Crusted Roast Chicken with Mustard and Carrots, a crowd-pleaser always and forever.

2. From the Mailbox: Meal Planning Advice?

Over the weekend, I got this DM from an instagram follower named Samantha:

I am deep in the 2 toddler life and I remember reading that you planned out all your family’s meals in notebooks when your kids were little. Do you have any tips/suggestions? I currently plan 1 week out over the weekend but I feel like I could be doing this more efficiently.

Well first of all, she is correct, I did plan out all my family’s meals in a notebook — if we’re going to be technical about it, I planned them out in my Dinner Diary, which, as longtime readers know, I’ve been keeping since February 22, 1998 when I sat down to “Chicken Cacciatore” in my fifth-floor Brooklyn walk-up with my new husband, Andy. Twenty-six years later I’m still writing down what I make for dinner in that diary (though I moved on to Volume 2 years ago) even though it’s long been retired as a planning tool — now it’s more like a journal and workbook, something that helps me remember which recipes worked, which didn’t, what I cooked for Jeni and Ben the last time they came over, what dinner was especially excellent, etc. etc. But when I used my diary as a meal planner, I did exactly what Samantha is doing: I wrote down the line-up on Sunday, did my Big Shop (so much easier now with instacart and shopping services) soon after, then had a plan going into the week. Did I still have to cook dinner every night? Yes, but it took the thinking part out of the equation, which back then I found to be the hardest part. Another tip:

If you’d currently use term “whack-a-mole” to describe the way dinner gets decided in your house, just a reminder that it’s okay to plan on the same tight rotation of recipes week after week because they are easy and (crucial) because you know everyone will eat. Don’t waste energy on feeling like you have to be creative or innovative. Maybe that means eight straight Mondays of empanadas from the freezer or broccoli quesadillas? Maybe every Tuesday it’s a store-bought rotisserie chicken or Annie’s Mac & Cheese! Only you know that one meal that everyone on your house eats and that you can pull together when your battery is running low. In summation: If they like it, if they eat it, it’s good. Later, on the weekend, when you have more time, or much later, when you are an empty nester missing the chaos, you can go ahead and experiment with one of those dozens of Kenji YouTube recipes you’ve bookmarked.

This was one of five meal-planning tips I wrote about a few years ago — you can find the other four tips here.

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Fall 2023, Central Park

3. For whoever needs to hear this

When I’m feeling unmovitvated to work out (aka, right now), I read and re-read this Haruki Murakami quote (from his seminal What I Talk About When I Talk About Running) until it registers.

“Running every day is a kind of lifeline for me, so I’m not going to lay off or quit just because I’m busy. If I used being busy as an excuse not to run, I’d never run again. I have only a few reasons to keep on running, and a truckload of them to quit. All I can do is keep those few reasons nicely polished.”

He’s talking about running, but you can really apply it to any form of exercise. I’ve written about this quote a lot because I think about it a lot. Also, I can tell I’m getting older because the part that used to resonate with me was the being-busy part. Now it’s all about “keeping those few reasons nicely polished.” It’s a helpful mantra, for me, at least, because of how it shuts out all the noise (I’m tired. I’m old. I’ll go after lunch, after work, after I walk the dog…Do I have a crick in my neck? I think I have a crick in my neck.) Reasons I’m currently polishing: The way I feel when I’m done, the way I sleep so much better. Polishing and polishing. What are yours?

Have a great week,

Jenny

And oh yes, Happy Mother’s Day! Just a reminder: My go-to brunch menu from a few years ago still 100% holds up — I’d just maybe add a doctored Trader Joe’s arrangement to the center of that spread. Also, in my Cup of Jo column this week, I’ll be writing about a great make-ahead option, so check in there tomorrow. Enjoy!

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