A Salad Suggestion for Difficult Days

Entrees, Salad, Vegan
A white bowl - full of kale, arugula, walnuts, and sliced avocado - rests on a grey plate, both on a pastel-plaid placemat.

Does anyone else feel like this month has been a year long? It’s hard to believe how much has changed in such a short amount of time.

I don’t know about you, but all of those changes have had an effect. I haven’t felt much like cooking the last few weeks, and even less like writing (perfectly evidenced by the fact that it took me about four days to summon even that sentence). I’m privileged to still be working, but between work and stress, it feels like my creativity has run dry. I just don’t know where to start or what to say.

On the days when life leaves me with little inspiration or time to reflect, there are a few dishes that I fall back on, meals that I’ve made so many times that they take almost no thought. This salad is one of those. For years, it’s been my go-to “I’m out of meal planning ideas” and the thing I crave when I return from deployments. Lately, it’s been lunch or dinner on several occasions. It’s comfort food with little prep time, little cook time, and a short ingredient list. It’s a suggestion of a meal for difficult days.

A Salad Suggestion for Difficult Days

Source: I Thought There Would Be Free Food

Serves: As many people as you want

Active time: 30 minutes

Note: For a one-person salad, I like three or four kale leaves and a good handful of arugula. It’s easily scaled to feed as many as needed.

Ingredients:

  • Kale (I prefer lacinto)
  • Arugula
  • Nuts (my favorite are pecans, but walnuts and hazelnuts are also delicious)
  • Avocado
  • A wedge of lemon or lemon juice
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

  • Rinse, de-rib (save those stems!) and chop the kale. I like to chop it into fairly small bits, around 1/2-inch squared, because I am an inelegant salad eater and this relieves quite a bit of my “is a leaf hanging out of my mouth” anxiety. Chop the arugula, too, and toss both greens together in a bowl.
  • Heat a skillet over medium heat. While it’s heating, coarsely chop the nuts, then add them to the pan when it’s warm. Toast the nuts until they’re golden brown and fragrant. This will likely take 5–10 minutes.
  • Meanwhile, dress however much kale and arugula you feel like eating with some lemon juice. Give it a good toss. Cut as much avocado as you’d like and set it aside.
  • Once the nuts have finished toasting, add as many as you’d like onto your salad. Drizzle with olive oil and toss everything together. Garnish with avocado and salt and pepper, to taste.

Pot Roast With Root Vegetables

Entrees
Shredded beef, carrots, and red potatoes sit in a black casserole dish atop a blue tablecloth. The tines of a serving fork rest on the edge of the casserole, and a red plate fills the bottom right corner of the picture.

Few foods are as synonymous with a place as pot roast is with the Midwest. It was ubiquitous in the middle-class Christian milieu I grew up in, so much that I would almost guarantee that on any given night, someone within a five-mile radius of my family’s home was making it. Pot roast is Midwest through and through, and for years I ate it without every giving it much thought.

I was hardly alone in my lack of attention to Midwestern food. It seems to be that most food writers don’t think about the Midwest either, unless they’re making fun of it. The Midwest is to American cooking what Britain is to European cuisine—a joke or something that sustains you, but nothing to praise. Think about it: almost every other regional cuisine has had its moment (see: the South, the Southwest, California, and the Pacific Northwest), but Midwest cooking seems to be as much of a culinary flyover as the physical states themselves.

I think I know why this is. Midwest food is seen as unexciting and unsexy; it’s the type of food that your grandmother made and few people want to think about their grandmother as being sexy. It lacks the Southwest’s spices or anything to do with avocados; the American culinary narrative is definitive about what Midwestern food is not. What I want to do is talk about what Midwest food is: ingenious, low-intensity ways to turn economy into abundance. Take pot roast, for example. The dish uses relatively inexpensive ingredients—a chuck-eye roast, root vegetables—and requires a minimal amount of prep time but yields just-firm vegetables and fork-tender meat. Call me crazy, call me unsophisticated, but I think that’s something worth boasting about, and maybe even an example of a cuisine whose moment is overdue.

Shredded beef, carrots, and red potatoes sit in a black casserole dish atop a blue tablecloth with a red stripe.

Pot Roast With Root Vegetables

Sources: Slightly adapted from The New Best Recipe

Serves 6–8 hungry people

Active time: 30 minutes; total time ~5 hours

Ingredients:

  • 1 or 2 boneless chuck-eye roasts, totaling 3 1/2–4 pounds
  • Kitchen twine (optional)
  • Vegetable oil
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 small carrot, chopped
  • 1 stick of celery, chopped
  • 2 medium garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 teaspoons sugar
  • 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
  • 1 cup low-sodium beef broth
  • Salt and black pepper, to taste
  • 1/2–1 cup water
  • 1 1/2 pounds red potatoes, scrubbed and cut in half if larger than 1 1/2-inchs in diameter
  • 1 1/2 pounds carrots and/or parsnips, scrubbed and cut into sticks
  • 1/4 cup dry red wine
  • 1 sprig fresh rosemary

Directions:

  • Put an oven rack in the middle of your oven, then preheat it to 300°F.
  • While the oven is warming up, take a look at your meat. If there are clear chunks of fat running through it—not marbling, which is good, but big veins of it—I like to cut out the majority of the fat. If you can do this while keeping the roast in one piece, do that; alternatively, you can cut the roast into smaller pieces as you trim it. The final product won’t present as nicely, if you’re planning to carve it at the table, but it will still be delicious.
  • If desired, use the twine to tie your roast into a neat package. This isn’t necessary, but it will keep the roast from falling apart while it cooks.
  • Set a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. When it’s hot, add enough oil to lightly coat the bottom. Add the roast and sear on each side until its nicely browned. You may need to do this in batches, if you cut your roast into pieces or have more than one.
  • Pro tip: Adjust the heat as necessary so that the oil doesn’t get too hot and set off your smoke alarm. I speak from personal experience here people.
  • Once the roast is browned, remove it to a plate and set aside. Reduce the heat under the Dutch oven and add a splash more veg oil, if needed, before tossing in the onion, carrot, and celery. Cook, stirring and scraping up any bits of fond from the bottom of the pot, until the onion is turning translucent and the vegetables have softened a bit.
  • Add the garlic and sugar and sauté for 30 seconds or so. Pour in the broths and stir, scraping up any additional bits of beef that might be stuck to the pot. Season the liquid with salt and pepper to taste.
  • Put the roast back in and add as much water as needed for the liquid to come halfway up the roast (I only needed about 1/2 cup). Bring everything to a simmer, then cover the pot with the lid and put the whole thing in the oven.
  • Cook the roast, turning it every 30–60 minutes, until a knife inserted into the meat meets little resistance, about 3 1/2–4 hours. Remove the roast from the oven and take off the lid. If you’re picky about this type of thing, this is an excellent time to strain out the vegetables that were flavoring the cooking liquid. I quite like leaving them in, so I just go ahead and…
  • Add the vegetables. Depending on how full your pot is, you may need to take the meat out or just move it from side-to-side while you do so.
  • Once you’ve added the veg, put the meat back in, if you took it out, pour in the wine, add the sprig of rosemary, and carefully taste the broth to see whether it has enough salt and pepper. Adjust if necessary.
  • Recover the pot and return it to the oven. Cook for another 30 minutes or so, until the vegetables are tender but not mushy.
  • Remove the roast from the oven. You can dish up straight from the pot, or if you’re feeling fancy, you can put the roast on a cutting board and tent it with foil for a few minutes. Scoop out the vegetables and put them in a serving bowl, ladling a little extra cooking liquid over them. Carve the meat—which really should be more along the lines of pulling it apart with two forks—and put it in another serving dish, again ladling a little of the stock over them, before serving.
  • Note: Pot roast makes excellent leftovers. If you have extra meat, I highly suggest using it as a base in tacos or enchiladas.

Trying, Failing, and Peanut Butter-Date Energy Bites

Snacks, Vegan
Oats in a measuring cup, a glass jar of cinnamon and one of peanut butter, dates, and a bottle of vanilla sit on top of a wooden surface in front of a white wall.

I’ve been thinking about failing a lot lately, probably because it feels like I’ve had a higher-than-average spat of kitchen flops. There was the mushroom-leek soup with parsley dumplings the approximate weight of a collapsing star, the sourdough bread that didn’t rise, and the chocolate-cinnamon-pecan tart that led to an impromptu oven cleaning. Suffice it to say, the past few weeks of cooking have not been kind to me.

I don’t mind a kitchen failure or two; it’s just part of recipe development and growing as a cook. What I do mind is a failure that begets no lesson, so after mishap number three I spent some time considering what had gone wrong. Sure, there were issues specific to each dish, but there was one that was common to them all: I wasn’t really there.

Obviously I was in my kitchen physically, but mentally I was a million miles away during each of those fiascos, chewing over what had happened at work or rushing through cooking so I could get on with something else. My experience reminded me of everything that Ann Patchett said in this lovely little essay, which with hubris I will boil down to one sentence: if you want to do a task well, just do that task. While cooking or baking, do not start a serious conversation with your partner about how their day was; do not also open your mail; do not throw in a load of laundry, or even think about doing so. For however long it takes to cook the thing you’re cooking, just do that.

I am a person who believes that every minute of the day should be productive so calmly waiting for the onions to turn translucent over medium heat is a bit torturous because shouldn’t I just check my work email one more time? But to avoid future food failures, I made myself take a step back. I committed to spend 20 minutes doing only one thing, cooking, and started over with a simple recipe. I measured out all of my ingredients before I started, just as you’re supposed to do and I often skip over, and paid attention. I was rewarded with a not-flop—in fact a resounding success—to sustain me on the busy days when it seems that it will be impossible to do just one thing.

A laptop, keys, and cell phone lay on a metal surface, along with peanut butter-date energy bites and dates, all scattered with whole oats.

Peanut Butter-Date Energy Bites

Source: I Thought There Would Be Free Food

Makes ~20 bites

Total time: ~20 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2–1 teaspoon salt, to taste
  • 10 ounces dried, pitted dates
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter (I used natural, but other varieties should work as well)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

  • Halve the dates, then set them aside.
  • Put the oats, cinnamon, and salt in the bowl of a food processor and process until the oats are finely ground into uniform nubs.
  • Add the dates, peanut butter, and vanilla extract and process until a cohesive mixture forms. You might need to stop and scrap down the sides of the food processor once or twice.
  • Grab a small handful of the mixture and tightly compress then roll into a ball. You may need to compress the mixture once or twice before rolling, or it will crumble a bit; you should end up a Ping Pong-sized ball. Repeat as needed.
  • Place the finished bites into a seal-able container and let them firm up in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before enjoying.

Butternut Squash and Kale Tacos with Cashew Crema

Entrees, Vegan
Three stripes of butternut squash, raw cashews, and kale run diagonally across a wooden cutting board.

I spent a lot of time in Nairobi for my previous job—nearly a year, all told. It was an easy place to be, vibrant and beautiful, with burgeoning food and design scenes, and I enjoyed my time there. But spend that much time away from home and you’re bound to suffer some homesickness, no matter how much you come to enjoy ugali or kachumbari.

Homesickness is a strange thing. Sometimes it’s as simple as missing a person or a place, and there were many days when I missed my partner and our cozy routines. Other days, however, my homesickness took different turns; I would find myself yearning to wear a particular sweatshirt, or wishing I could go for a run along my favorite route. And sometimes my homesickness got downright peculiar, and I found myself craving Mexican food. At home, I might have had Mexican a few times a month, but in Nairobi, it was all I wanted to eat. Somehow it was a symbol of home, something unattainable in a place where I could get most any other type of cuisine or creature comfort. Common sense and rationality didn’t diminish the craving, so when a taco stand opened in my Nairobi neighborhood, I found myself there constantly, chomping down on black bean or chicken tacos to assuage my homesickness for the people and things I missed most.

Of the many tacos I ate in Nairobi, the one I loved the most was filled with squash and kale, topped with a lemony cashew crema. It’s the one that I plotted to make again when I returned home. Now that I’m back, it’s gone from being a cure for homesickness to a connection to a place I grew to love.

A corn tortilla sits on a white surface. The tortilla is spread with a creamy cashew sauce and piled with chunks of spiced butternut squash and roasted kale.

Butternut Squash & Kale Tacos With Cashew Crema

Source: I Thought There Would Be Free Food

Makes: At least 12 tacos

Total Time: ~45 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup raw cashews
  • ~2 pounds butternut squash, weighed before peeling and seeding
  • Olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 2 teaspoons chili powder
  • Salt, to taste
  • 1 bunch kale
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • Tortillas, for serving

Directions:

  • Put the cashews in a small bowl, glass or metal, and pour in just enough boiling water to cover the cashews. Set the bowl aside.
  • Prepare the kale: de-rib and chop it into thin ribbons 1–2 inches long (save those ribs for Kale Stem Pesto!). Put the kale into a bowl and toss with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle with salt, to taste.
  • Peel and seed the squash, then slice into 1/2-inch cubes. Place in a large bowl and toss with a few glugs of olive oil, cumin powder, chili powder, and salt. Spread onto a large, greased cookie sheet, then pop into the oven and broil on low for about 10 minutes.
  • While the squash is broiling, make the cashew crema. Drain out half of the soaking water and put the cashews and remaining water into a blender or food processor with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and salt to taste. Blend until smooth, adding additional water or lemon juice as needed to create a creamy sauce. Set aside.
  • Increase the broiler heat to high and broil the squash for an additional 3–5 minutes, or until it begins to caramelize.
  • Remove the cookie sheet from the oven, spread the kale on top of the squash and return the sheet to the oven to broil on high for 2–3 minutes. Watch it carefully to ensure the kale browns and doesn’t char. Once it has browned, remove the sheet from the oven and stir the veggies to combine. Enjoy the squash–kale mixture in tortillas with the cashew crema.

Lemon Bar Ice Cream

Dessert
Two blue-red-and-white patterned bowls containing scoops of pale yellow ice cream sit on a metal surface next to a clear plastic tub of ice cream.

I started a new job last Monday, and it’s changed everything. All the comfortable rhythms I’d established during my fall sabbatical were obliterated the second my alarm clock went off that first morning. I’m negotiating a lot of change, and even when changes are positive, they still require some adjustments. The biggest change, of course, is time—where I used to have hours free for kitchen experiments, I suddenly need to squeeze my cooking into little windows of time throughout the week. I’m making it work because I have to, because baking and cooking are how I process the world (Exhibit A, baking bread for bravery. Exhibit B, making cookies while waiting). I might look like I’m separating eggs for a custard, but chances are good that some little corner of my mind is also puzzling over a challenge and how I want to respond to it. For me, busy hands lend themselves to a calm mind and give me a chance to think things through.

Rather than rushing to make this ice cream in a single day, I figured out how to adjust it to my new schedule. I put the ice cream bowl in the freezer and make the custard one evening; churn and layer the ice cream the following day. It’s a different pace than the one I’d developed, but no less a good one. And somewhere along the way, as I whisk the custard or crumble the cookies, I find that I’m thinking less about change, and more appreciating the time in the kitchen that I do have. From a distance, it might almost look like I were unflappable.

Lemon Bar Ice Cream

Source: I Thought There Would Be Free Food

Makes ~2 quarts

Active time: ~1 hour; total time: at least 6 hours, the majority of which is chilling

Note: If making ice cream from scratch is too difficult or time-consuming, you can use store-bought ice cream instead, and significantly cut down on the total time. Let 1–1 1/2 quarts of store-bought vanilla ice cream (my favorite is Breyer’s Natural Vanilla) soften on your counter while you crush the cookies and prepare the lemon curd, then mix in the lemon zest and proceed with layering as directed below.

Ice Cream Base Ingredients:

Lemon Bar Mix-In Ingredients:

  • 7 1/4 ounces shortbread cookies; I used 1 bag of Pepperidge Farm Chessmen
  • 10 ounces lemon curd
  • Juice of 2 lemons

Directions:

  • The day before you plan to make the ice cream, put the bowl in the freezer.
  • The next day, pour the cream and milk into a heavy-bottomed pot and bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. Meanwhile, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and a pinch of salt in a medium bowl.
  • When the cream and milk are at a boil, turn off the heat and whisk one-third of the mixture into the egg yolks, whisking vigorously as you do so. Slowly add the rest of the cream and milk to the yolks, whisking all the way.
  • Pour the mixture back into your saucepan and heat over medium. Keep stirring, or you could end up with little curds in your custard, and no one wants that.
  • There are two ways to test whether your custard is done. Dip a spoon or spatula into it and then run your finger through the custard; your finger should leave a clear trail with no custard running into the track. Alternatively, take your custard’s temperature: it should be between 170–180°F.
  • Remove the custard from the heat and pour it into a clean bowl. Let it cool for several minutes before stirring in the vanilla. Cover the custard by pressing a piece of plastic wrap directly onto its surface and refrigerate until cold. The custard will be fine in the refrigerator for a day or two, if you want to spread out the work load.
  • Once the ice cream bowl and custard are cold, churn the custard per your machine’s directions. My custard took ~20 minutes to reach peak height and frostiness. Stir in the lemon zest.
  • While the custard is churning, crush your shortbread into bite-sized chunks. You’ll want a mix of smaller and larger pieces.
  • Spoon the lemon curd into a small bowl. Give it a taste—how sweet is it? You’ll want it to be quite tart so that the flavor will carry through the richness of the ice cream, as well as thin enough to spread. Heat the lemon curd gently in the microwave, at short bursts on low speed, or in a double boiler.
  • Once it’s warm, stir in lemon juice to taste. I used the juice of two lemons, but you may want more or less depending on how much tartness you enjoy.
  • Spread one-quarter of your ice cream into a large, freezer-proof container (I used a two-quart Tupperware). Top with one-third of the cookie pieces, then one-third of the lemon curd. Repeat as required, ending with a layer of ice cream. Cover the container and return to the freezer to firm up before enjoying.

Bacon, Cabbage, and Mushroom Quiche

Entrees

In my personal vegetable hierarchy, cabbage falls squarely in the “meh” category. I don’t dislike it, but I don’t crave it, either. Mostly I forget about cabbage until the late fall, when they’re some of the only local produce left in the markets and I’m again seduced by their glossy leaves—particularly the siren song of the anthocyanin-rich red cabbage.

Last fall was no exception to my seduction by cabbages. I bought a cabbage for the express purpose of making the cabbage and mushroom handpies from Joshua McFadden’s Six Seasons, which is an excellent book that you should look at immediately. We demolished the pies in short order, astounded by how well the cabbage’s earthy notes played against a buttery pie crust. (Truly, what won’t pie crust improve?)

Despite proper prior planning, I ended up with extra filling. Coupled with an errant CSA order that left me with a surfeit of bacon, I figured the best thing to do would be sauté the bacon, add it to the leftover veg filling, and bake the whole mess into a quiche. My experiment turned out to be a use-up-the-random-ingredients-in-the-refrigerator match made in heaven, good enough to make on purpose for my family’s Christmas Eve brunch, where it was promptly devoured.

Bacon, Cabbage, and Mushroom Quiche

Source: I Thought There Would Be Free Food

Makes 1 9-inch quiche, serving 6–8 people

Active time: ~1 hour; total time: ~a little less than 2 hours

Note: You can split up the time it takes to make this dish by preparing the pie crust and filling up to two days ahead of time. Wrap the pie crust well and keep in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it. Sauté the bacon and vegetables and store separately until ready to use, then simply combine with the eggs and cream.

Pie Crust Ingredients: (Optional; feel free to substitute one pre-made, refrigerated pie crust)

  • 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 stick butter (leave it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it)
  • 3–4 tablespoons ice water

Bacon, Cabbage, and Mushroom Filling Ingredients:

  • 1/2 pound mushrooms, any variety
  • 1 medium onion
  • 1/2 pound cabbage, any variety
  • 1/2 pound bacon (easily omitted to make this quiche vegetarian)
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 6 eggs
  • 1/4 cup cream

Directions:

  • Make the crust: Do your future self a favor by laying a sheet of plastic wrap on your counter and making sure you have a large bowl handy.
  • Add the flour and salt to the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine.
  • Take the butter from the fridge and chop it into 1/2-inch cubes. Scatter the butter into the flour mixture and pulse until the butter is coarsely ground. Add 3 tablespoons of ice water and pulse 2–3 times, then dump the contents into a large bowl. Gently press a bit of the dough together; if it holds, proceed to the next step. If it does not, add additional water as necessary.
  • Gather the dough into a loose clump and then transfer it to the plastic wrap. Use the corners of the plastic wrap to form the dough into a disc about 2 inches tall. Make sure the dough is completely covered in plastic, then transfer to your refrigerator to chill for at least 1 hour, or up to 2 days.
  • Make the filling: Wash the mushrooms and then set them in a colander to drain. Meanwhile, dice the onion, then set it aside. Core the cabbage any remove any rubbery outer leaves, then finely slice and finally chop into pieces approximately 1-inch long; set the cabbage aside, too. Trim the tough ends off of the mushrooms—no need to discard the stems entirely—then thinly slice the mushrooms and, you guessed it, set them aside.
  • I like to trim some of the excess fat from my bacon before cooking it; feel free to join me in doing so, or just plan to drain more fat from the skillet after the bacon cooks. Choose your own adventure, and then chop the bacon into 1/2-inch pieces.
  • It’s time to cook! Warm a bit of oil in a large skillet set over medium-high heat. Once the oil and skillet are hot, add the bacon and sauté it until browned and crisp. Use a slotted spoon to transfer it to a paper towel-lined plate.
  • Pour off any excess bacon grease, leaving just enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Return the skillet to medium-high heat; once it’s up to temperature, add the mushrooms and sauté. Most varieties of mushrooms release quite a lot of water, and you want to cook most of this off.
  • Once much of the water has evaporated and the mushrooms are browning, reduce the heat to medium, then add the onions and sauté them until they begin to turn translucent. Add the cabbage and cook until it has softened and the vegetable mixture is quite dry—this will help prevent your quiche from being weepy. Season your veggie medley with salt and pepper to taste, then remove the skillet from the heat.
  • Position a rack in the bottom third of your oven, then preheat it to 400°F. Take your pie crust out of the refrigerator.
  • In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and cream. Add the vegetable mixture and bacon, and stir to distribute the ingredients evenly. Set the bowl aside.
  • Prepare a place to roll out your pie crust, dusting the surface with a bit of flour and setting out a rolling pin, sharp knife, and 9-inch pie plate. I like to bake my pies and quiches on a parchment-lined baking sheet, just in case there are any eruptions or overflows, and this would be a good time to get that ready, too.
  • When the crust is roll-able, do so, working from the middle of the dough out. It’s okay to use a fair amount of flour to make sure the crust doesn’t stick, just be sure to dust it off before you fit it to the pie plate. Once the crust is about half rolled out, try to gently pick it up, dust your work surface with flour again, flip the crust over, dust it again with flour, and continue rolling.
  • Transfer the crust to a 9-inch pie plate and trim away any extra dough before crimping or fluting or otherwise finishing the crust.
  • Pour the egg-vegetable mixture into the prepared crust and then carefully transfer the pie plate to the oven. I recommend baking the quiche on a rack set in the bottom third of your oven, which helps cook the bottom of the pie crust, but make sure that your oven doesn’t run hot or you might end up with a more-browned-than-desired crust. If your oven does run warm, just reduce the heat by 10 degrees or so.
  • Bake the quiche for ~40–45 minutes, or until the quiche is lightly browned, slightly puffed, and doesn’t Jell-O jiggle when you give it a shake. Remove from the oven and let it cool slightly before digging in.
  • Note: It’s totally unorthodox, but this quiche is even more delicious with a smear of Dijon or stone ground mustard on top.

Baking for Waiting: Tahini Sugar Cookies With White Chocolate-Rose Ganache

Dessert

If you celebrate any of the many holidays observed this month, or observe people who do, you’ve probably noticed how busy many of them appear. The holiday season seems to be a whirl of endless party going, food making and eating, and shopping.

It is a time for doing, and in some respects I’ve been no exception to that rule, dashing about buying presents and writing cards and preparing our flat to be shut up while we travel. And yet, amidst all this activity, I also find myself in a season of waiting. There is a possibility out there, and I am waiting for it to come to fruition, or not. I am waiting for a yes or a no, and I expect it every minute. 

I’m not particularly good at waiting. If ever there was an action-oriented person, it is me; I will push tirelessly and unceasingly, from every conceivable angle, to try to bring about a desired event before I will sit down and wait for the outcome. Given that, it’s almost torturous for me to find myself in a situation that I cannot influence, where there is no action for me to take. There is nothing I can do to bring about the end of my waiting, so I’ve been trying to distract myself, arranging coffee dates with friends and running errands. Still, I’m left with more time than I know what to do with. I need something to occupy my hands, something just technical enough to also occupy my brain, and so I bake. I set the butter out to soften while I go for a run, trying to burn off nervous energy. I put on Christmas carols as I measure and mix the ingredients, humming along as I roll and cut and bake and decorate. For me, the minutes slide by more easily in the kitchen. Baking is a form of meditation, the end product a manifestation of my active waiting.

These cookies are just demanding enough to take your attention off whatever you might be waiting for and demand you stay firmly rooted in the present. The tahini makes them rich, almost shortbready, and leaves just a touch of bitterness that the sweet white chocolate-rose ganache tempers. Bitter and sweet: a perfect representation of waiting during the holiday season.

Tahini Sugar Cookies With White Chocolate-Rose Ganache 

Sources: Tahini sugar cookies inspired by Eat Cho Food; white chocolate-rose ganache from Honey & Co

Makes ~5 dozen cookies of various sizes 

Total time: ~2 hours

Tahini Sugar Cookie Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup tahini

White Chocolate-Rose Ganache Ingredients:

  • 9 ounces white chocolate
  • 3 1/2 ounces heavy cream
  • 2–3 teaspoons rose water extract
  • Dried rose petals for decoration (optional)

Directions:

  • Make the cookies: Preheat your oven to 350°F. If you’re a think-in-advance type, set the butter out several hours before you plan to bake. If you’re more of an impulse baker, zap the butter in the microwave in 10–15 second bursts at 50% power until just softened. While the butter is softening, mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl and then set it aside.
  • Put the butter in a large bowl or standmixer and add the sugar. Using an electric hand mixer or standmixer, cream the mixture until it is light and fluffy, about 3–5 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla, beating to incorporate, and then add the tahini. Beat again to combine.
  • Add the dry ingredients in three additions, beating well to incorporate and ensuring no streaks or dry pockets remain at the bottom of the bowl.
  • Once your dough is ready, use your hands to compress it into three or four large balls. Working with one ball of dough at a time, roll the dough out on a well-floured surface to ~1/4 inch thickness. Use your cookie cutters of choice to cut out a variety of shapes and sizes.
  • Note: The amount of tahini in this recipe gives the cookies excellent flavor and texture, but also makes the dough a bit crumbly, so be patient and go slowly as you roll it out. You can reserve scraps to re-roll, but don’t do this too many times, or the additional flour will change the texture of the dough. It’ll still be delicious, but not quite as crumbly delicious.
  • Place the cookies on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and bake the cookies for ~10 minutes, rotating the sheets from side-to-side and top-to-bottom at the halfway point. 
  • Take your cookies out of the oven when they’re set and just beginning to bronze. Let them sit for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.
  • Make the ganache: While the cookies bake and cool, combine the white chocolate and cream in the top of a double boiler, then set on top and bring the water to a simmer. Warm the chocolate/cream mixture until the white chocolate melts, stirring to evenly distribute the heat and ensure the chocolate melts. 
  • Once your mixture is melted and homogeneous, remove from heat and stir in the rose water extract. Start with two teaspoons, and taste; feel free to add more as desired (I preferred the higher amount).
  • Decorate the cookies: Use a small spoon to dish up some of the ganache and spread it on top of the cookies, then scatter dried rose petals across them to decorate. Let the ganache dry completely, which may take several hours, before stacking, packing, or eating the cookies.

Persimmon Quick Bread

Breads
Two ripe persimmons sit on a white surface, surrounded by scattered walnuts.

I am an inveterate recipe tinkerer, unable to leave well enough alone. No matter how many times or how fervently I insist that I’ll make a recipe exactly the way that it was written—at least the first time through—I am incapable of doing so. I’m forever adding a little more salt or spice, reducing the oil just a smidge, or attempting to streamline a few steps.

There’s hubris in being a recipe tinkerer, which came home to me a few weeks ago, when I first made this persimmon quick bread. The original recipe is by James Beard, who is kind of a BFD—after all, they named one of the most prestigious food awards in America after him, and he’s widely regarded as a pivotal figure in American culinary history. He wrote a few books, appeared on a TV show or two, and sometimes vacationed with Julia Child, if that tells you anything. In short, Beard was a guy who knew his stuff, food-wise, and his recipes are well thought-out. Still, I found myself from changing this recipe to my liking.

At first blush, fiddling with a Beard recipe seems crazy: who am I to do such a thing? I have no formal culinary training and am barely two months into this blogging business; why do I suppose that I can make something better than James Beard? But at second look, this is precisely what I should be doing, and what I expect you to do as well—to make something different, hopefully better, perhaps worse, but nevertheless according to your own likes and dislikes. This is, after all, how innovation happens, and it’s how we grow as cooks and make food that we like to eat. We are curious. We try, we taste, we try again. And if it makes you feel any better, Beard himself is no stranger to tinkering; David Lebovitz points out that Beard gives an “inexact” amount of sugar in this recipe, an unusual act that allows the baker to bake according to their preference. Whether he states it explicitly or not, Beard is intrinsically aware that we all cook to our own liking, and that’s a good thing.

Beard’s recipe was far too sweet for me, so I reduced the sugar by half and replaced some of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat to make this less of a dessert and more of an anytime treat. I substituted ground allspice, which I always have on hand, for ground mace, which I generally don’t (you could also try nutmeg or ginger), and swapped the bourbon for rum, since I didn’t want to use the good stuff for bread. If you disagree with any of these changes, I think it goes without saying that you’re welcome to adjust them.

A loaf of golden brown bread with two cut slices falling from the left side rests on a white plate against a white background.

Persimmon Quick Bread

Adapted from James Beard’s Beard on Bread

Makes one 9″ x 5″ or 8 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ loaf

Active time: ~25 minutes; total time ~85 minutes

Note: There are many different varieties of persimmons, but the two I see most commonly are Fuyu and Hachiya. Fuyu are non-astringent and can be used when relatively firm, although I recommend letting them get very ripe for this recipe. Hachiya taste unpleasantly astringent unless they are very ripe.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup walnuts (optional)
  • 2 very ripe persimmons
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1–2 teaspoons ground allspice (I prefer the higher amount)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar (light or dark)
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1/3 cup bourbon, rum, or milk, if you prefer an alcohol-free version

Directions:

  • Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour or otherwise grease a 9 x 5″ or 8 1/2 x 4 1/2″ loaf pan; set aside.
  • If using the walnuts: Heat a medium skillet over medium heat. While it’s heating, coarsely chop the walnuts, then add them to the pan when it’s warm and toast until they’re golden brown and fragrant. This will likely take 5–10 minutes. Transfer the nuts from the skillet to a plate and let them cool slightly.
  • While the nuts are toasting, melt butter on the stove or in a microwave; I do it in the microwave for about 2 minutes on 30% power. Set the melted butter aside.
  • Bisect the persimmons along their equators and scoop their pulp into a small bowl. Discard the peels, then mash the puree with a fork until you have a mix of smooth and a few lumps; it needn’t be uniform.
  • Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir with a fork to combine, mashing any brown sugar lumps as necessary. Add the persimmons, butter, eggs, and liquor or milk, and stir to combine.
  • Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for ~60 minutes, perhaps a little less for a smaller loaf pan, or until the loaf is beautifully burnished and a cake tester inserted into the middle of the loaf emerges with just a few crumbs hanging. Remove your loaf from the tin and allow it to cool on a rack.
  • This bread is excellent warm, with butter; toasted, with a drizzle of honey; and pretty much any other way you care to have it—I certainly won’t tell you what to do.

Eggplant Ragout

Entrees, Vegan
A bowl of polenta topped with eggplant-tomato ragout and a glass of red wine sit on a woven straw mat.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good recipe challenge. I am, after all, the woman who once spent 15 hours recreating this cake, the same one who tested her savory pumpkin pie recipe at least 5 times before posting. When life allows, there’s little I enjoy more than an afternoon puttering about the kitchen. But lately, these days don’t allow; I’m mixing the run-up to the holidays with a job search, trying to balance the two and only sometimes succeeding. My schedule fluctuates from quiet enough that I have ample time to spend on recipe development to so busy that I barely have time for lunch. I believe there’s room in life for both complex cooking projects and simple ones; I hope there will always be days when I have enough time to craft edible art, just as I know that there will always be days when the only goal is to feed myself, now.

This eggplant ragout falls somewhere between those extremes: it’s easy to throw together, but good enough to serve to friends. It can be ready relatively quickly, in just over an hour, or simmer longer while you catch up on other tasks. Best of all, it makes a substantial amount (and can easily be doubled, if you have a big enough pot), so you’ll have ready meals for busy days.

A bowl of polenta topped with eggplant-tomato ragout sits on a blue and red cloth.

Eggplant Ragout

Source: I Thought There Would Be Free Food

Serves 4–6 people

Active time: ~30 minutes; total time +75 minutes

Note: For a not veg friendly but equally delicious take, sauté a pound of sausage (“Italian”-flavored turkey or chicken sausage does well here) with the onion and then proceed with the recipe as written.

Ingredients:

  • 1 medium onion, about 4 ounces (enough to yield ~1 cup, finely diced)
  • 6 cloves garlic
  • 2 good-sized fresh rosemary sprigs (enough to yield at least 1 tablespoon, minced)
  • 1 large eggplant, about 1 pound
  • Olive oil
  • 1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
  • 1 cup red wine (or vegetable stock, if you prefer)
  • Salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, to taste

Directions:

  • Prep your ingredients: finely chop the onion; mince the garlic and rosemary; and cut the eggplant into 1/2-inch cubes. Set each ingredient to the side as you finish before moving onto the next.
  • Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. When the pot is warm, add enough olive oil to thinly coat the bottom; once the oil is warm, add your onion and sauté until it starts to become translucent. Add the garlic and cook briefly before adding the eggplant. Stir the onion-garlic-eggplant mixture well, then add the rest of the ingredients. Don’t forget to taste the sauce several times as it simmers, adjusting the seasonings as needed.
  • Simmer your ragout on medium-low or low heat for at least 45 minutes, or until the sauce is somewhat reduced and the eggplant is tender and meaty. Give it a stir every once in awhile to make sure the ragout doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot. If it does, reduce the heat and add more liquid—wine, water, or vegetable stock will all work.
  • Serve the ragout with polenta or pasta. Enjoy the leftovers as they are, or turn them into a riff on shakshuka.

Savory Pumpkin Pie

Entrees
A sliced pumpkin pie with one slice missing sits in a pie plate on a black surface.

I realize this might be controversial, but I don’t like traditional Thanksgiving food—the turkey, the gravy, the potatoes, the green bean casserole. So much of it is one-note, heavy and rich, too often spiced not enough and with little imagination, lacking in any of the things that give zing and satisfaction to a meal (except you, cranberry relish. I see you). In my vegetarian years, I hated the lack of good entrees and felt relegated to the gustatory sidelines, expected to eat potatoes and wait for dessert. And then there’s the biggest truth bomb: I don’t like pumpkin pie. Some of the time, the filling gets watery and pulls away from the crust, which is unappealing to a food-texture nerd like myself. Most of the time, it doesn’t have much flavor. 100% of the time, I’m left wishing I’d foregone the pumpkin pie in favor of more apple pie.

In my search for the tasty, easy-to-make, Thanksgiving food of my dreams, I spent weeks reading cookbooks and brainstorming before I came up with my great idea: a savory pumpkin pie. But much as I’d love to tout my own brilliance, I’m not the first person to come up with this idea; when I started researching, I found a slew of savory pumpkin pie recipes on the web. Most of them, however, were fussy, calling for the baker to make pumpkin puree from scratch (I don’t have time for that, and having done it before, I can tell you the stuff out of the can is better than what I can make) or to include lots of sliced onions in the pumpkin custard, an idea that offended my aforementioned food-texture sensibilities. Add to that that many of the recipes called for tiny amounts of uncommon ingredients, and I was back to the drawing board. What I finally came up with is a vegetarian main sexy enough to tempt a carnivore, a seasonal entrée with pizzazz—this Parmesan-enriched, parsley-sage pesto-topped, savory pumpkin pie.

Savory Pumpkin Pie

Sources: Pie crust recipe adapted from Williams Sonoma; parsley-sage pesto adapted from The Kitchn; custard from I Thought There Would Be Free Food

Makes 1 pie, comfortably serving 6–8 people

Active time: 45–60 minutes; total time: ~2 hours

Note: If the thought of making your own pie crust gives you anxiety, feel free to substitute one pre-made, refrigerated pie crust. I won’t tell.

Walnut Piecrust Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup walnuts
  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 stick butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 3–4 tablespoons ice water

Pumpkin-Parmesan Custard Ingredients:

  • 3 eggs
  • 1 cup milk (I use 1%)
  • 1 15 ounce can pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
  • 1 cup grated, shaved or shredded Parmesan
  • 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Parsley-Sage Pesto Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup walnuts
  • 1/2 cup grated, shaved, or shredded Parmesan
  • 1 large bunch parsley (~2 cups)
  • 1 0.5 ounce package sage (~3/4 cup)
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions:

  • Make the crust: Do your future self a favor by laying out a sheet of plastic wrap on your counter—you’ll wrap your piecrust in this shortly—and make sure you have a large bowl handy.
  • Heat a large skillet over medium heat. When it’s warm, add the nuts and toast until they’re golden brown and fragrant. This will likely take 5–10 minutes, depending on your stove. Transfer the nuts from the skillet to a plate and let them cool slightly.
  • Note: If you’re planning to make the parsley-sage pesto, toast a full cup of walnuts and then set a half-cup aside while you make the crust.
  • When the nuts have cooled, place them in the bowl of a food processor with the flour and salt, and pulse until the nuts are finely ground.
  • Drop the chunks of butter into the flour-nut mixture and pulse until the butter is coarsely ground. Add 3 tablespoons of ice water and pulse 2–3 times, then dump the contents into a large bowl. Gently press a bit of the dough together; if it holds, proceed to the next step. If not, add additional water as necessary but note that the dough should still be loose and a bit crumbly.
  • Gather the dough into a loose clump and transfer it to the plastic wrap. Use the corners of the plastic wrap to form the dough into a disc about 2 inches tall. Make sure the dough is completely covered in plastic, then transfer to your refrigerator to chill for at least 1 hour or up to 2 days.
  • Note: If you don’t have a food processor, this crust can also be made by hand, minus the walnuts. Use a pastry cutter or mezzaluna to cut the butter into the flour-salt mixture and then add water, stirring the dough with a fork, before gathering into a ball and refrigerating.
  • Make the custard: While the dough is chilling, whisk the eggs together in a medium bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and whisk to combine. Set aside.
  • Assemble the pie: Preheat the oven to 400°F and position a rack in the bottom third of your oven. Prepare a place to roll out the pie crust, dusting the surface with a bit of flour and setting out a rolling pin, sharp knife, and pie plate. Take out your piecrust; if it’s been chilling for more than an hour, you might need to let it warm up slightly by setting it on the counter for 5–10 minutes.
  • When the crust is roll-able, do so! I suggest working from the middle of the dough out, easing up on the pressure when you get close to the edge, and using a fair amount of flour to make sure it doesn’t stick. Once the crust is about half flattened, try to gently pick it up, dust your work surface with flour, flip the crust over, dust again, and continue rolling. Don’t be afraid to use some flour, just be sure to brush off any excess before baking.
  • Transfer the crust to a pie plate and trim away any extra dough before crimping or fluting or doing whatever helps you express your pie creativity. Pour the custard into the crust and carefully transfer the pie plate to the oven. Bake for ~40–45 minutes. The pie will be done when the top looks shiny, rather than dull, and a knife inserted into the middle of the pie comes out relatively clean (a few specks shouldn’t be a problem). Note that overbaking may result in cracks in the filling (ahem, as you can see in my photo above).
  • Note: Baking the pie low in the oven and at a relatively high heat will help ensure that the bottom of your crust cooks without pre-baking, but be careful! If your oven runs hot, you might want to reduce the heat by 10–15 degrees.
  • Note: Don’t toss your dough scraps! Either save them in the freezer until you have enough to make another pie, or brush them with a beaten egg, dust with a little cinnamon and sugar, and bake until golden brown. I consider these crispies a bonus for the cook and am loathe to share them, unless someone is kind enough to do the dishes for me.
  • Make the pesto: Toast the walnuts and grate the Parmesan, if you haven’t yet. Chop the tough ends off the parsley and sage and discard, then roughly chop the rest of the herbs, stems and all, and set aside.
  • Add the walnuts and Parmesan to the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture is uniformly ground. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse to your desired consistency. If at any point the mixture becomes too thick to process, add a tablespoon of oil or so to help it along.
  • Note: The color of the pesto will darken as it’s exposed to air, but the flavor will remain just as good. The pesto is best eaten the day it’s made.
  • Once the pie is out of the oven and has cooled for about 15 minutes, slice and serve it with dollops of the pesto. This pie is as good warm as it is at room temperature, making it ideal for a Thanksgiving buffet.