Cooking
Easy, cozy dishes that lean into winter.
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“Oh, this is a knife kind of dinner.”
That’s what we say at my home when dinner is a capital-D Dinner, requiring plates and forks and knives. Think: giant hunks of roasted squash full of tomato-ginger chickpeas, or any bone-in chicken situation, flank steak, pork tenderloin.
More often, though, I’m making the sort of dinner that doesn’t need a knife — just a fork, spoon or chopsticks will suffice. This could be because it’s capital-W winter where I live, and a shallow bowl cradling noodles or stew just feels so much cozier than a flat plate. (It could also be because there’s a lot of good television on right now, and I want to eat on the couch. “The White Lotus,” how I missed you.)
Dan Pelosi’s new cottage pie is perfect winter comfort food. “Cottage pie is a near twin to its sibling, the slightly better-known shepherd’s pie,” writes Dan. “The main difference between these traditional dishes, which have roots in Ireland and Britain, is that cottage pie embraces ground beef while shepherd’s pie, fittingly, favors lamb.” His recipe is freezer-friendly, economical and versatile: Try ground chicken or turkey in place of the beef. Eat with a fork, maybe even a spoon (that mashed potato topping makes it easy to scoop up the savory filling), but definitely no knives are allowed here.
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Cottage Pie
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