Cooking
Grocery-store ice cream makes the list.
Hello, and thank you to Mia Leimkuhler for taking time off so I can go on and on about my favorite thing: recipes!
When you find a trustworthy one, hold on tight. After a long day of developing and testing recipes, what a relief it is to cling to someone else’s unwavering recipe for my own dinner.
That’s why it’s exciting that on Tuesday, New York Times Cooking is coming out with a new cookbook, “Easy Weeknight Dinners: 100 Fast, Flavor-Packed Meals for Busy People Who Still Want Something Good to Eat.” You can order a copy here, and if you’d like a signed edition, click here. On launch night, Emily Weinstein and I are talking dinner at Talea taproom in Brooklyn. We’d love to meet you! Get your tickets here.
When it’s already 7:30 p.m., I turn to something like Sue Li’s new seared tofu with kimchi. The tofu plumps with kimchi juice and soy sauce and then flops dramatically over steamed rice. After eating it, I did the same on the couch.
Melissa Clark’s chickpea stew with orzo and mustard greens is a favorite when chopping feels like a salve rather than a slog. It’s cozy, with chickpeas and orzo, and colorful, with carrots, tomatoes, fennel and greens.
To get ahead on tomorrow’s lunch, I grill or broil Lidey Heuck’s yogurt-marinated chicken to eat with salad for dinner and to stuff into quesadillas for lunch.
Another common dinner-then-lunch is Priya Krishna’s soothing and suspiciously fast everyday dal. Instead of the chhonk’s sizzled spices, sometimes I drizzle it with a spicy mint cilantro chutney, which also finds its way onto rice, roasted vegetables and that grilled chicken.
Frijoles de Olla (Homestyle Black Beans)
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While “Easy Weeknight Dinners” is dedicated to dishes that are ready in about half an hour, I also rely on recipes that are strolls instead of sprints. They cook themselves while I’m working or can be made anytime and left to hang out until dinner. For example, a pot of special beans like Rick A. Martínez’s frijoles de olla (homestyle black beans) can putter away on its own, only periodically stirred and tasted until the beans’ stony bodies turn fudgy.
And my partner is always happy about sloppy Joes, including when I use ground turkey, crumbled tempeh or red lentils instead of beef — as long as they’re topped with Fritos, as sloppy Joes were in his family. Crunch crunch.
For dessert, it takes two entire minutes to caramelize dates in olive oil, scrape them over a scoop of vanilla ice cream and crush flaky salt on top.
Just because it’s a weeknight doesn’t mean it can’t be a nice time.