There is no recipe I’ve made more in my lifetime than this roasted cherry tomato pasta. It’s the lowest effort, highest reward dinner I know and a complete one-dish meal.
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CRUSTY BAKED RIGATONI WITH BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND BRUSSELS SPROUTS
IMHO, there is no dish as belly and soul-comforting as a pasta bake.
- Oozy cheese enveloping every nook and cranny of noodles and vegetables
- Loads of crispy bits – burnt cheese! toasted breadcrumbs! pasta “chips”!
- Little surprises each time you dig your fork into the casserole
Need I say more?
Beyond the cheese and noodles, I like mine packed with vegetables. In fact, mine usually ends up being a 50/50 mix of vegetables to noods. This adds flavor and texture and allows me to pile my plate high without feeling like I have a brick in my stomach afterwards. When it comes to eating, I’m a volume girl.
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A KALE AND BRUSSELS SPROUTS SALAD BASE FOR ALL WINTER LONG
Sometimes the best recipes are the simplest. It feels strange to share a recipe without a particularly original take, or an interesting ingredient or preparation, but is that what we always need? No. We need recipes that make getting a delicious and nourishing meal on the table the slightest bit easier. Recipes that taste as good on day one as day four and are highly tweakable so you never have to eat the same thing twice.
Enter this Kale and Brussels Sprouts Salad Base for All Winter Long.
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SPICED RICE WITH CRISPY SHALLOTS, TOASTED ALMONDS AND YOGURT
Perfectly cooked rice is a thing of beauty. 90% of the time, I serve it unadorned alongside some other dish I’ve spent time on (like this crispy tofu and brussels hash!). But every so often I’m reminded that rice itself can be the star.
A recent picture on Yotam Ottolenghi’s instagram feed was just the inspiration I needed to dress up a pot of jasmine rice this week.
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STICKY RICE WITH CRISPY TOFU AND BRUSSELS HASH
My love affair with tofu started somewhere around age 10. My favorite Thai restaurant (which was the only Thai restaurant within a several town radius of my own) served the most perfect fried tofu triangles with peanut sauce. The tofu was crunchy on the outside and moist and simply flavored within. Smothered in rich peanut sauce and quickly dipped in the restaurant’s bright nuoc cham, each bite was an adventure for my inexperienced palate.
This flawless little appetizer is the reason I’ve stuck with making endless rounds of mediocre tofu for decades, ever in the search of some cooking method that would replicate that early food memory. I’ve shallow-fried, deep-fried and roasted infinite sheet trays. I’ve drained and pressed tofu overnight in the refrigerator, frozen and thawed it, and worked with every texture from silken to extra firm. I’ve quick-marinated and left tofu to sit with seasoning for several days before cooking. While much of these efforts came with some reward, the texture has always been…meh.
It wasn’t until I came upon a recipe from Cookies and Kate that I discovered the merits of cornstarch.
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