Food Blog: Spring Sunshine + Passover Favorites

Monday, March 22, 2021

Spring Sunshine + Passover Favorites

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Monday, March 22, 2021

Good morning!

Marion Cunningham’s Immortal Waffle (It's on SK too!) (Taste)
Why pick one favorite ziti when you can have four? (Thanks, The Kitchn!)
When did following recipes become a personal failure? (Atlantic)

It's spring! I'm delighted. I'm ready for it. It couldn't have come at a better time. I am going to try to beam some of the sunshine I absorbed this weekend your way with a few spring favorites, and beg you not to sleep on those chicken salad toasts, which are my favorite intersection of chicken and salad. And then, some Passover planning. Whether you celebrate it or not, you should make some matzo ball soup, because there's nothing cozier. And have you seen that mega-latke? You definitely need a mega-latke in your life. My single rule for Passover desserts is that they have to be good enough to eat even if I wasn't following special dietary rules, and these follow it, and then some. I hope you find a few new, sunny favorites.

Cheers,
Deb

Fresh and New

crispiest chicken cutlets

New: I love perfectly seasoned, craggy bread-crumbed, deeply golden, crispy chicken cutlets but hated making them until I learned a trick from my MIL that makes them a little faster, less heavy, and, if you have old bread lying around, the absolute crunchiest. These never, ever last.

spring greetings

sweet potato tacos

Cubes of sweet potatoes roasted with so much spice, it almost forms a crust, atop a schmear of refried black beans, finished with lime, avocado, and more make for easy (vegan), hearty and flavorful weeknight tacos.

chopped salad with feta, lime and mint

An all-crunch, bright salad is a favorite reminder that there are few salads not improved by a good chop, herbs and salty accents.

spring vegetable potstickers

Please do not underestimate the fun of putting out a giant bowl of dumpling filling and a couple packages of wrappers and having friends and family assemble their own dinner, so much better than store-bought, especially when they celebrate bright spring vegetables. Extras freeze fantastically; future you thanks you for remembering this.

spring chicken salad toasts

Chicken, chives, dill, and a dollop of horseradish crème fraîche assemble messily with cucumbers and radishes on thin rye toasts in the only way I want to eat chicken salad forever more.

passover

matzo ball soup

Put down that box mix! This is the only recipe you'll ever need for perfect-every-time matzo ball soup that your local deli could only dream of. Make your bubbe proud and your belly happy.

wild mushroom pâté

A hunt for vegetarian chopped liver led me to the land of earthy, luxe and flavorful mushroom spreads. But don't get stuck on the word pâté, I find a jar of of this in the fridge useful in a dozen ways: tossed with angel hair pasta and parmesan, as a sandwich spread with greens and sharp cheese, and folded into a crepe or risotto, or as shown, on crackers or matzo with all sorts of bright fixings.

potato kugel

Basically a massive hash brown (or mega-latke) with profoundly crispy edges, steamy-soft insides and the show-stealing complement to breakfast eggs, a dinner roast or fancy party things like crème fraîche and caviar (yessss).

tangy spiced brisket

If you’ve been felled by brisket recipes in the past that produced leaden, forgettable roasts, this recipe wants to be your brisket vindication -- tender, perfectly cooked, perfectly flavored every single time. And, it's even better on days two and three, should you want to get a lead on your prep.

lamb chops with pistachio tapenade

I love lamb chops more than any human being should and this is one of my favorite ways to prepare them, in which a paste of olives, pistachios, capers, garlic and herbs is smashed on mid-cooking and becomes one with the chops before they reach your plate -- it's also one of the easiest. (Hooray.)

Spring treats

raspberry coconut macaroons

If you think coconut macaroons are terrible, well, I think it's because you're not making these, which are marbled with fresh raspberries and such a cinch to make, you're going to want to do it pretty often.

toasted pecan cake

This flourless, gluten-free, 5-ingredient cake (7 with optional cream and berries) that leaves you with no leftover egg yolks or whites is my kind of spring miracle, and that's before you even taste the deeply toasted pecans, brown butter, and vanilla.

chocolate-hazelnut macaroon torte

This stack of soft hazelnut macaroons coated in dark chocolate and wrapped in whipped cream is one of the best cakes I have ever made -- so good that although it started as a gluten-free or Passover dessert solution, we now make it all the time.