A few weekends ago, Abby was home from college for a mini-break, and right before dinner one night, she came into the kitchen to tell me her friend Alex was going to stop by. It’s dinnertime, I said. Will he be eating with us? She (somewhat annoyingly) couldn’t confirm one way or the other, but I decided to be prepared just in… Read more »
Good morning! Before we get to the food, I wanted to extend a huge thank you to those of you who have donated to the DALS World Central Kitchen fundraiser. I can’t tell you how good it feels to watch that amount creep up, even in increments of $5 or $10 — so keep the cash coming! (And remember, if… Read more »
Good morning! It’s the weekend, which means I will spend at least a small part of today trying to figure out which cocktail I’ll be sipping tonight as the sun slips over the yardarm. (Currently in the lead: Paper Planes.) Over at Life and Money, I wrote about a few things you can do on the weekend to get ahead… Read more »
A cherished ritual seems to have sprung up in this house, without us ever consciously putting it into effect: we go out to a local restaurant, just the four of us, every Friday night for dinner. The culinary options in our neighborhood being somewhat…limited, we usually end up at a sushi place run by a super friendly Japanese man who… Read more »
This recipe used to be our go-to for entertaining vegetarians — back when vegetarians were, you know, a rare breed. Now, thankfully, the dish has moved into our regular dinner rotation. The hardest part about it is securing the sheep’s milk yogurt — but even that is not really hard because you can swap in with whole milk plain Greek… Read more »
Last week, I dropped off a little cooler care package with my friend who is dealing with a sick spouse, and the mix felt like a good formula: Beef & Black Bean Chili (something kid-friendly and crowdpleasy) + Lentil Salad with Feta, Dill, and Jammy Tomatoes (something healthy) + Frozen Baked Ziti from the local Italian specialty store (something no-cook… Read more »
Like a lot of people, my younger daughter, Abby, discovered cooking during the pandemic. For her it wasn’t about project cooking — she didn’t bake a single loaf of sourdough — it was much more about self-care, about ensuring that she had at least one moment of joy in a day spent mostly staring at her friends and teachers over… Read more »
Remember winter? On this sunny, second day of spring down in South Carolina, as I trade in my boots for Birkenstocks, I already feel like it’s shrinking away in the rearview mirror. Also helping things along are these decidedly warm-weather tacos we ate for dinner last night, which made excellent use of the otherworldly shrimp down here. As always, the… Read more »
My heart swelled a little bit last week when Abby texted me from college saying she had figured out how to concoct a pretty decent vinaigrette using only dining hall ingredients (“oil balsamic a lil soy sauce onion powder pepper salt sriracha and yellow mustard…i’m surprised yellow mustard works”). Not only that, but she was whisking up a batch with… Read more »
Does the world need another fried rice recipe? I didn’t think so until I made Kenji López-Alt’s Basic Vegetable Fried Rice from his new, somewhat astonishing book The Wok. The dish, which I consider to be an absolute cornerstone of a Weekday Vegetarian’s repertoire, has always been something I’ve kind of made up on the fly. Ginger here, soy sauce there, eggs… Read more »
When we were first trying to get our kids on board with the whole Weekday Vegetarian thing, we were never quite sure if we should tweak old recipes that they had an attachment to, or just ignore them completely. Sometimes we got lucky and just swapped beans for meat in a favorite dinner and no one was any worse for… Read more »
I feel pretty good about my vegetable life at dinner time, but I’ve recently realized I am not terribly consistent about getting produce into my lunches when I’m working from home. When I even have lunch, that is. Often my mid-day meal, if I remember to stop what I’m doing to actually have it, is just a forkful of leftovers standing in… Read more »
Our friends Sonya and Pierre came over for dinner on Saturday and instead of doing what we usually do with starters — a lot of little salty, tangy treats to whet the appetite, not smother it — we essentially stuck with one medium-size salty-tangy treat: These pickled white anchovy toasts with caramelized onions. We always order them at a favorite local… Read more »
You know what ingredient makes my heart sink a little every time I come across it in a recipe? Vegetable broth. I know, I know, cry me a river, but I just cannot find a store-bought vegetable broth that doesn’t have, how do I say this…top-notes of low-tide on the marsh? Weekday Vegetarian owners know this is why, when I have time,… Read more »
For a holiday gift this year, our friend Avideh gave us ingredients to create one of her most favorite dishes from childhood: Ash Reshteh, an herby Persian stew, packed with noodles and beans. The gift felt so right for this moment, when we’re all squirreling away again by ourselves, unsure of how to proceed with dinner guests or nights out. Even though… Read more »
We were in Vermont for a round-trip college drop-off, and didn’t have time for a lot, but because it’s Vermont, where you can buy local craft beers at the corner gas station, it felt wrong not to hit the markets and load up on the many regional specialties. That means maple syrup and dairy of course — often the combination… Read more »
As I’ve probably mentioned a few hundred times in this space, my oldest daughter, Phoebe is a college runner and when I asked her this past weekend what she wanted for dinner, her eyes got all dreamy talking about one of her last races of the season, notable not just for how good she felt, but for what she ate… Read more »
There are all kinds of ways people prefer their latkes: thin and lacy, meaty and crispy, kicked up with horseradish or shredded vegetables, spun from leftover Thanksgiving mashed potatoes (!!!)…and I know you’re probably expecting me to give you some diehard purist take here, but the truth is, I love them all equally. They are fried potatoes after all. Below is the recipe… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
