When Hannah Che’s The Vegan Chinese Kitchen first arrived on my desk, it was a 90-degree morning in July. I started flipping through the pages, and I’m not kidding, within 10 minutes I was putting together this dinner you’re looking at above: Cold Vermicelli and Cabbage Salad. I had leftover rice noodles and the rest of the ingredients are pretty much staples… Read more »
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 »
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 »
Good morning. Just came back from a walk along the Hudson — a balmy 35 degrees on April 22. Come on, New York weather gods! Please help us out here. Yesterday was a slow one — I did less work than I wanted to; wound up on the couch watching Aziz Ansari’s 2019 comedy special with Phoebe and the dogs… Read more »
It pains us to even admit this, but it took us a long time to come around to Brussels sprouts. They didn’t crack the dinner rotation until we were well into our 30s, with two kids, a mortgage, a dog, and a creeping difficulty reading the fine print on aspirin bottles. In other words, until we were full-fledged adults. But… Read more »
There’s a new cookbook out today called Hot Sheet, by Olga Massov and Sanaë Lemoine, which is an ode in recipe form to all the ways the humble sheet pan makes a home cook’s life easier, from starters and snacks, through dinnertime and dessert. Good lord, everything looks so delicious and — here’s what shocked me for a sheet pan cookbook… Read more »
Moving was stressful — lists upon lists upon lists upon lists — but I’ll tell you one part of it that was downright therapeutic: Cooking down the fridge. It’s that magical combination of creativity and frugality that feels almost like a competitive sport to me. (Me against…the trash can?) Not to brag, but I’d definitely make varsity. There were ice… Read more »
Subscribe now As you likely know by now, my most favorite kind of summer cooking is a simply grilled something surrounded by a bounty of farm-fresh, creative salads. (It always reminds me of my old magazine boss, Carrie, whose fashion philosophy was “Gap clothes, Prada accessories.”) This is probably why I love Susan Spungen’s new book Veg Forward so much. You might… Read more »
How do I eat vegetarian without leaning on carbs? Since I wrote The Weekday Vegetarians, I have gotten this question at every turn. The first thing I need to say about this is that in general, we eat a normal amount of carbs in our house. We’re not eating pasta every night, but nor are we serving riced cauliflower with our… Read more »
This is worthy of memorization for two reasons. The first is that pickled onions are an amazing upgrade to literally everything, including sandwiches and burgers and tacos and straight out of the jar. Second, once you memorize the ingredient ratios here, you’ll end quick-pickling everything — cabbage, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower. Quick-Pickled Onions: In a medium heavy saucepan, bring 2 cups water, 1/4 cup… Read more »
Last year, I wrote about a half dozen fall vegetable love stories: Cabbage Loves Apples, Beets Love Dill, Chinese Greens Love Ginger, and I’d like to add a new one to the list: Squash Loves Tahini. Specifically delicata squash; I’ve been making this salad above for lunch almost every day: Greens, roasted delicata, tahini dressing, and store bought dukkah, the Middle… Read more »
One of the unforeseen benefits of having two kids in college is that their expanded social circles now encompass friends from the wider New York area, plus visitors to the New York area, plus friends just interning in the New York area for the summer. All of this translates to more guests at the dinner table, which means the weeknight… Read more »
Want your family to head in a more plant-based direction, but not sure where to even begin? I hear you! In fact I was you…only a few years ago. Here are a few strategies that helped me scale way back on my family’s meat intake from Monday through Friday, excerpted from my book, The Weekday Vegetarians. 1. Cook What You… Read more »
This photo probably looks familiar to longtime readers. What can I say: We are creatures of habit down in South Carolina. If I look back at my dinner diaries, without fail, there’s a Pan-fried flounder with some form of slaw in the line-up. (But that certainly does not mean you have to be south of the Mason-Dixon Line to enjoy… 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 »
Hi! Today, I’d like to take a step back to give you a quick update on what I’m up to here in Dinner: A Love Story Land. Even though I’ve been writing some version of DALS since March 2010 (!), some of you are new readers, some of you are veterans, and a lot has changed in the past year…. Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
