I think hands-down the best tofu is crispy tofu, i.e. when it’s been dredged in cornstarch, then pan-fried in a generous amount of oil and tossed with some form of glaze or sauce. (Exhibit A: Hsiao-Ching Chou’s Crispy Weeknight Tofu with vegetables.) But honestly, dredging and frying can be a pain sometimes, and when my friend Robin (by way of our friend Kate,… Read more »
Last Thursday, a week and a half before we dropped off Daughter Number 1 at college, Andy and I found ourselves in a not-unusual position as the parents of teenagers: There would be no kids eating dinner with us — both had plans. I wouldn’t normally care, but with the clock ticking down to their Departure Days, each missed family… Read more »
Good morning! Look what’s now keeping me company as I work on your weekly dispatch. My copies arrived last week and I was so excited I even made a reel about it. For those of you who pre-ordered, a) THANK YOU and b) your copy should be arriving in exactly two weeks. One of the more liberating discoveries about cooking vegetarian dinners —… Read more »
My children would disagree with this statement but you’re looking at one of the best things I ate last week on vacation that did not include corn or tomatoes. It’s crispy fried eggplant with Romesco sauce and shredded basil and even though I couldn’t get the girls on board, I locked in Andy whose most enthusiastic endorsement of eggplant in the… Read more »
I’m heading into week two down here in South Carolina and I regret to inform you that your weekly dispatch of Three Things has been downgraded this week to just Two Things, but what beautiful two things they are…It’s corn and tomato season, baby! This week begins the stretch of weeks we spend all year pining for: when the corn… Read more »
We’ve been vacationing in Kiawah Island, South Carolina forever, and it doesn’t matter how long the drive has been, or how tired we are of being in the car (or the plane) we always stop at our favorite open-air market on the way to the island. No matter what we are in the mood for, no matter what time of year it is, this… Read more »
I write about slaw a lot. For good reason — I eat it a lot, especially in the summer. It’s almost always the answer to the question: What can I add to dinner that will give my plate that hit of freshness and texture? (Do you not ask that question of yourself constantly?) I realized though, that I haven’t ever… Read more »
I’ve been attempting to recreate some version of these tacos ever since my daughter tried them at a sweet 16 party in the city a few years ago. “You sure they were cauliflower?” I asked her. “Yes,” she said. “You don’t like cauliflower, though.” After a few follow up questions, I determined that they had been deep-fried to resemble popcorn… Read more »
Newsletter readers! Here is the pork chop recipe I was talking about in today’s dispatch. Sweet and spicy, smoky and tender. I beg Andy to make them for us all summer long. (Originally published in How to Celebrate Everything.) Grilled Soy-Glazed Pork ChopsServes 4 4 bone-in pork chops, about 3 1/2-4 pounds totalkosher salt and freshly ground pepper1/4 cup soy… Read more »
We are huge soft shell crab fans in my house, but only really get to enjoy them in our takeout spider roll a few times a year. Right now, though, they are in season up here in New York and when I spied them at our new fish store (we are so lucky, everything there tastes like the boat-to-market time is, like,… Read more »
We made this Spicy Shrimp with Yogurt over the weekend because my friend Robin had texted me a photo of it, rediscovering the meal after poking around in the DALS archives. (You would laugh at the percentage of our text thread that is dinner-related. Thank you, Robin!) The meal had not graced our table for a very long time, and it was crazy how… Read more »
I’m in love with the new cookbook, Vegetable Simple. Eric Ripert — the chef and owner of one of New York’s most revered Michelin-starred restaurants, Le Bernardin — is known for his refined seafood dishes, but here, he turns his eyes towards his second love, vegetables. The most amazing thing about it is how actually simple the recipes are. Like not chef-pretending-to-be-simple… Read more »
I realize this is maybe the seventeenth time I’ve written about this pizza in various ways throughout the years, but it’s such an important recipe in my rotation that I felt it was time it had its own dedicated page. Especially since my version of it (with cheddar and caramelized onions) seems to have strayed so far from the traditional… Read more »
I could not be more excited to show you the cover of The Weekday Vegetarians, which will officially be out in the world on August 31. Can you believe how happy and gorgeous she is? Before I started writing this book, it’s not an exaggeration to say that a piece of animal protein anchored our dinner plates at least five out of… Read more »
As many of you know, Saturday night dinner has become a real thing for us during the pandemic — a way to differentiate a weekend night from all the others — and the dishes we’ve made to mark it run the gamut, each one somehow special in its own way. Sometimes Saturday dinner is super old-school, like Marcella Hazan’s Milk-Braised Pork… Read more »
Please do not skip over this one if you’re “not a tofu person.” That was me for the longest time! The key to my conversion was perfecting crispy tofu. And by crispy, I mean a lot of things: I can get a good golden-brown edge on my tofu when I toss 1/2-inch cubes in soy sauce, cornstarch, and oil and… Read more »
Greetings dinner makers! I want to get right down to business here and tell you about this salmon we made the other night. It was so good, so exactly the fresh, healthy hit I needed on a Sunday night, after a stretch of soups and stews and braisey, warm-your-bones kinda dishes. The salmon preparation could not be more basic —… Read more »
At least one morning during the school week, some time between 11:00 and 11:30, my daughter, Abby, a 12th grader who has spent her final year of high school almost entirely in a remote classroom, comes downstairs in her flannel pajama pants, stretches, looks at whichever parent is first in her line of vision with fluttery eyelids, and says: “Cacio?”… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
