What to Cook Right Now - The New York Times

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What to Cook Right Now - The New York Times

What to Cook Right Now - The New York Times

Posted: 21 Jun 2021 07:30 AM PDT

Good morning. It's the summer solstice, so you may eat dinner at twilight even if you're late to get into the kitchen because Mondays are a bear. Let's make the most of it.

Melissa Clark has a terrific new recipe for grilled yogurt-marinated chicken with za'atar (above) that I think would work really well in the broiler if a grill is not available to you; in a pinch I think you could cook it in a really hot oven. That might be good.

Alternatively, consider Yewande Komolafe's latest, sazón-spiced shrimp and okra, a quick one-pan dinner with big, bright flavors. The okra gets blistered in a pan, deepening its flavor without getting slimy, and then you add shrimp and shower the whole thing with sazón. That and some coconut rice? Yes, please.

But back to the grill for a second. Steven Raichlen has a cool new recipe for grilled zucchini ribbons that transforms the texture of the vegetable and, with barbecue butter, makes it taste a little like vegetarian burnt ends. He's also got a fine one for grilled okra with rémoulade. And if it's early for corn where I stay, there's plenty in my supermarket, and Steven's grilled corn on the cob is delicious coated in sesame-soy butter.

Cooking inside, you might think about David Tanis's recipe for summer pasta with zucchini, ricotta and basil. Or Melissa's pan-seared asparagus salad with frisée and fried egg. Or Alison Roman's spring tofu soup.

There are thousands and thousands more recipes waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. If you haven't yet subscribed, you should subscribe today. A subscription unlocks all of our tools and features and supports our journalism along the way. Then browse what we've got. You can save the recipes you like. You should rate the ones you've cooked. And you can leave notes on recipes, too, if you like, if you've come up with a hack or substitution that you want to remember or share.

Meanwhile, we are standing by to help, should anything go sideways in your cooking or in our code. Just write: cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you. (You can also write to me: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I read every letter sent.)

Check us out on Instagram, and on Facebook and Twitter as well. And do visit us on YouTube, where among other things you can watch Priya Krishna taste-test shelf-stable, military-issue pizza in a bag.

Now, it's a day's drive from anything to do with all-purpose flour and preserved lemons, but you have to read my colleague Nicholas Casey's brilliant story for The New York Times Magazine, about his search for his father.

Nick Heil's article for Outside, about his mad search for a first-generation Toyota Tundra, will be a treat for anyone obsessed with gear and equipment. ("Cursed with titanium taste on a chromoly budget, I was forever hunting for deals.")

Do you think you might make it to the New York Botanical Garden to see Yayoi Kusama's "Cosmic Nature"? PBS NewsHour offers a glimpse.

Finally, here's Gang of Four to play us off, "Natural's Not in It." Music to cook chickens by. I'll see you on Wednesday.

Cooking from scratch: Easier than you'd think - The North Platte Bulletin

Posted: 21 Jun 2021 02:34 PM PDT

Do you cook from scratch, or do you lean toward preparing foods that are more convenient?

Convenient foods can be prepared quickly as they have been pre-processed or premade for you. These foods can be purchased at grocery stores, or you can make a stop at a fast-food chain on your way home. Convenient foods are quickly prepared but they are also more expensive, eating into your food dollar budget, and they tend to be less healthy. 

With our busy life schedules, we want the convenience that comes with prepared foods as we want foods that are ready-to-eat or ready-to cook in order to save time in the kitchen and to get a meal on the table in a timely fashion.

Cooking from scratch can be just as convenient, though. All it takes is a little planning. Although the planning can take a bit of time at first, you will tend to save time and money in the long run. As a bonus, over time the pre-planning will become easier and easier and take less and less time to accomplish.

The following steps will help you start your journey to preparing home-cooked meals from scratch as quickly as those convenient foods.

  • Create a list of your family's favorite meals.
  • Make time to plan using sale flyers from grocery stores.
  • Look for new ideas, including quick dinners.
  • Keep it simple.
  • Use fresh (in season produce), frozen or canned fruits and vegetables.
  • Include whole grains and low-fat dairy.
  • Choose lean meats or meat substitutes.
  • Make smart beverage choices.
  • Use store ads to determine what coupons or sales support your meal plans.
  • Incorporate planned overs into your menus (foods left over from previous meals that can be used in another recipe)
  • Plan your meals for 1 week (or if super organized – for 1 month)
  • Make a shopping list based on what you have on hand in the pantry, freezer or refrigerator and what you still need to prepare the meals you have planned.

In preparing meals based on your weekly planning, you will be able to control what goes into each meal. As a result, you will be preparing foods that are healthier for your family while at the same time providing you with more money available to spend toward your food dollar budget.

By following the above suggestions, you will be able to plan, shop, fix and eat more meals at home. You will find that with options on hand, you can quickly put meals on the table that are convenient and yet made from scratch.

Source: SNAP-Ed & EFNEP curriculum – Eating Smart and Moving More

© 2021 The North Platte Bulletin. All rights reserved.

Get Cooking: A summer recipe from the Middle Ages - The Denver Post

Posted: 21 Jun 2021 12:33 PM PDT

One September, a friend gave me a ginormous zucchini from his garden. In this country, cooks typically make zucchini bread with such beasts, or just stow them on the counter until the squash is tossed, the cook ceding to guilt or the zucchini to bacteria.

But I reckoned that other countries also must have late-season bounty; what do they do with their arm-sized zucchini? Sure enough, I found great recipes for cooking such vegetables from places as far-flung as Chile and Italy, even Brooklyn.

Likewise, we all know what cooks do hereabouts to cool down when beset by insufferable heat and weather. We back out of the hot kitchen, for instance, or serve foods that cool, such as chilled melons or other foods replete with water. We eat mint chocolate chip ice cream.

For my part, I fancy studying the cuisine of the Middle Ages, in Europe especially, that lengthy time between the Dark Ages and the first tendrils of the Renaissance (roughly 500-1500 A.D.). It was an era of enormous paradigm shifts in the way people lived, interrelated and, indeed, cooked.

What did common persons do for food in, say, England or France when the temperature outside (and, in their day, inside as well) was a scorcher? They didn't have mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Except for the cooking at court or that for ecclesiastics, it's a fair question because you could call the entire Middle Ages "the eon of hot soup." Every home or hut had a hearth and the hearth had its pot, a vessel (typically earthenware) warmed 24/7, into which was tossed all manner of comestible and from which was drawn its heated mix.

A "green porray," as a French cookbook called it in the late 1400s, of cereals, grains and cabbage (with water) would have been a mainstay — indeed, most every single day's eating — augmented now and then by salted pork or a meat scrap or an egg. And always, the porridge was hot.

I did find a few recipes from the Middle Ages for foods served cool or at room temperature and, from among them, a sort of salad of vegetables in a sweet and sour (what we would call) dressing. It's very delicious and quite cooling, in its way, due especially to the vigor of its sauce's flavorings, energized as they are by acidity and piquancy both.

Typical of recipes from the time, no measurements or timings, so I tried to emulate medieval style. For example, a Jedi might say here that "the cinnamon is strong with this one," cinnamon being favored by medieval cooks only second to black pepper as a spice. So, in it goes in a marked amount (especially for a cooled vegetable dish). It's pretty tasty, in truth.

Translating the original Old English of the recipe was a fun challenge. I cannot give you the entirety of course but here's just the beginning: "Compost. Take rote of persel, of pasternak, of rafens, scrape them and waische them clene." ("Composed salad. Take parsley root, parsnip and radishes; peel and wash them clean.")

When the recipe states "whan it is colde" ("when cold"), it means cool enough to handle after a blanching. For preparing this recipe, we're able to use ice baths or very cold running water and even refrigerators.

But "do lat alle thise thynges lye al nyyt," it's important to follow the direction to let the initial seasonings marinate the vegetables overnight. Doing so develops the many flavors.

I substituted celery root for parsley root (the latter is hard to come by hereabouts). The original recipe doesn't give an indication of how the vegetables are prepped, so I cut them into large julienne for a sort of matchstick "white salad." (It's after Memorial Day.) If you want more color, you might cut up red instead of white radishes, carrots in place of parsnips and even purple over green cabbage.

Just be strong in the cinnamon with this one.

Sweet and Sour Parsnips and Pears ("Compost of Pasternak and of Peeres")

From "The Forme of Cury," compiled about 1390 A.D. by the master cooks of King Richard II. Serves 2.

Ingredients

For the salad:

  • 1 cup each parsnip and celery root, peeled and large julienne
  • 1 cup white radish, cleaned and large julienne
  • 1 cup inner leaves green cabbage, large julienne
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup Bosc pear, peeled and large julienne
  • 1/4 cup green or golden raisins
  • 1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
  • 1 teaspoon powdered ginger
  • 1 tablespoon rice or white wine vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon white grape juice or apple juice
  • Few threads saffron

For the dressing:

  • 1/4 cup white wine or apple juice
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 1 teaspoon sweet mustard (brown or "ballpark"-style)
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground or powdered cinnamon
  • Outer or large leaves of green cabbage

Directions

Blanch (to your desired level of crunch) the parsnip, celery root, white radish and cabbage; drain and plunge into an ice bath or very cold water. Drain and pat dry on kitchen or paper towels. Add to a bowl, sprinkle with the salt and add the pear, raisins, fennel seed, powdered ginger, vinegar, juice and saffron. Toss, cover and refrigerate overnight.

Make a dressing of the remaining ingredients, except the cabbage leaves, by heating them together in a small pan or pot, simmering for a few minutes, then cooling the mixture. (You also may heat the dressing in a microwave, then cool it well.) Toss with the refrigerated vegetables and serve in bowls lined with the large cabbage leaves.

Priya Krishna And Her Mom Bond Over 'Indian-Ish' Cooking - NPR

Posted: 22 Jun 2021 03:01 AM PDT

Priya Krishna and her mother, Ritu, in their kitchen. Michael Zamora/NPR hide caption

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Michael Zamora/NPR

Priya Krishna and her mother, Ritu, in their kitchen.

Michael Zamora/NPR

When Ritu Krishna first arrived in the U.S., ingredients for her Indian recipes were hard to come by.

Over time, Ritu's cooking started to evolve. The biggest influence was watching cooking programs on TV.

"I had really unknowingly embarked on an educational endeavor where watching TV was the way I was teaching myself. Julia Child was probably the most influential," Ritu says.

She started to learn basic French cooking techniques and recipes, like corn timbale, even if the execution wasn't always successful.

NPR YouTube

These influences and others eventually changed the way Ritu cooked for her family in the U.S., inspiring new Indian dishes with special twists, like roti pizza, dal burritos, or tomato rice with crispy cheddar. Some of these dishes are detailed in the cookbook Indian-Ish, which Ritu co-authored with her daughter, New York Times food writer Priya Krishna.

Some of what Ritu was cooking were dishes that might be more appealing for her kids to eat as they were growing up.

"On the one hand, you are being brought up as Indian kids. On the other hand, you are living in America ... That, in some ways, is going to be not only different, but may at times clash even. So I wanted to do everything to make that easier for you," Ritu says to Priya.

But Priya went on her own journey to appreciating her mom's home cooking. She reflects on how she came to love her heritage food after a childhood of ambivalence — and sometimes even shame — toward it.

As a kid, Priya unknowingly compartmentalized her Indian and American identities in order to fit in — codeswitching depending on whether she was at home or at school.

"So, of course, when I was in an Indian grocery store, I was an Indian kid who loved aloo tikki and bhel puri and all of these things," Priya says. "But as soon as I landed at school or was at my friend's house, I was very good at, sort of, presenting in a way that I felt would be acceptable to that audience that I was with."

In conversation with each other, Priya and Ritu discuss the various influences on their cooking over the years and how food traditions brought them closer together. They also cook dal and a special baked beans family recipe in the Krishna home kitchen.

For a longer version of this conversation between Priya and Ritu, listen to their episode on It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders.

This story is part of the Where We Come From series, featuring stories from immigrant communities of color across generations. Find more stories here.

Video reporting, production, and editing by Michael Zamora. Anjuli Sastry created and produced 'Where We Come From' with additional editing and production by Julia Furlan and Diba Mohtasham. Additional video editing by Ben de la Cruz and Nicole Werbeck. Our director of programming is Yolanda Sangweni.

'Cooking in the D' program for people with disabilities unveils new Detroit location - The Detroit News

Posted: 21 Jun 2021 11:40 AM PDT

Detroit — "Cooking in the D," the program that has prepared, trained and placed more than 1,400 adults with developmental disabilities in jobs with dozens of employers in recent years, has new digs.

Officially, at least. 

Begun in 2012 at Detroit's Eastern Market, nonprofit Services to Enhance Potential launched its first culinary arts program that has since grown into two locations, one at St. John's Episcopal Church in Westland and another on Conner Avenue in Detroit.

The program at 2900 Conner, Building B has been operating since early February but due to COVID-19 restrictions, officials couldn't properly hold an opening event.

With Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announcing her plans to remove all COVID-19 restrictions in the state by Tuesday, it was deemed the perfect time for the program to launch an open house event, said STEP president and CEO Brent Mikulski. 

The open house Thursday featured a ribbon-cutting by head chef Danielle Love and a group lunch of salads, sandwiches and desserts prepared by participants of the program.

Mikulski said the program originated after organizers realized how many people with developmental disabilities felt that their only option for food is a fast-food drive-thru. 

"We realized that there's a number of folks that we serve that would either benefit by learning how to eat or prepare meals more healthily and become better at doing those things rather than having a routine practice of driving somewhere and ordering a meal by a number," said Mikulski.

Not only are participants being taught about healthy eating, but the skills they learn can turn into possible future employment options. 

Participants are led by a licensed chef who helps them prepare a menu, shop for ingredients and cook the meal before sitting down to enjoy their creation as a group.

"I teach basic cooking skills and our goal is to learn how to conduct ourselves in the kitchen," said Love.

Due to social distancing policies in place, the program classes hold between 10 and 12 students. 

"In addition to cooking, we learn about what types of things need to be refrigerated and for how long, how to color code chopping boards in order to stop cross-contamination and proper hand-washing techniques," said Love.

Jessica Jackson, 36, of Detroit, has participated in the program since 2015 and says the experience completely changed the way she thinks about food. 

"I used to get a lot of takeout," said Jackson. "But now I know how to cook burgers, egg rolls, salads and pasta salads."

Jackson no longer relies on takeout to sustain herself, and has been cooking at home and is learning how to grow her own vegetables. 

"Our goal is more than teaching about healthy eating and training for employment,"said Mikulski. "There's also the social aspect of sitting down together and eating the lunch they made as a group."

"I've made a numerous amount of friends," said Jackson. 

Cooking in the D

Individuals interested in participating in the Cooking in the D program must be eligible for Medicaid in Wayne County and have an intellectual/developmental disability and/or a severe and persistent mental illness.

Contact STEP at (734) 718-0483.

Companies interested in becoming involved with the program can email     info@stepcentral.org, visit stepcentral.org/contact or calling (313) 278-3040 Ext. 0.

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