One of the biggest challenges of writing this newsletter has been the pressure to either come up with something new (or really a few weeks in advance if I’m being responsible), or trying tackle a new technique or cuisine each week. About half the time, as I’m planning menus, I find myself saying “nope, did that” or “well, last week’s menu was sort of Italian. It’s not so much that I’m running out of ideas – I have a file on my laptop called “ideas” that runs to something like 14 pages and includes entries like: “pheasant wrapped in dry ham with chestnuts and morels” and “biscuit breakfast burger with deep fried sausage gravy croquette” and “hot lettuce” which I’m pretty sure is a voice to text failure but could be some brilliant but forgotten upsight I had while doing dishes after a little too much wine.
It’s that it gets repetitive. We fall into different kinds of ruts. Sometimes those ruts are seasonal. More roasted meats and braises in January and February even though I’ve done that for four weeks? Sure. More barbecue and grilling recipes on a hotter than the surface of the sun July Wednesday? Probably. Some of the ruts are also the product of experimentation and an effort to “do that thing I did before, only betterdifferentspiciertastier”
It’s why you’re not seeing a menu for lamb ribs dusted with cumin and coriander this week – despite the local lamb ribs I picked up at our farmers market this weekend. Because I did ribs last week. I think? Maybe that was twoweeksamonththursday ago? Recipes run together, time is a flat circle, and let’s face it … I do have a tendency to overcomplicate things.
Don’t worry, the lamb ribs are in the freezer – and will make an appearance sooner or later – and the very pretty but dramatically overly complicated lemon tart I made to accompany this week’s menu will make its appearance another time as well.
Probably a lot later.
All this is to say that this week’s menu is familiar. It’s not, exactly, a rehash of anything I’ve done for this newsletter in the past, but it’s also not me reaching deep into the creative pockets to try something new or risky or challenging. It’s a simple, comforting, pretty easy to throw together meal – maybe even – with the exception of the rolls – something for a workfromhomeweeknight meal.
It’s something I need to remind myself from time to time: Sometimes the familiar is just what you need.
Corn and Cheese Rolls
These dinner rolls are … well, they’re dinner rolls spiked with cheese and corn. Mostly, no entirely, that’s it. They’re just soft dinner roll dough – enriched with butter and oil – folded with cheese and corn. They’re sweet and chewy and rich and they just taste like summer. Almost like a corn sandwich … brb adding “corn grilled cheese” to the idea file.
I made the rolls you see in the picture, and in the instructions using a pinwheel technique because I wanted to preserve a little of the stringlystrechymelty character that makes mozzarella so much fun – but you could, if you wanted, simply integrate it all into the dough, it would save a few steps the pinwheels aren’t particularly visible in the finished product.
2 ½ cups AP flour
1 cup cooked corn
1 ½ cup shredded low moisture mozzarella cheese
1 ½ cups warm milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp granulated sugar
2 ½ tsp instant dry yeast
1 tbsp neutral oil
1 tsp kosher salt
Add the milk and yeast to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a bread hook. Allow to stand ten minutes for the yeast to activate.
Add the flour, egg, butter, sugar, oil, and salt, and process on low until the dough has come together and the butter is completely incorporated, and no lumps or bit remain visible.
Add ¾ cups of the cheese and ½ the corn to the dough and process just until integrated.
Cover the dough and allow to rise until doubled in size.
Punch down and turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface.
Roll the dough out into rectangle about ¼ inch thickness.
Spread the remaining cheese and corn on the rectangle and roll into a log.
Cut the log into 2-inch-thick disks.
Butter a 9x11 pan and arrange the cut disks in the pan.
Cover loosely with a damp towel and allow to proof in warm place for 30 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 375°F.
Bake the rolls at 375°F until well browned on top – about 35 minutes.
Serve warm.
Simple Summer Salad
I know I’ve mentioned my childhood fascination with “French” dressing in previous editions of this newsletter – or at least I imagine I have. I remember ladling it over whatever pile of iceberg, garbanzo beans, croutons, cheese, and soybacos, and ham bits I was pretending was a salad at the giant salad bar steakhouseateria that – for a while in the early 80’s – was our families go-to celebratory dinner out. Dad’s church team won a softball game? Kid brother just sat through a piano recital without fussing too much? A midweek birthday requiring a delayed firetruck themed party a week later so it didn’t conflict with some friends firetruck themed party? Yup. Time for some thin cut mid-low quality char grilled beef, all you can eat dinner rolls, and an endless sneezeguard of lettuce garnishing treasures.
I loved the “French” dressing for a few reasons. First, it was sweet and sour, a flavor combo that I still fall for every single steak sauce to General Tso’s to agrodolce time. Secondly it was smooth – no chunks, no weird little bits of possibly once dried herbs for my 8 year old brain to worry about, and finally, most importantly, it was basically day glow orange. I mean this stuff was vestige of the 70s but boy oh boy was it tinted for the 80’s.
The reason for this long and sort of awkward ode to a 40 year old brown plastic ladle equipped tub of day glow orange dressing isn’t that it was bad. In fact – step back the cloying sweetness and the strange hydrophobic texture – the stuff is actually good. Sweet and sour – perfect for summer, and perfect for dressing simple vegetable salads – making tomatoes sweeter and onions milder.
The dressings I remember were spiked with celery seed flavor – if not the seeds themselves. In this recipe I’ve used microplaned celery ribs to get that same flavor without either the bitterness or the tooth-sticking annoying little black bits.
1 head tender lettuce
1 medium tomato
1 small red onion
1 Persian cucumber
1 recipe Celery Sweet and Sour Dressing (below)
Peel, trim, and slice the onion from end to end.
Place the onion in cold water – this will both help crisp the onion and take away the harshness caused by slicing.
Trim and cut the tomato into chunks.
Cut the cucumber into 1/8th inch slices and place in cool water until ready.
Trim and wash the lettuce.
Drain the onions and cucumbers.
Toss all ingredients with dressing and serve immediately.
Optional: add feta or goat cheese.
Celery Sweet and Sour Dressing
1 4-inch celery rib
1 small shallot
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp granulated sugar
1 tsp tomato ketchup
½ tsp Dijon mustard
½ tsp fresh ground black pepper
¼ tsp kosher salt (more to taste)
Peel, trim, and microplane the shallot into a large non-reactive bowl.
Microplane the celery into the bowl.
Add the vinegar, salt, sugar, pepper, mustard, and ketchup, and stir to combine.
Allow to rest 10 minutes.
Whisk in the olive oil slowly to form a stable emulsion.
One Pan Herb Roasted Chicken with Tomatoes and Onions
I sort of went overboard on the whole Ode to a Forgotten French Dressing above, so I’ll keep this short and simple.
Put chicken, onions, and tomatoes in a pan. Season them and top it with an herb dressing.
It melts together and makes its own maddeningly delicious sauce.
That’s it. That’s all there is to it and while I could keep going and do some of the words-run-together-like-they’re-German thing about how it ends up being bigger-better than the sum of its parts I don’t need to.
One note, if you’re not a dark meat person – you can of course make this with bone in breasts – though keep an eye on the temperature. The white meat will dry out quickly. It would also be pretty easy and or delicious to simply use a whole chicken.
I didn’t have a chicken. I had chicken parts. It was still delicious.
4 bone in, skin on chicken thighs
1 medium red onion
2 medium tomatoes (or a combination of tomatoes and cherry tomatoes)
3 tbsp olive oil
1 cup loosely packed parsley leaf
2 tbsp loosely packed oregano leaves
1 sprig fresh thyme, picked (leaves removed, stem discarded)
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp red pepper flake
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
4 cloves garlic
2 tsp kosher salt
Peel, trim, and finely mince the garlic.
Trim, pick (remove any stems) and finely mince the herbs.
Combine the herbs, garlic, oil, vinegar, and pepper flake and stir to combine.
Peel, trim, and cut the onion into 1/8th.
Trim and coarsely chop the tomatoes.
Arrange the chicken, onions, and tomatoes in a single layer in a lightly oil pan or a deeply rimmed baking sheet.
Generously season the chicken and vegetables with salt and pepper.
Spoon ½ the herb mixture over the chicken, spreading evenly to coat, then drizzle the remaining mixture over the vegetables.
Cover the pan with plastic or foil and refrigerate one hour.
Preheat your oven to 375°F
Bake until the vegetables are soft and beginning to brown and the chicken is well browned and has reached an internal temperature of 170°F
Almond Pesto Orzo
Sometime a couple years ago, necessity at least being the mother of substitution if not of invention, I made a pesto thinking I had pine nuts in the freezer. I didn’t. I hadn’t had pine nuts in the freezer for a long time – at least since they became more expensive than things on which I put greater value. Like coffee. I also didn’t have the stash of slivered almonds or bits of walnuts I’ve used in the past.
I did have almond flour. Just plain-old-bought-it-at-the-Costco almond flour. I’d bought it with the intention of teaching myself to make macarons but that didn’t and used it to make tarts and mostly to make Orgeat for Mai Tais.
I put it in the pesto.
The result was a creamy texture that stuck to the pasta, didn’t seem as greasy as other pestos and tasted just ever so faintly of almonds. In short, it worked. I don’t remember what pasta shape I was saucing that night – but with the sauces-itself sauce of the chicken above, I wanted something that really let you soak up that sauce while not being totally plain and boring on its own. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. The truth is, I had orzo and I had penne and the penne didn’t see like the right choice. Orzo for the win.
1 cup uncooked orzo pasta
1 ½ cups loosely packed basil leaves
2 large cloves garlic
¼ cup finely grated parmesan cheese
1 tbsp almond flour
2 tbsp olive oil
½ tbsp kosher salt
Peel, trim, and coarsely chop the garlic.
Chop the basil leaves.
Add the salt and garlic to the bowl of a mortar and pestle or a small food processor.
Process until the garlic forms a smooth paste.
Add the basil, cheese, almond flour, and oil and continue to work until smooth.
Prepare the orzo according to the package directions.
Drain well and stir in the pesto.
Serve hot.
The Tart That Wasn’t
This is the lemon tart that didn’t make the cut this week. A lemon tart with a chiffon style filling – stabilized curd lightened with whipped cream. It needs another couple evolutions, a few more iterations, a little tweak here and a little tweak there until my brain says “but you’ve made that so many times, it’s boring and familiar” and then maybe it’ll be ready to go.
But I’m still going to post a picture. Sorry, not sorry.