SHORT & SWEET

Simple Recipes, Sentimental Updates

While ideas about things to make with coffee, chocolate, and big dollops of crème fraîche have been floating around my mind lately, I have a much more simple dessert recommendation here for you: Oreo Thins. They must be Mint-flavored, and they must be stored in the freezer. Those are the rules.

On a similarly sweet (but equally savory) note, I’ve been working with dates a lot lately, blending them into sauces and roughly chopping and tossing them into salads. September is a great month for dates, and I’m very eager to pick up more from Bautista Farms. I like using moist varieties in cooked dishes, and more firm varieties (Deglet Noors, I love you) as a way to add balance and texture to fresher bites. I’ll share recipes for ways to eat more dates that I’ve been working on for The Bittman Project soon.

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In very exciting news, and perhaps the point I’m trying to get to: The other day, we hard-launched Window Seats Diner. We’ve had so many wonderful meals with friends and family already, and I hope you’ll join us if and whenever you can, too. Follow us on Instagram and sign up for information about future events on our site. One goal of ours is to make meals at WSD feel like special experiences with friends in our personal creative communities and beyond. Alongside—and largely inspired by—one of our good friends, we’ve got something that I have no doubt will be exactly that in the works for September.

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Today’s “recipes” (they’re brief and they’re loose) come from last night’s dinner:

Glazed Broccoli with Fried Garlic and Peanuts
Chop a handful of peanuts and set them aside. In a small pan over medium heat, fry thin slices of garlic in neutral oil. Once barely golden, use a slotted spoon to transfer to a towel-lined rack or plate, and season with salt. Set aside. Reserve the oil.

Prepare your “glaze”: Whisk honey or maple syrup with soy sauce, sriracha, rice vinegar, a small amount of toasted sesame oil, and a clove of garlic (grated). Taste and adjust as needed until it’s balanced—sweet, spicy, salty, and slightly bright. At this point, it shouldn’t be too thick.

Remove a small amount of the stem from one head of broccoli, then cut it into large florets. In a large cast iron skillet over high heat, add a tablespoon of garlic-infused oil. Once hot, add florets and season with salt, ensuring each piece gets a nice sear (and that they’re not overcrowded and steaming).

Once the broccoli gets some color, use tongs to flip each floret. Add glaze to the pan and cook until it’s mostly reduced and coating/sticking to each floret. Transfer to serving plates and garnish with fried garlic and chopped peanuts.

Charred Shishitos with Smoked Eggplant Aioli and Toasted Sesame Seeds
Place a Japanese eggplant over a burner set to high heat. Using tongs, rotate the eggplant to ensure the skin gets scorched all over. Transfer to a mixing bowl and cover with a towel for about 10 minutes. Once cool enough to handle, remove the skin and add Kewpie, the zest and juice of a lime, and salt, and use a hand blender to combine. Taste and adjust as needed.

Remove stems from shishitos then toss them in neutral oil. In a cast iron skillet (or, on the grill), over very high heat, char shishitos. Once they’ve got some color on all sides but they’re not overcooked, transfer to a serving plate and sprinkle with salt and toasted sesame seeds. Serve with smoked eggplant aioli.

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Finally, and per usual, the food-related subject lines of my inbox these days:

The Veggie: Eggplant is delicious
forget hot dogs
“cook”: Mattel, Inc. - American Girl Restaurant Cook (Regular Part-Time/ 30 hours/ Benefitted) and more
A fish spatula is for more than just fish
Eric Kim’s two-ingredient fish dinner
"Too Crunchy" Meatballs, Offensive Basil + A Toddler And His Salads
Thomas Zacharias’ regional South-Asian party snacks
The Essential Guide to Eating in Marseille
Order Now for Houle Labor Day Festivities 🍔
Christ in the Cracker Barrel Parking Lot
Cracker Barrel addresses backlash
acid reflux
Five-star tinga de pollo (chicken with chipotle and onions)
The Secret to a Juicy Chicken
Did you pack snacks?
Slurping Through Seoul
Dinner Tetris for an executive assistant in Richmond, VA
Pretty peach ricotta cake
Corrupted Peach
No Papers, Just Peaches
a drink with a side of bacon grease
Golden Corn & Crispy Spam Pizza
Your Taste Buds Are Lying at 35,000 Feet
Nachos can be Spanish, too!
This is Definitely Not Pantry Pasta
Fish Guts to Gold Dust