Hi! Been a minute! The cake diary premier interlude means we haven’t caught up in almost three weeks. This one will for sure max out the email length limit, so be sure to click through to read it online.
I’m writing this up in the midst of a holiday I feel like celebrating less and less as each year rolls over. Our dog hates fireworks and I am spending most of my time doom scrolling and feeling ashamed and livid at the state of things. I hope you’re finding spots of joy where you can despite the true shit show that this summer has become. I’ve been baking, and we crossed a relationship milestone last weekend when we last-minute decided to marathon the Lord of the Rings trilogy. If Chris survive that with me, we can survive anything.
This weekend, we are cooking through it. Grilling season has well and truly begun. We are embarking on some outside (in this heat?!) cooking projects that I’ll get into next time, so stay tuned for that. For now, here’s what’s been coming out of the space diner kitchen.
SEVEN LAYER DIP DINNER
We made our monthly pilgrimage to Greenville’s Two Towers (sorry), Trader Joe’s and Total Wine a couple weeks ago. Lots of good reasons to make the perilous trek, but near the top of the list is those elote corn chips, which we dumped on Ali Slagle’s genius recipe for a chic and shortcut seven layer dip. You could easily bring this to your next summer potluck, but dip dinner is a better idea.
BLT PASTA
We grew a lot of the produce in this pasta! It never gets old eating stuff we planted on the back deck. This recipe became an instant stone cold classic so expect to see it again soon. So easy and summery.
BÁNH MI BURGERS
Normally a themed burger, especially one that isn’t beef, is a little gimmicky to me, but I’ll do anything for bánh mi pickles. Chris found this recipe from Bon Appetit and it was honestly life changing? Pork burgers, I’m sorry for doubting you. We’re planning on pulling this out for a cookout some time this summer. Trader Joe’s strikes again with their perfect ciabatta rolls.
CARNITAS TACOS + BEANS & RICE
We make instant pot carnitas quite often, but Chris wanted to go for the real deal. So, yeah, we turned our oven on for 2.5 hours for this during a heat wave. Not our best idea but who cares, this was so good. We used Kay Chun’s recipe from NYT and y’all, it just sings. If you want to wait for fall to try this one I would not blame you. Beans are Hey Day (sponsor me).
GRILLED HALLOUMI + TOMATOES
This week was Chris’s birthday! We went out to an amazing dinner on the day, and I spent the weekend after that making him the cake featured in cake diary #1 (#2 is on the way!). While I was stirring candied hazelnuts for literally an hour, Chris made this. Two of these tomatoes are ones we grew, our first of the Cherokee Purple and Paul Robeson harvest. I love tomato names. We ate it with naan and that good TJ hummus.
Related: my summer Spotify playlist is coming together slower than usual, but I finally got my vibe right, so she is growing. It’s the season of The Bear, so I’m back in my R.E.M. / Wilco era. “Crush with Eyeliner” features that “she’s a sad tomato” line and it’s the theme of my summer now.
SALTIMBOCCA
My mom scored us free Cirque du Soleil tickets once when we were kids. The show was Saltimbanco!, so named I guess because every once and awhile they would yell “Saltimbanco!” I think I tell Chris that story every time we make this.
Saltimbocca! This is another fav from Bon Appetit. It’s fussy, but thank god fry-master Chris handles the fussiest bits (wrapping pounded out chicken breasts in both sage and prosciutto, then breading). You can make this with or without the crunchy pea salad, but it really does add to the jump in your mouth quality. I always forget how much I hate trimming snap peas, but then all you do is chop mint and scallion, squeeze lemon, season, and toss. The result is really delightful.
MISO BEANS AND LEEKS
We’re fast becoming a Hetty Lui McKinnon house! This is one of our favorites from her. I’m really tempted to snag her vegetarian cookbook. I really love how bold the miso and dijon dressing is with the creamy leeks and beans.
KIELBASA STIR FRY
Another Bon Appetit recipe here, a tried and true one I forgot about for awhile. If you can’t tell by the mountain of dill, this one’s a Molly Baz special. In classic Molly fashion, and a lot like Hetty’s dish above, the flavors are big and bold. There’s miso and mustard going on here too, and another BA favorite, charred cabbage. If I could only eat one thing only forever, kielbasa would be up there.
NACHOS
We threw this together with no recipe, just vibes. We had chorizo, some tomatoes to pick, and some TJ’s avocados we needed to use up. We ate this whole tray.
DUMPLINGS + CHILI CRISP TOMATO SALAD
Hetty again! This is one of my favorite summer treats. We’ve probably made it four or five times now. We subbed fried onions for peanuts and standard basil for the Thai basil blowing up in our garden. This combo might seem weird, but trust, it’s fantastic. Any dumplings work, but my favorite to use for this are the TJ’s pork gyoza. Their mellowness really suits the punchy tomatoes and dressing.
PIZZA NIGHT
Leftover prosciutto plus a Trader Joe’s run means pizza night. We’ve tested many store bought doughs and TJ’s does it best. I think I’ve covered cast iron pizza on a previous newsletter—we use Brad Leone’s method. This one is covered in leeks, tomatoes, and garden basil.
SAUSAGE SANDOS + SALAD
I have a new dressing for you! We threw together some sausage sandwiches with peppers and onions, mozzarella and marinara, so the obvious companion was a punchy salad. I riffed on this one from Chris Morocco. I’ve made it before with iceberg like it calls for, but we had a ton of lettuce that needed harvesting. I think any crisp, bright lettuce would work. Toss with pepperoncini and red onions rings and the excellent dressing. Bookmarking this one to accompany any Italian salad situations in my life going forward.
WHITE BEANS + DATES + PROSCIUTTO
Safe to say we’re having a prosciutto moment. I absolutely had to try this one from Ali Slagle when I discovered it over on NYT. This will join our roster of one pot bean dinners for sure. She nails it in the description: “humble in process but fancy in feel”. This was so fucking good.
CHANA MASALA
This brought me back to grad school, when I first watched Mind of a Chef and got obsessed with Madhur Jaffrey and jumped into learning how to cook Indian food. It helped that chickpeas are real cheap. This recipe from NYT is legit. We made this with our first harvest of Roma tomatoes.
SOUVLAKI
Last night’s dinner! We made it; all caught up. Grilling season is here and Chris made souvlaki from this recipe at NYT. This is a marinade overnight situation but it’s not too much work. We topped with our first cubanelle from the garden and lots of other summery things.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! More cake and long weekend cooking to come. Til soon—