Spring Meal Ideas
that prevent waste and extra trips to the store
One of my longtime weekly reads has been NY Mag’s Grub Street Diet. People in the zeitgeist (think: newly-published authors, comedians, fashion designers) share their week-in-thelife food diaries and I Can’t. Get. Enough. BA has a similar column that profiles regular folks’ based on salaries and locations. This is not as compelling to me as, say, Monica Lewinsky’s bagel order. I have also been loving RD Shira Barlow and her “client meals” series. When it comes to what people are eating, I’m a bit nosy.
If you cook most of your meals at home, you can always use more inspiration. Not surprisingly, as a chef and avid home cook (two titles that are not mutually exclusive) I rarely follow formal written recipes, unless I’m baking or testing recipes. We grocery shop with a plan, but typically, we are working to use up what we have to prevent food waste.
Without further ado, sharing a few recent BLDs I’ve been loving this Spring and the gist on how to make them, plus a few recipes from the archives. I hope this sparks a bit of inspiration to shake things up.
Breakfasts Lately
I realize eggs are a touchy subject these days. Surprisingly, we haven’t seen a price difference at our local grocery stores, but I have been dialing back my typical 3-egg breakfast to 1 or 2 and adding a bit more protein in the form of cottage cheese, beans or smoked salmon. Variations on that theme:
Clockwise from top left:
Scrambled eggs with whole milk cottage cheese, dill, black pepper and buttered whole grain sourdough (we love Midwife & the Baker, for my Bay Area readers). A couple Pixie tangerines.
Leftover vegetable enchilada filling turned into breakfast tacos. Roasted mushrooms, zucchini, peppers, onions and black beans folded into scrambled eggs with cilantro and crushed tortilla chips.
Avocado on spelt toast with smoked salmon, dill, red onion, cottage cheese with tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs cooked a couple minutes too long and everything bagel seasoning.
Scrambled eggs, cottage cheese, leftover radish and cucumber, buttered toast with fig jam (this one is not too intense). I ate this 2 days in a row, another time with jammy eggs.
You may also like (and egg-free!):
Lunches Lately
During my office worker days, I would typically bring leftovers from dinner for lunch the next day. Scroll down to dinner if that’s your life right now!
Clockwise from left:
Brunchy lunch with
. Cooked down a bunch of kale with shallots and frozen peas. Cracked in a few eggs and let them simmer. Sliced oranges with mint and pomegranate molasses. I also served avocado toast.Orange zest, juice, miso and soy sauce spread on salmon and broiled, leftover red cabbage, carrot and radish slaw, leftover rice crisped in a skillet, coated nori (aka seaweed snacks!) I could eat this everyday.
Steamed TJ’s green chili cheese tamales topped with cabbage slaw (sensing a theme?), Boonville Barn Tepary beans, TJ’s frozen roasted corn, lots of cilantro. A nice Saturday lunch.
Sometimes lunch looks like THIS! My friend Bebe, author of the cookbook The Curated Board, well, curated this board after a Proof Collective outing to the Marin Farmer’s Market. We feasted on an epic spread of local goat cheeses from Nicasio Valley and Tamales Bay, walnut bread, charcuterie from Canteen Meats, the first strawberries of the season, savory shortbread from Maria Zizka’s new book The Hostess Handbook and the thing everyone was going crazy over - Dill Pickle Pistachios!
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Dinners Lately
The key to a successful dinner is not having to clean up a pile of dishes afterwards (no-dishwasher life!) You’ll see lots of parchment-lined sheet pan dinners and grill-outs this time of year for easy clean up.
Clockwise from left:
Samin Nosrat’s Persian Rice (added saffron and turmeric), kofte skewers, grilled peppers & onions, cucumbers dressed with oil and vinegar, TJ’s grilled olives, tzatziki, hella mint. TBH, better than a recent “fancy” meal out to a buzzy Mediterranean restaurant in SF. Tea = spilled.
Tofu roasted with olive oil, cornstarch, onion powder, garlic powder, s&p and roasted until crispy. Soba with miso brown butter, seared maitake mushrooms, micro greens and toasted sesame seeds. Drizzled with KanaKitchen Organic Garlic Sansho Chili Oil (so good - TY to my brunch guest
for introducing me to this).Melissa Clark’s crispy baked cod (NYT gift link), roasted sweet potatoes, cabbage slaw with celery seed, tartar sauce with pickled jalapeño.
Soy-marinated chicken breast baked and topped with chili crisp (I love this one), steamed asparagus and broccolini, soba, carrots dressed with rice vinegar, scallions. This one made for great lunch leftovers the next day eaten in the Whole Foods parking lot between private chef clients.
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"The key to a successful dinner is not having to clean up a pile of dishes afterwards" LOL, love this quote!!