Check it out: Cookbooks for Busy Nights
Answer to that pesky "What's For Dinner?" coming right up
I’m always going to advocate for more home cooking. It is an essential and ongoing conversation I have with all of my clients. Cooking is the gold standard, a foundation for being our healthiest selves. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when it feels like too much, when you’re overwhelmed by a lack of inspiration, or the thought of yet another trip to the grocery store. To the rescue are three excellent new cookbooks, each in their own unique way ready to feed you ideas when you’re out of inspiration and short on time. And as Caro Chambers says, “Do your thing! Cooking does not have to be stressful. Maybe you’ll never love it. But man, don’t let it stress you out.”
What Goes With What by Julia Turshen
I first got to know Julia Turshen through her last cookbook Simply Julia. Her relaxed, approachable style draws you in and before you know it, you are reading through the whole cookbook. So here comes a highly anticipated, excellent follow-up: What Goes With What: 100 Recipes, 20 Charts, Endless Possibilities. It’s all right there in the title! That’s a big lift for one cookbook and it definitely delivers.
What Goes With What has six sections: Salads + Sandwiches; Vegetables; Soups + Stews + Braises; Rice, More Grains + Pasta; Main Dishes; and Baked Goods. Each section has subcategories (for example Stovetop Vegetables, Roasted Vegetables, Stuffed Vegetables) and ends with a short essay — “That Time I Was a Farmer” ends the Vegetables chapter. Another essay, “A Conversation with My Mom About Our Bodies" is a continuation, or a follow-up, to ideas explored in her essay “On the Worthiness of Our Bodies” published in Simply Julia.
Julia Turshen is a great teacher1 and her knack for explaining things clearly is ever present throughout What Goes With What. I say this because it is not only an excellent compilation of accessible recipes (flipping through the book, there are many, many recipes with seven ingredients or less), but it is also very instructive. She is generous with her Learned Kitchen Wisdom - excellent tips that come from experience - and I second her love for the immersion blender! Now, the charts. Turshen gives you information in a way that you can learn how to do these things on your own. For example, the Salad Dressings chart gives the recipe — acid (1 part), fat (2-3 parts) + seasoning — and then provides five examples utilizing this ratio (such as Pizzeria Vinaigrette: red wine vinegar + olive oil + dried oregano, garlic & salt). I love the Grain Bowl chart (endless fun with that one) and also deeply appreciate the Meatballs2 chart and the A Bit More About Beans! chart because to this day, I don’t always get it quite right so this chart is speaking directly to me. In addition to all of this, yes a Menu Suggestions chart, but perhaps more valuable are her menus created for any number of relatable situations: Friends with Little Kids are Coming Over, I’m Hosting Book Club for Ten People, My Friends Just Had a Baby and I Want to Stock Their Freezer, and the always useful Deceptively Fast Weeknight Dinner.
Recipes I’m excited to cook
BBQ Tofu + Sweet Potato Fries, Springtime Chicken Meatballs, Roasted Broccoli with Carrot-Miso Dressing, Chicken + Kimchi Rice, Morning Glory Muffins
What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking by Caroline Chambers
It’s very refreshing to have a cookbook recognize that sometimes cooking feels like a chore, or for some people, not a thing they enjoy at all, but nonetheless, staunchly advocates for cooking, and cheers you on and supports you all the way. What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking is so very smart, a wonderful in-cookbook-form manifestation of Chambers’ popular eponymous newsletter. The tone is spot on — it knows exactly who it is speaking to and delivers with so many good ideas, helpful cooking tips and loads of inspiration to riff in any direction you want. It begins with “How to Make Yourself Cook Even When You Really, Really Don’t Feel Like It” — 19 tips including #12: “Keep your favorite quick tricks on hand at all times: Trader Joe’s frozen dumplings, Costco pesto, Lotus Foods ramen noodles, and Rao’s jarred marinara are my lifelines.” You do not have to have a lot of kitchen or cooking knowledge to use this cookbook. The table of contents categorizes recipes by cooking time: 15-ish minutes, 30 minutes, etc. In addition, there are appendices like Recipes by Protein, useful for when you are staring at a block of tofu in your refrigerator that you bought on sale with no plan in mind. (Perhaps Crispy Miso Lime Tofu?) Likewise if you are in a mood, turn to “What to Cook When…” “You’re Feeling Especially Healthy” or perhaps “You’re Craving Something Cozy…”
One recipe I’ve already made is the Tater Tot Egg Bake. I’ve been needing to mix up our weekend breakfast/brunch rotation for some time. And with two kids whose eyes light up at “tater tots” this seemed like a must try. I tried her RIFF and added in diced ham and cheese. Needless to say it was a hit, even with a kid who doesn’t really like eggs. It’s a lovely one pot brunch recipe, rounded out with fresh berries and spring greens salad added to the table.3 She also has a whole page dedicated to frittatas (Frittata How You Want-Ta), sharing her own frittata formula with recipe combo ideas like Mushroom and Brie.
Recipes I’m excited to cook
Really Good Beef Stew (collards, fennel AND green lentils???), Braised Fish with Tomato & Coconut Chickpeas, Lamb and Hummus Bowl, Spicy Chipotle Cauliflower Tacos
Easy Weeknight Dinners curated by Emily Weinstein
For those of you who like recipes from NYT Cooking but don’t have a subscription, this is the cookbook for you! The most excellent subhead really says it all: 100 fast, flavor-packed meals for busy people who still want something good to eat. Weinstein is the editor in chief of Cooking and Food at the New York Times and she has compiled 100 of some of her favorite NYT Cooking recipes including from some of my favorite contributors: Melissa Clark, Eric Kim, Priya Krishna, and honestly so many more.
In addition to a typical table of contents — sections like Chicken, Pasta and Noodles, etc, there is a page that says in a huge font “Need Help Deciding?” (Yes, always!) Want pizza but not pizza? Go to the Tastes Like Pizza section. Need something kinda fancy but it’s a weeknight? Try Dinner Party Vibes, But on a Tuesday or the Minimum Effort for Maximum Magic section. Unsure of trying something new because you are worried it won’t be good? Perhaps start with Emily’s Most Repeated Weeknight Dinners at Home or the Five-Star Recipes with 5,000+ Comments section.
Easy Weeknight Dinners is an indispensable resource for the busy cook. It does a great job navigating not only different levels of cooking know-how, recipe prep and cooking times (with a handful of recipes they promise are 15 minutes!), it also offers the most diverse range of flavor profiles.
Recipes I’m excited to cook
Soy-Braised Tofu with Bok Choy, Ginger-Dill Salmon, Black Pepper Beef and Cabbage Stir-Fry, Sheet-Pan Cod with Cucumber Yogurt, Eggs Kejriwal
Turshen teaches classes online, and she posts new class information on her Substack Keep Calm and Cook On.
There will be a whole post on meatballs at some point, I can feel it.
Or these perfect blueberry muffins - more blueberry than anything else (made with sour cream and no sugar sprinkled on top)