IT WAS A BUSY SUMMER

and I am so grateful to finally have a quiet September house. At the same time, I am stunned by the relentlessness of the meal prep. I have stopped counting up all of the school lunches I have made. And now that my kids have some sort of activity almost every day after school, I am trying to expand my one-pot-meal repertoire. Recipes coming.

Back in July, I recorded a Burnt Toast podcast with Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, co-founders of Food52. It is 23 minutes of us talking about children and food and cooking along with managing editor Kenzi Wilbur. Our kids even joined in for part of it. I was on top of my desk in Berkeley (no, really, sitting in straddle to reach the mic) and the rest of the crew was in a studio in New York City. Dash joined me on the desk towards the end (he is the one who very clearly states his hatred for anchovies). There was this moment (minute 18:27, in fact) when the kids started talking to each other and it felt like we were all sitting around the dinner table. I swear my heart just exploded.

If you feel like it, let me know in the comments below if you have any stories or tips or triumphs or frustrations relating to kids and cooking. I love the beautiful and the ugly and everything in between. So bring it on.

Click either image below to link to the podcast.

More soon about my book and various other projects. Lots going on. Can't wait to share.

xoxo

Phyllis

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SOME FRIENDS FOR YOUR TURKEY

I'm not going to enter the to-brine or not-to-brine debate. I have no opinions about spatchcocking (though it's fun to say the word out loud ten times in row). I've basted with hefeweizen, IPA, sake, Chardonnay, Lillet Blanc, chicken stock, vegetable stock, and butter. They all work beautifully. And just for the record, deep-frying one of those motherfuckers looks pretty awesome but I wouldn't attempt it with a Dash-like creature anywhere near my house.

Lucky for you, everyone else out there this week is telling you how to cook turkeys. I'm way more comfortable discussing side dishes. Here are some thoughts about the vegetables we've been cooking and really enjoying. Yes. Even the kids. Well. Sort of. Amazing what bribing for those final pieces of Halloween candy will do.

If you're new to cooking fall vegetables, here's all you need to know: it's almost impossible to mess them up. Delicate spring and summer vegetables, like green beans and asparagus, can go from crispy perfect to airplane food in a matter of minutes. Not so with squash, eggplants, turnips, Brussels sprouts, and potatoes, which benefit from all kinds of time in the oven. You can even forget about them for a half an hour and nothing bad will happen. No need for a kitchen timer. Just keep peeking, poking, and tasting every 20 minutes or so.

Remove them from the oven when desired gooeyness (eggplant) or tenderness (squash) or caramelization (Brussels sprouts) or crispiness (potatoes) is reached. Garnish with chopped fresh herbs. Maybe some crème fraîche. Serve as a side dish.

Or savor throughout the week sliced on pizza, tossed with pasta, stirred into risotto, or smeared on toasted baguette with a sprinkle of salt and a splash of olive oil. And at the end of the week, gather up all of the remaining scraps and eat them warmed and scattered over a bowl of buttery polenta. That's what we did. And now we're so sick of vegetables that we're heading back into another run of breakfast food. Blintzes, to be precise.

Here are some specifics and variations.

ROASTED EGGPLANT WITH GARLIC AND ANCHOVIES
The most important thing to know about eggplant is that it's nasty when it's undercooked.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

When your children aren't looking, make a paste out of six anchovy fillets and six cloves of garlic with a mortar and pestle.

Coat the bottom of a baking dish with a slick of olive oil.

Remove stems and cut eggplants lengthwise into eighths or so (if they're small, just cut them in half).

Score inner flesh with paring knife and place skin-side down in pan.

Use your hands to smear eggplant with the anchovy/garlic paste, tucking it deep down into the scored flesh.

Add salt (not too much, anchovies are already very salty) and pepper.

Scatter some unpeeled garlic cloves around the pan.

Add some more olive oil and maybe some sprigs of fresh thyme.

Place in preheated oven.

Keep an eye on it, be patient, it can take almost an hour and a half to cook. I know. Crazy. Trust me.

Cover with tin foil if it starts to get too brown.

It's done when it's sweet, soft, and gooey, without a trace of sponginess left.

Serve right away or reheat later.

Garnish with chopped mint and parsley.

BALSAMIC-GLAZED DELICATA SQUASH

The most exciting thing about delicata and kabocha squash is that you can eat the peel.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Remove the stems, cut the squash in half, scrape out the seeds and pulp.

Place halves skin-side down in a baking dish and sprinkle insides with salt and pepper.

Coat with generous amounts of olive oil and thick or reduced balsamic vinegar. Do not use thin balsamic because it will soak into the squash, creating a mealy texture and an ugly color.

Toss in some fresh sage and a handful of unpeeled garlic cloves.

Bake in preheated oven until squash is tender and scoopable. Serve right away or reheat later. 

LEMONY ROASTED BRUSSELS SPROUTS, TURNIPS, AND POTATOES WITH HORSERADISH CREME FRAICHE 

Preheat your oven to 425 °F.

Use a large sheet pan or baking dish so that everything has room to get nice and crispy.

Here's what I threw onto my sheet pan: unpeeled garlic cloves, sage, rosemary, thyme, halved Brussels sprouts (funky outer leaves removed), quartered Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and quartered turnips, thinly sliced leeks, and quartered lemons. Make sure potatoes and turnips are cut to about the same size.

Be really generous with the salt, pepper, and olive oil; use your hands to make sure everything is well coated.

Keep checking and tossing the vegetables about so that they cook evenly.

Bake until the leeks caramelize and the vegetables are just cooked through and golden brown.

It's even okay to let things burn a bit. 

Serve with Horseradish Crème Fraîche (freshly grated horseradish and chopped parsley mixed into crème fraîche). 

UNDER THE INFLUENCE

Ah. The Solanaceae family. The alkaloids present in this tribe can bring about good, bad, and ugly effects.

Toxic: form of green potatoes or night berries.

Stress-inducing: form of herpes outbreaks or swollen joints.

Intoxicating: form of wild tobacco.

Curative: form of  Homeopathic Belladona.

My three favorite Solanums (in no particular order) are melongena, lycopersicum, and tuberosum. Eggplant, tomatoes, and potatoes. I often douse them with some combination of lemon zest, garlic, pepper, heavy salt, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. Different temperatures and cooking times produce surprisingly diverse results.

Here's what I joyously slammed out one day while Dash and Bella hung out at school. I had a lot to do. And as lovely as my children are, I didn't want them in the way.

Dash and Bella contributed when they came home from school. With chalk. With drama. With excitement. With a punch to the chest (Dash to Bella). With a wow (Dash). A yummy (Bella!). An onslaught of blechs and yucks (from both). And a hella loud and teary I-won't-eat-that-eggplant-for-dinner-no-way-that's-disgusting (Bella to me with hands firmly planted on hips). A balls-out confirmation that I'm not doing this cooking thing in a vacuum. I'm living it with two little explorers who will forever keep me on my toes. Even if I send them away for a few hours during the day, they will come back and get their fingers, and opinions, and creativity into everything. Lucky me.

No recipe links in this post. Just a smattering of thoughts about each dish. There are no right ways to cook nightshades. Play around if you can. That's all I did. Taste, touch, see, sense, hear, smell, lick, feed, slurp, share, freeze.

QUICK TOMATO SAUCE (LEMON + GARLIC): Preheat oven to 325°F. Season cored whole tomatoes with salt, pepper, and minimal olive oil. Tuck unpeeled garlic cloves into tomatoes bodies. Bake until the tomatoes are softened, blackened, and swimming in their own juices. I threw the results into a Ziploc bag along with the contents of each garlic clove (squirted out) and roasted eggplant (see below). Bella enthusiastically pounded and mushed it all together in the bag. It's in the freezer for December. 

LEMON, GARLIC, AND ANCHOVY POTATOES: I did a lime variation of this last month. This time I used lemon. Preheat oven to 350°F. Peel and slice the yukon gold potatoes (1/2" wide) and place them in a baking dish. Coat them with lots of salt, pepper, and olive oil. Toss in a few rosemary branches and a lemon (or two) cut into eighths (remove as many seeds as you can). In a small pot, boil 10 unpeeled cloves of garlic and a tin of anchovy fillets (plus their oil) for 2 minutes. The mixture will start to snap, crackle, and pop, so stand back. Pour this oily fishy deliciousness over the potatoes. Toss with a spoon until evenly coated. Cover tightly with a lid or tin foil. Cook until potatoes are tender. 45 minutes or so. You can leave them pale and tender. Or you can broil them up for a few minutes until crispy. Eat right away. Or make a tart with puff pastry + sweet red pepper puree + roasted garlic + potato slices.

ROASTED EGGPLANT: Eggplant takes time. Don't compromise and eat spongy eggplant because it's nasty and depressing. Preheat oven to 350°F. Trim off the stems and then cut the eggplants into lengthwise sticks (about 1" or so wide). Lightly coat with salt, pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Add a thinly sliced onion and a handful of unpeeled garlic cloves.  Turn the heat down if it starts to burn. Add more oil as needed. Roast until eggplant is gooey and sweet (at least an hour, maybe more). You can chop this up and add it to your quick tomato sauce (above). Or serve it over lamb chops with some crumbled goat cheese and chopped parsley. It's also lovely folded into couscous.

3-HOUR TOMATOES:  Preheat oven to 225°F. Core and halve a mess of (smaller) tomatoes. Coat with salt, pepper, lemon zest, microplane-grated garlic, and olive oil. After 3 hours in the oven, these tomatoes turn into crispy candy cups filled with caramelized tomato pulp reduction. Tart and sweet at the same time.They keep for a few days in the fridge. Or a bit longer packed in olive oil. Or you can freeze them for months. Or, once again, make a tart! Puff pastry (or shortcrust pastry) + a goat cheese base (1 cup goat cheese, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons heavy cream, salt, pepper) + 3-hour tomatoes.

10-HOUR TOMATOES: Yes, they're oven-dried, but they look, feel, and taste just like sun-dried tomatoes. 200°F. Salt, pepper, olive oil. Check them after 8 hours. Drench them in olive oil immediately. You can season the oil with a few peeled whole garlic cloves and thyme branches. Freeze if you don't use it within about 5 days.