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There are tomatoes, sure, but we are really here for the anchovy-fennel oil used to dress the tomatoes. It’s spicy, salty and deeply savory, and great on everything from other thinly sliced raw vegetables (summer squash, cucumbers, fennel, radishes) to cooked ones (sautéed greens, roasted eggplant or broccoli). Spoon it into pasta, drizzle on eggs, use as a dip for bread, etc. You get the idea.

Tomatoes Dressed in Toasted Fennel and Anchovy

More for Later

American

Dinner

Roasting

Squash is almost always my choice for “orange vegetable.” While it seems very unlike me, I really love how soft and sweet they are, especially when “forever” roasted (2½–3 hours). Does squash need to be roasted that long? Absolutely not, but isn’t it nice to cook something for the exact same time and at the exact same temperature as your turkey? I think so.

I know the squash, sage, and browned butter combination is giving “the ravioli special at the bad-but-good Italian restaurant” but damn, there is a reason it’s always the ravioli special. These three ingredients are perfect together, a true gift on your Thanksgiving table, especially for anyone looking for a casserole with marshmallows (“this is kind of like that!” you’ll say). The best part about this particular recipe is that you don’t have to brown the butter or crisp the sage. The butter browns and the sage crisps all on their own in the oven (they are in there forever, after all).

Forever Roasted Squash with Crispy Sage

Winter Stews

Sautéing

This recipe is simple, really existing to make the case that high quality meat, seasoned sparingly with salt and pepper is a true luxury. Sure, after slicing it’s finished with some capers crisped up in browned butter alongside toasted slivers of garlic, maybe a little lemon, but still—simple. Since it’s best practice to waste not, want not, the rendered pork fat is put to good use, searing wedges of cabbage to get caramelized and tender (cabbage is SO GOOD), but fennel, broccoli, turnips or handfuls of hearty broccoli rabe or kale would also work if you’re not yet convinced cabbage is the second coming.

Pork Chop with Capers and Caramelized Cabbage

Italian

Something very magical happens when you add water to deeply roasted eggplant in a skillet. The slices of eggplant, previously nearly dehydrated from a trip to the oven rehydrates and becomes thick, luscious, almost creamy in texture.

Vegetarian

This is not necessarily a quick pasta recipe, because almost nothing involving eggplant is “quick,” but that’s okay. Some things, like a bowl full of pasta that tastes like Eggplant Parmesan, are worth it. 

Something very magical happens when you add water to deeply roasted eggplant in a skillet. The slices of eggplant, previously nearly dehydrated from a trip to the oven (which we do to encourage that signature, almost acidic, concentrated “umami” flavor that can only come from deeply browned eggplant) rehydrates and becomes thick, luscious, almost creamy in texture. In other words, a perfect sauce for pasta. Assisted by some just-burst tomatoes and maybe a dab of tomato paste or something spicy, finished with some Parmesan breadcrumbs, this pasta does taste like Eggplant Parmesan, a compliment of the highest order..

Roasted Eggplant Pasta with Parmesan Breadcrumbs

Picnic

Dessert

Baking

I love this basic, elegant, classy tart. It’s reserved and restrained, it’s prim and proper, it’s creamy and delicious. It’s also one of the more flexible desserts in this book, and if you’re the type of baker who loves to arrange your fruit like a gorgeous mosaic, well, this recipe is for you. Three distinct components, comprising an easy shortbread-like press-in crust, silky vanilla custard, and whatever fruit strikes you as most lovely when it comes time to makes this tart. Since the crust and custard already give you something so fantastic, whatever you choose to top it with is truly a cherry on top, no pun intended (unless you’re using cherries, then definitely pun intended).

Simple Fruit Tart

Brunch

For those who don’t bake and for those that do, for those who like their desserts on the less-sweet side, the crunchy side, the unfussy side, this dessert is for you. I can’t stress enough how infallible it is, virtually unable to mess up.

The buttery cornmeal crust doubles as a crumble topping for texture on both sides for maximum crunchiness, the key to my heart. As for the fruit, while a stonefruit moment may tempt you, this is truly a moment for berries. Blueberries are hard to beat for their juiciness and rich-in-pectin jammy texture, but feel free to mix in blackberries, raspberries or mulberries/huckleberries (if you’re lucky to find either).

This recipe is also a prime candidate for baking in “whatever you have around.” Tart pan, pie plate, square baking dish; It is also easily doubled to make in a 9x13 for more of a “bar” and less of a “tart.”

Blueberry Cornmeal Tart

Breakfast

Biscuit making is a practice, a recipe you begin to feel rather than follow. Like pie dough, they’ll only get better every time you make them, but starting with a great recipe will help. This one does not require a food processor, because I believe flat, shaggy pieces of butter create flakier layers than small, pebble-like bits, and it uses two types of leavening in conjunction with buttermilk for foolproof lift.

Luckiest Biscuits in America

Maybe even sadder now that the house is no longer always full of muffins, but he now knows what a great muffin is: Not all that sweet but still sweet enough to be described as “a nice little treat.” Pleasantly eggy in the way a good pancake is, moist but not cake-y, domed with a nice little mushroom top but without sacrificing the quality of the interior (nobody will be eating just the top off these muffins, they are good the whole way through). No crumble topping because I find that to be distracting and annoying to make and if I wanted coffee cake, that’s what I would make (side note: I should make a coffee cake soon). More blueberries than you think possible to fit inside, but they do. Doesn’t require any sort of electric mixer or complicated technique. Is great with some nice salted butter but doesn’t depend on it. And perhaps most importantly, a great muffin is excellent (maybe even better) the next day.

Blueberry Muffins

Sweet Enough

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