The Kitchn Archive: Feb 2016

I’m serious. Head to the grocery store and stock up on all the ingredients you’ll need to make this dish for dinner tonight. Cabbage, orange, farro, and feta — you definitely won’t be disappointed. This is a great recipe to make in the winter, as it uses in-season produce and warms up your kitchen, thanks to all the oven action.

Spaghetti and meatballs are great, but hands down the best part of any Italian meal is the garlic bread. This version, affectionally dubbed “OMG Garlic Bread,” has lemon zest, fresh basil, and Parmesan. It’s probably the best garlic bread you’ll ever make. The heart and soul of this recipe is the chunky garlic paste, which calls for a whole head of garlic, a whole stick of butter, Parmesan, fresh basil, lemon zest, and red pepper flakes.

On a new-year-new-you kick and all about that clean-eating life? God knows I’m not, but I’m all about experimenting in the kitchen and looking into ways to cut out any unecessary added sugar and preservatives. Enter these technicolor “sprinkles,” made from at-home dehydrated citrus zest and unsweetened, freeze-dried fruit.

Have you heard of golden milk? This warm beverage, which combines ground turmeric, milk, and coconut oil, is beloved by natural health enthusiasts for its anti-inflammatory properties. This recipe takes things one step further with the addition of cocoa powder. It’s just like hot cocoa — only way better because you can have it for breakfast. There’s one ingredient in this recipe I wasn’t familiar with: ashwagandha powder.

Chicago deep-dish pizza is a uniquely American dish that has proven challenging to replicate at home. This is not an imitator recipe; it is a modern interpretation with a serious homage to the past and a crust that is worth every minute of your time. This crust is inspired by the buttery, light crusts of Chicago deep-dish pies, with enough real butter to make Lou Malnati’s proud.

Ever throw a bunch of stuff into the slow cooker only to have it taste bland eight hours later? That is absolutely not the case with this pork pozole recipe. A little work up front — mainly browning the pork on the stovetop — results in a rich, flavorful soup that will have you singing the slow cooker’s praises. A main component in pozole is hominy, which is dried corn that’s been soaked in a mineral lime bath.

Love is like a crepe cake. From the outside, everything looks perfect — all neatly frosted and garnished just so — but once you cut into it, there are all of these different layers. The layers may be a little uneven, but they come together to tell the story of the cake in their own beautiful way. Crepe cakes, like love, require hard work and patience. To make this cake, you must first create all three components: the whipped cream, the raspberry-rose compote, and the almond crepes.

Cook up a pot of rice on the stove and you’ll sometimes find, after scooping up the fluffy grains, what may seem to be an unpleasant layer of grains that are practically glued to the bottom. Some may see this as a failure and send the pot straight to the sink for soaking; others (aka those who are wiser) will see it as an opportunity. Almost every cuisine where rice is a staple in the diet has a different name for what lies underneath. In Iran, it’s tahdig.

The Cubano — a traditional pressed sandwich layered with two (!) kinds of pork and gooey cheese, balanced by tangy pickles and mustard — gets a quick-and-easy makeover with this big-batch version. Soft, squishy potato rolls replace the traditional crusty rolls for when you don’t want to be panini-ing sandwiches to order. Instead, by using a heavy sheet pan to press the sandwiches into crispy, melty form, you can make a dozen at a time without breaking a sweat.