Melina Hammer for The New York Times
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SUNDAY, MARCH 20, 2016
What to Cook This Week
 SAM SIFTON
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Good morning. It would be nice to sit around all day on the couch wondering if a snowstorm is going to punch us hard today in the New York region, reading this new Kaitlyn Greenidge novel, "We Love You, Charlie Freeman," and drinking Red Zinger tea as if we're living in a university town circa 1979.
But the little pad of paper we nabbed from the Arizona Inn in Tucsoncalls to us from the kitchen counter, its first sheet begging to be filled with a list of supplies to buy in advance of an afternoon of cooking and a long, glorious week of eating.
We say we like to relax on the weekend. That means we like to lay in stores and cook, same as our forbearers went to the basement to build radios and Shaker furniture. So let's get to the market!
For dinner tonight, perhaps, we could all make Florence Fabricant's new recipe for Korean noodles and meatballs (above)? Florence says the dish "offers the sweetly peppered, slightly funky flavors typical of many Korean dishes, and gives new personality to everyday spaghetti and meatballs." We're in.
In some precincts of America, Monday nights are trending toward a meatless meal, and if it makes us a lemming to join the crowd, so be it. For our first meal of the new week, we're looking at David Tanis'srecipe for mushroom and miso soup, which may seem kind of fussy but is actually quite simple to make and delivers an awesome amount of flavor.
Tuesday's for tacos, maybe? You could make Kim Severson's recipe for carnitas this afternoon, and hold the shredded meat in a covered bowl in the refrigerator until the night you're eating, then fry it through in a pan before serving alongside soft corn tortillas and salsa. Or you could make a big pot of my picadillo and do the same, perhaps serving the meat with hard-shell tortillas on Tuesday night, as if you were running the best middle-school cafeteria in creation.
On Wednesday, the week weighing down upon you, you could do a quick stir-fry with shrimp, snow peas and ginger, and serve it with rice.
And then, on Thursday, still exhausted but with the weekend looming, you may knock down Jennifer Steinhauer's ace recipe for tomato soup, and serve it with Julia Moskin's perfect grilled cheese, a combination that is very, very hard to beat.
This Friday's a big one for some of the Christian faith, and for some of them a day of fasting and abstinence, with the penitential end of Lent falling on Holy Saturday. Either way, it seems as good a time as any to take a run at Amanda Cohen's cool new recipe for cauliflower stew, which manages to offer a number of contrasting textures and flavors to what otherwise may be thin gruel. It's awesome, and will set you up nicely in advance of an Easter feast.
Other ideas for what to cook this week are, as ever, on Cooking. Please, please, please save the recipes you like into your recipe box so you can find them more easily when you're ready to cook. Rate those recipes when you're done cooking them. Leave a note on them if you have any ingredient substitutions or preparation tips to suggest. And if you run into problems, reach out for help. We're atcookingcare@nytimes.com.
Finally, you think we're in a grim news cycle? Hop into ourTimesMachine, and check out our front page from 100 years ago today. ("Curtain of Fire"; "HEMMED IN AT BABICORA"; more than 9,000 dead in a pitched battle east of Vilna – just another manic Monday.) Then, if you need a positive jam, read Kim Tingley's dispatch from The Times Magazine this weekend, on the wave pilots of the Marshall Islands. And listen to Benny Goodman, always. (Gene Krupa on drums!) See you tomorrow. |
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