These recipes fit just rightI loathe shopping for clothes online. For all the trauma and tears the fitting room inflicted upon me as a teen, at least I knew if pants actually fit before I bought them. Lately, I’ve been on the hunt for a birthday dress, forced to throw my trust behind any fellow online shoppers who are generous enough to declare whether something runs true to size. To every woman who has ever included a photo of herself in a dress alongside her review: May you always find parking with ease, may your manicures never chip, may you find a crisp $20 bill in your pocket. I’ve been collecting links to a handful of dresses I’ve found with five-star ratings, and part of me wishes I could order them all, hope for the best and return whatever doesn’t work. Dinner tonight, thankfully, can be far less logistically taxing. Putting your faith in a five-star recipe is a great start. Nico de Leon’s summer vegetable pancit canton, adapted by Christian Reynoso, is fairly new to the New York Times Cooking database and is already racking up those top ratings. Is it the recipe’s flexibility that has earned such high markings, or the fact that it requires only one pan? Or is it those bell peppers, zucchini, cherry tomatoes and green beans, all showing up in abundance at the market? Maybe it’s even more simple than that: “Made this as directed, with my 7-year-old,” a reader wrote in the recipe comments. “Everyone loved it.” Summer Vegetable Pancit CantonNisha Vora’s spicy noodle stir-fry with salt and pepper tofu also has five stars, and I have a good hunch as to why, beyond its delicious blistered green beans. I’d reckon it’s Nisha’s inclusion of a brilliant tip for perfectly crisp tofu, and that’s to freeze and thaw it before cooking. Doing so makes it easier to remove moisture and enhances the tofu’s spongy texture. Word to the wise: Always keep an extra-firm block in the freezer! (Now might be a good time to note that recent cases of food-borne illness across the United States may be on your mind. Our colleagues on Well have expert tips for avoiding infection. Cooking produce, as in all the recipes this week, is high on that list! And if you garnish dishes with fresh herbs like cilantro or basil, be sure to wash them thoroughly under running water. More guidance this way.) It’s five stars, six ingredients and 45 minutes for Eric Kim’s spaghetti aglio olio with zucchini, which one reader described as “absolutely perfect for the dog days of summer.” As with dress shopping, the reviews are always worth a read, but especially so here because Eric himself has responded to notes and questions throughout. I’m not surprised Jenné Claiborne’s summer vegetable grits with basil gremolata has earned five-star adoration from y’all, nor am I shocked to see the same for Hetty Lui McKinnon’s tomato mapo tofu. Could it be because they’re rich yet fresh vegan dishes? Could be, could be. Do you have a ton of zucchini on hand? Yeah, I thought so. Here’s Dan Pelosi’s five-star zucchini lasagna, in which planks of summer squash replace the pasta. That should do the trick. And if you don’t use up all the cherry tomatoes you happen to have in the lasagna, you could put the rest in Christian’s six-ingredient turmeric-butter pasta with tomatoes. True to its name, there is pasta in that one. And if you, like me, are sweating right now, you might not care to stand over a stove at all. Preparing Sarah DiGregorio’s slow-cooker creamy tomato lentil soup will spare you. Its more than 4,000 five-star ratings are all the convincing I need to eat warm soup in the summertime. Try that on for size?
Vegetarian Tomato Mapo Tofu
Zucchini Lasagna
Slow Cooker Creamy Tomato Lentil SoupFor a limited time, you can enjoy free access to the recipes in this newsletter in our app. Download it on your iOS or Android device and create a free account to get started. One More Thing!We are less than two months out from the release of my cookbook, “Veg Everything,” and I finally have my first copy! I thought I’d give you a sneak peak of what’s inside. Thanks for reading, and see you next week! Email us at theveggie@nytimes.com. Newsletters are archived here. Reach out to my colleagues at cookingcare@nytimes.com if you have questions about your account.
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