Help yourself to sour cream pancakes
Good morning. How are you doing? It’s a weird, uncertain time for many, parlous and dizzying, and sometimes it seems as if the last thing anyone wants to do is gather to eat and talk, to try to understand one another, to commune. But it’s exactly what we ought to be doing, as often as we can, as enthusiastically as possible. A meal taken with family, with friends, even with (perhaps especially with) strangers is a meal that can bridge distances, that can make things better, if only while everyone’s seated at the table. Hospitality matters. That’s my new bumper sticker. Come over for breakfast, and let’s see if it sticks. Say, sour cream pancakes with cardamom apples (above)? It’s incredible how the cardamom pings off the maple syrup to become something entirely singular. Or a big Dutch baby with a side of oven bacon? Works every time. Featured Recipe Sour Cream Pancakes With Cardamom ApplesI could imagine a crowded table at lunch: kimchi grilled cheese for all, and the Seahawks-Falcons game afterward, viewed from the couch. Could that spill into dinner? Let’s hope so, because a huge platter of chicken with mixed mushrooms and cream isn’t going to eat itself. With Sunday sorted, we can look to the rest of the week. … MondayMelissa Clark’s recipe for sweet-and-spicy roasted tofu and squash delivers a riot of complex flavors and textures that belies the ease of its preparation. There’s the smooth velvet of the roasted squash, the soft tenderness of the tofu and the excellent crunch of the sesame seed garnish, all dressed in the salty-sweet fire of soy sauce, sriracha and honey. Put that on a bed of baby spinach and start your week off right.
TuesdayI love a patty melt unreservedly, but I had a revelation when I developed this recipe for a portobello patty melt to serve to folks who don’t eat beef. Portobello patty melts might actually be better than the original kind.
WednesdayA sheet-pan meal is just the thing for a busy weeknight dinner, and Ali Slagle’s new recipe for crispy gnocchi with sausage and broccoli proves the point plain. Make little meatballs of Italian sausage and brown them alongside gnocchi and broccoli florets, and then top the pan with grated Parmesan and a spray of lemon juice. There won’t be leftovers.
ThursdayMore chicken, more mushrooms. Yasmin Fahr has an amazing recipe for skillet chicken with mushrooms and caramelized onions that’s one of the great uses of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. It’s like a French onion soup that’s not soup and doesn’t take as long to cook. Could you stir in some baby lettuce at the end? You could and ought to!
FridayAnd then you can head into the weekend with Lidey Heuck’s recipe for goulash. It’s a deeply American version of the Hungarian dish, made with ground beef, bell peppers, diced tomatoes, macaroni and shredded Cheddar. But it’s no less soulful for that — very Midwest proud. (Omit the paprika, and you have what they call “American chop suey” in New England.)
There are many thousands more recipes to cook this week waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. Go browse our digital aisles and save the recipes you want to cook. If you have questions about your account, write to us at cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you. Or you can write to me at foodeditor@nytimes.com if you’d like to escalate matters or simply say hello. I can’t respond to every letter. But I do read every one I receive. Now, it’s a far cry from anything to do with lentils or kale, but Joe Sexton has a wild tale in The Sunday Long Read about three friends flying to Florida from the Bahamas in a Cessna Caravan. Only one was a pilot. When he slumped in his seat, unconscious, his friend had to land the plane. That would take a miracle, and there were two of them that day. Here in The New York Times, Pete Wells profiled Joe Holtz, who helped found the Park Slope Food Co-op in 1973 and has worked there ever since. Holtz is retiring in June. Tina Brown has taken to Substack. I’m in. Finally, here’s a new track from 2nd Grade, “I Wanna Be on Your Mind.” Play that before dinner, and I’ll be back next week.
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