The Kitchn Archive: May 2016

Are you trying to pack more vegetables into your weeknight meals? Eat a little less meat? Ditch the bread? A staple of my own household meals lately have been improvised dishes that I call Flip the Bowl — dinners that turn classic meat-heavy suppers on their head, starting with the vegetables and using meat as a supporting side instead of the star. Here’s one of my favorite ways to do this: the upside-down steak dinner. What does it mean to flip the bowl?

Golden milk is so hot right now. So far I’ve seen it in everything from cocoa to ice cream, and now it’s making its way into your breakfast with these overnight oats. This is a food trend mash-up of epic proportions. Overnight oats are simply oats that sit overnight in liquid of some form — in this case, it’s golden milk.

Memorial Day is right around the corner! If you’re still drawing up your holiday menu, I highly suggest you add these lemongrass-ginger salmon burgers. With garnishes like pickled cucumber and cilantro cream, these burgers are sure to be the talk of your party. What I love most about these salmon burgers is that they’re not afraid to be a little different. With lemongrass, ginger, and lime in the patties, no one is going to accuse you of playing it safe with this recipe.

Happy National Wine Day! Let’s celebrate with strawberry shortcake. But this, my friends, is not just any ol’ strawberry shortcake — this version has rosé-soaked strawberries. Yes, you toss sliced strawberries with rosé and sugar, and let everything mingle in the fridge while your shortcake bakes in the oven. You’re essentially macerating the berries, with a little help from everyone’s favorite summer wine.

One-pan meals are the true heroes of weeknight dinners, and this lemon-Parmesan chicken with asparagus is no exception. With just a little bit of prep and about 20 minutes in the oven, this bright, flavorful dish can be yours tonight. The key to everything cooking evenly when making a one-pan meal is staggering your ingredients.

This Riesling rhubarb crisp cake has it all: tender white cake, rhubarb-strawberry compote and matching buttercream, a crispy oat crumble, and a fanciful, ruffled finish. It’s the perfect cake to bake when you’re feeling like showing off your cake-baking skills or looking for a weekend project to tackle when you want to spend the day in the kitchen.

You might be tired of heavy winter braises by now since spring is in full force, but that doesn’t mean you should retire the braising pot just yet. All the gorgeous spring vegetables still work beautifully in a quicker, lighter braise — one where you can still taste the unique flavors of each vegetable. Chicken is the perfect protein for a quick braise.

When you’re looking for something beyond vanilla, but still aiming to please a crowd, try a classic lemon cake. Something as simple as lemon might get overlooked in a world of salted caramel, velvety raspberry, and matcha-everything, but this lemon supreme cake is anything but ordinary. With three layers of lemon-soaked cake blanketed in satiny vanilla buttercream, this little cake makes for an exceptional dessert for anything from a bridal brunch to afternoon tea to a birthday party.

Craving cake, but don’t necessarily have an occasion to make one for? Well then it’s a pretty good thing that you don’t need to wait until your birthday to make this honey-apple cake. This recipe falls under what I call “casual cakes,” meaning cakes that are perfectly suitable for Sunday brunch, afternoon tea, or any random Wednesday night when you need to fulfill a relentless cake craving without having to make something completely over the top.

Rhubarb is often thought of as an ingredient for sweets, and while I would never turn down a slice of strawberry-rhubarb pie, rhubarb can do double duty in the world of savory foods as well. Stew it with onions, spicy ginger, and some soy sauce, and now you have a tangy sauce that you can braise pork chops in until juicy and tender. One sturdy skillet is all you need for this dish, and cast iron works well if you have one.

Strawberry shortcake is the ambassador of summer, showing off juicy berries like jewels. It’s usually a humble dessert built on a biscuit, but here we turn it into a towering showstopper of cake, whipped cream, and fresh strawberries. Yet it brings drama without fuss; this is layer cake the easy way. This cake stands four-layers tall, each one too gorgeous on its own to be hidden behind a blanket of frosting or smothering of chocolate sauce (although that totally works for other cakes).