Smitten Kitchen Every Day

deli rye english muffins

My favorite thing about this recipe is where it started, which, specifically, was in front of a library full of people in St. Louis while I was on a book tour. Someone asked me how I came up with recipes, and I’m sorry if it disappoints you to learn this, but I’ve never been good on my feet and was as fumbling and inarticulate as ever: “Uh, sometimes they just come to me? Or I’ll just get an idea when I’m on the crosstown bus and…” It was pretty bad, but since there was no one to rescue me, I just blathered along. “…Like, this morning, I was thinking how cool it would be if you could make an English muffin that tasted like rye bread, because they’re my two favorite kinds of toast to go with eggs,” and someone said, “You should! Now you can start your second book!”

So, as fated—eh, 4.5 years and one kid later—I began here. I learned a few things along the way. English-muffin recipes are divided into two camps: those that require pastry rings to hold the batter in shape, and those that use a thicker dough but allow you to free-form them. The first category make for great nooks and crannies, but are unquestionably a pest to maneuver. The second category have some nooks and a few crannies but don’t require any specialty-store purchases. To get the results of the peskier method without the hassle, I found you had to use a softer dough.

And then, once you’ve made English muffins that taste like a good deli rye bread, what do you do with them? They’re excellent with a heap of scrambled eggs or a crispy fried one, maybe with a little hash underneath. They’re good for any kind of sandwich you’d normally put on rye. But toasting them with sweet butter is always my first choice.

makes 12 miniature or 8 standard-sized muffins

2¼ teaspoons (from a 7-gram or ¼-ounce packet) active dry yeast

¼ cup (60 ml) lukewarm water

¾ cup (175 ml) milk or buttermilk

2 tablespoons (30 grams) unsalted butter, plus more for the bowl

1 tablespoon (15 grams) granulated sugar

⅔ cup (80 grams) dark rye flour

1⅓ cups (175 grams) all-purpose or bread flour, plus more for your work surface

1½ teaspoons coarse or kosher salt

2 teaspoons (5 grams) whole or 1 teaspoon ground caraway seeds

Oil, for greasing bowl and coating skillet

Cornmeal, for sprinkling

Combine the yeast and water in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Let rest 5 minutes; the yeast should dissolve and look slightly foamy. Gently warm the buttermilk, butter, and sugar to lukewarm (not hot), and add it to the yeast mixture, followed by the flours, salt, and caraway. Use the dough hook to combine until a shaggy, uneven dough forms; knead it on the lowest speed for 5 minutes, until the dough is stretchy and cohesive. Butter or oil a large bowl (or do as I do and remove the dough long enough to oil the mixing bowl, then return the dough to it), and let the dough proof at room temperature, covered with a dishcloth or plastic, for 1 hour. (Until it has risen by at least one-third.)

Lightly spray a large baking sheet with oil, then generously sprinkle it with cornmeal. Lightly flour your counter, turn the dough out onto it, flour the top, and gently deflate it with your hands. Divide the dough into pieces; twelve pieces for minis, eight for standard muffins. Roll them gently into balls, and place on the cornmealed baking sheet, pressing gently to flatten them into discs (about ¾-inch thick). Spray the tops lightly with oil, and sprinkle them with cornmeal, too. Cover loosely, and proof at room temperature for 30 minutes more or up to 3 days in the fridge. If chilled, let them warm up for 30 minutes at room temperature before cooking.

Heat the oven to 250 degrees.

Let a cast-iron skillet warm over the lowest heat for 5 to 7 minutes, then lightly coat the inside with neutral cooking oil for insurance against sticking, but not enough that the muffins will fry. Dust off the excess cornmeal from the muffins. Let the bottom of each muffin brown slowly and very gently in the pan, about 5 minutes. (If yours are taking longer, you can bump up the heat to medium-low.) Flip them, and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes. You can flip back and forth again if needed for even cooking.

Shake the excess cornmeal off the baking sheet, and transfer pan-toasted muffins to the oven. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the sides are firm to the touch. Cool to almost room temperature, then fork-split.

granola biscotti

There are a lot of good reasons to make and eat the finger-shaped twice-baked dunkable cookies known as biscotti, cantuccini, and sometimes even mandelbrodt, and most involve delicious things to drink: coffee, black tea, and vin santo and other dessert wines. But where’s the cookie that will help you get through breakfast for the week you’ve promised to plain, unsweetened yogurt? I mean, your intentions were good—those flavored yogurts are full of stuff nobody really needs to eat—but there’s nothing like a little granola to break up the monotony.

These help. Part biscotti but mostly granola, they’re full of oats, nuts, coconut, dried fruit; just barely sweetened, they’re the ideal companion to your best breakfast intentions. Plus, they keep for weeks, which means you can grab one or two per day and pretty much never regret having them on you.

makes 36 biscotti

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for your work surface

1½ cups plus 2 tablespoons (130 grams) rolled oats

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon table or fine sea salt

6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, melted, or virgin coconut oil, warmed until liquefied

¼ cup (50 grams) granulated or raw (turbinado) sugar

¼ cup (50 grams) light- or dark-brown sugar

2 large eggs

½ teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

½ cup (45 grams) thinly sliced almonds

½ cup (40 grams) shredded unsweetened coconut

1 cup (about 150 grams) dried fruit of your choice, such as raisins, cranberries, cherries, or chopped dried apricots or figs, or a mix thereof

1 egg white

Mix the flour, rolled oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Whisk the melted butter and sugars in the bottom of a large bowl. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla. Stir in the dry ingredients, nuts, coconut, and dried fruit. Expect a stiff batter.

Position a rack in the center of the oven, and heat to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

On a floured counter, using floured hands roll half the dough into a log a little shy of the length of your baking sheet, 12 to 14 inches. Transfer the dough log to the baking sheet, and pat lightly until it becomes more oval-shaped. Repeat with the second half of the dough. Beat the egg white until foamy, and brush it over logs. Bake the logs for 20 minutes, until they are lightly golden brown and beginning to form cracks.

Let cool almost completely (it’s okay if the centers are still lukewarm), about 1 hour. With a serrated knife, cut the logs on the bias into ½-inch-thick slices. They will be crumbly; cut as gently as possible. Transfer the slices back to the parchment-lined baking sheet, and lay flat in a single layer. Bake for another 20 minutes, until toasted and crisp. (If you like, you can flip them halfway for more even browning, but you will have good color on them either way.)

Cool the biscotti on the baking sheet, or transfer to a rack.

note This recipe should prove very tweakable; you could use cinnamon, or almond extract, add citrus zest, vary the fruits and sweeteners. You could swap half the flour for whole wheat or even oat flour. Or you could add some chocolate chips. Who could blame you?

do ahead Biscotti keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks, and longer if well wrapped in the freezer.

jam-bellied bran scones

In the Muffin Olympics, my favorite—bran muffins—would never even make the team. I get that gritty brown masses hardly have the appeal of blueberry-buttermilk, sweet-cornmeal, banana-walnut, and pumpkin-spice, but I’ve always enjoyed their quiet, nutty complexity—plus, it’s kind of adorable, the way I convince myself that they’re healthier, right? So I decided that they needed a makeover, and I reformatted them as scones, and pretty ones at that. Preloading the scones with jam makes them self-contained packets of breakfast luxury. Yes, like a jelly doughnut but still craggy and wholesome enough that we get to enjoy them way more often.

makes 10 scones

1½ cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for your work surface

1¼ cups (75 grams) wheat bran

1 tablespoon (15 grams) baking powder

½ teaspoon fine sea or table salt

½ cup (95 grams) dark-brown sugar

6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, chilled, cut into small pieces

½ cup (120 grams) sour cream

½ cup (120 ml) heavy cream

1 large egg, lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon water

¼ cup (80 grams) jam or marmalade of your choice, or more if yours is on the thick side

1 tablespoon (10 grams) coarse or raw (turbinado) sugar, to finish

Heat the oven to 375 degrees, and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Combine the flour, bran, baking powder, salt, and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add the butter and, using your fingertips or a pastry blender, work it into the flour mixture until the largest bits are the size of small peas. Add the sour and heavy creams, and stir until the mixture forms big clumps. Knead once or twice, just by sticking your hands into the bowl, until it comes together in one mass.

On a very well-floured surface, roll out the dough to about ½-inch thickness. Cut into 2½-inch rounds and then gently reroll scraps as needed. Use your thumb to make an impression in the “belly” (center) of half of them. Dollop ½ to 1 teaspoon jam in the center, brush the edges with egg wash, and use one of the plain, nonindented rounds as a lid. Press gently together at edges, sealing in the jam. Repeat with the remaining rounds.

Transfer the scones to the prepared baking sheet, and brush the tops with egg wash. Sprinkle each scone with about ¼ teaspoon coarse sugar, and bake for 16 to 19 minutes. Let the scones cool on the tray for 5 or so minutes before carefully lifting and transferring them to cooling racks.

baked oatmeal with caramelized pears and vanilla cream

This is my deep-into-winter escape from hot-cereal drudgery, a casserole-formatted, lightly luxurious baked oatmeal that I make at the start of a week and heat up one portion at a time. I really love fruit with my oatmeal, but it usually ends up falling to the convenience of dried fruit stirred in. This is better. You begin by roasting lemony pears in a bit (just a bit!) of butter, sugar, and vanilla bean seeds until the juices begin to release and self-caramelize in the pan. From here, you build a somewhat standard baked oatmeal on top, something we should thank the Amish for including in old cookbooks—but I’m actually going to thank Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks for introducing this to the wider web audience. Eggs and a little bit of baking soda give the oats some cohesion and lift; the pear caramel makes it otherworldly. So does one other thing: the tiniest trickle of a sweetened vanilla cream on top. You could use milk, I suppose—but I don’t, because once I tried this at a restaurant there was no going back. It is, in one pour, a coolant, a sweetener, and something to loosen the whole bit up. If this sounds like work, keep in mind that you’re going to get six amazing breakfasts from it, a better return on investment than I get from most from scratch soups, dinners, or cakes, and—ahem, I’m just saying—none of them self-caramelize.

makes 6 portions

vanilla sugar

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (125 grams) granulated sugar

½ vanilla bean

pears

2 tablespoons (30 grams) unsalted butter

3 pears (preferably D’Anjou, Forelle, or firm Bartletts)

1 lemon

oatmeal

1 cup (235 ml) milk

1 cup (235 ml) water

2 tablespoons (30 grams) unsalted butter

2 large eggs

1½ teaspoons coarse or kosher salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 cups (240 grams) rolled oats

to finish

1 cup (235 ml) heavy cream or half-and-half

make the vanilla sugar Place the sugar in a small bowl. Split the vanilla bean, scrape the seeds into the sugar, and use your fingertips to distribute the seeds throughout; the abrasion helps release more flavor. Save the pod: there’s tons more flavor to be had, and we’re going to use it.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. While it’s heating, place butter in a 9-by-13-inch or equivalent-sized baking dish in the oven to let it melt.

prepare the pears Finely grate the zest of half of your lemon and set it aside; you’ll use it later. Juice the whole lemon, you’ll use it now. Peel the pears, split them lengthwise, and remove cores and any thick-looking stems. Toss the pears with the lemon juice. Remove the baking dish with melted butter from the oven, and sprinkle ½ cup vanilla sugar into it. Arrange the pears, cut side down, over the sugar, and drizzle with any lemon juice left in bowl. Cover tightly with foil, and bake for 20 minutes. Then remove foil and bake another 10 minutes.

while pears are baking Whisk the milk, water, butter, eggs, salt, and reserved zest together in a large bowl. Sprinkle the baking powder over these and stir to combine; add oats, and stir again.

bake the oats Use a thin spatula to turn the pears over carefully, spooning as much sauce from the pan over the pears as they will hold. Reduce heat to 350 degrees. Dollop the oat mixture around the pears in the pan. Return the dish to the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the pears are soft and the oatmeal edges are golden brown.

meanwhile, make vanilla cream Bring the cream, remaining 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar, and reserved empty vanilla bean pod to a simmer in a saucepan. Simmer 5 minutes, reducing to ¾ cup. Chill the mixture if you prefer cold cream on your hot oatmeal (i.e., if you’re me).

to serve Scoop one pear half and its surrounding oatmeal into a bowl, and drizzle with 1 to 2 tablespoons vanilla cream. Refrigerate leftovers until needed, up to one week, warming one portion at a time.

spinach, mushroom, and goat cheese slab frittata

Here’s one tiny, albeit impolite, advantage to having a small apartment in Manhattan: nobody asks if they can spend the night. There are no “spare” bedrooms, and although my son does have a lovely trundle, he likes to wake at the crack of dawn to make things out of Play-Doh. You, too, right?

Thus, I’m a little unfamiliar with the logistics of houseguests. I mean, I love a good dinner party—the planning, the conversation, the efficiency of meals scaled to group size—but I’ve always wondered, what happens when your guests stay the night? Do they…expect you to cook again in the morning? Because that sounds terrible unless you have a plan.

In such a situation, this would be mine: I began scaling frittatas to group size out of curiosity, and they were such a hit that they’re now in the regular rotation. There’s almost nothing a giant frittata can’t do. They make an excellent plan-ahead breakfast, either at the start of a workweek or in advance of weekend entertaining, because the squares reheat well. Add some freshly baked biscuits or your favorite bread and you’ve got an egg sandwich. But we’ve also found frittatas a welcome addition to lunch—at room temperature, on a bed of salad greens, with extra crumbled cheese and sliced tomatoes.

makes 12 squares of frittata

Butter, softened, for baking dish

5 ounces (225 grams) baby spinach

1 tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil

½ pound (225 grams) breakfast sausage, removed from casings (optional)

1 small yellow onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

½ pound (225 grams) white or cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced

⅓ cup (80 ml) heavy cream

1 teaspoon kosher or coarse sea salt, plus more to taste

Freshly ground black pepper

pinch of nutmeg (optional)

4 scallions, thinly sliced

One 4-ounce (115-gram) log goat cheese, crumbled

12 large eggs

Heat the oven to 350 degrees, and butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.

prepare the vegetables If you’ve just washed your spinach, no need to dry it before wilting it in the pan. If it’s already dry, bring ½ inch water to a boil in a very large heavy skillet, then add the spinach and cook, turning with tongs, until wilted, for about 1 minute, then cook, covered, over moderately high heat, until the spinach is tender, 1 to 2 minutes more. Drain in a colander, and cool under cold running water. Gently squeeze handfuls of spinach to remove as much liquid as possible, then coarsely chop it. You will have about ½ cup fairly tightly packed cooked spinach.

Wipe the skillet dry, turn the heat to medium-high, then add olive oil to the skillet. Once the oil is hot, add the sausage (if using) and cook until browned breaking it up with a spatula, for about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon, and discard all but 1 tablespoon of drippings. Stir the onion and garlic into skillet. Cook over medium-low heat until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, increase heat to medium-high, and cook, stirring, until the mushrooms have softened and exuded liquid, and that liquid has cooked off, about 5 minutes. Stir in the cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg (if using), chopped spinach, and reserved sausage (if using) and bring to a simmer. Remove the skillet from heat and let cool slightly.

bake the frittata In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, salt, and pepper. Stir in the vegetable mixture, scallions, and goat cheese. Pour into the prepared dish, and bake until golden and set, about 30 minutes.

to serve Cool on a rack for 5 minutes before serving in squares.

everything drop biscuits with cream cheese

They’re going to throw me out of New York City for saying this, but there are times when a bagel can feel like too much, too heavy to go with a simple breakfast. I’ll head toward the Holland Tunnel now; I know I’ve shamed my adopted home. But if I go far enough south, nobody is going to question my occasional preference for a biscuit—quick, tender, with crisp edges, and just the right size to scoop up some scrambled eggs without sending me back to bed for a nap. Don’t trust New Yorkers around biscuits, though—they’re liable to do things like this to them. An everything biscuit may seem a poor replacement for a well-made bagel, but we find it to be an enjoyable riff on a standard biscuit. It’s also fun to make: you fling a simple cream-cheese-enriched biscuit dough from a big spoon into a seed pit of flavor, give it a tumble, and bake it in the oven. Once the biscuit is broken open and slathered with butter, you get the best of both worlds. If you halve it and add more cream cheese, lox, and capers, you’ve created a brunch that people can neatly eat with their hands. As the holster for a fried-egg sandwich, it trumps a bagel any day. [Ducks.]

makes 12 biscuits

seed mix

2 tablespoons (15 grams) sesame seeds

2 tablespoons (15 grams) poppy seeds

1 tablespoon (7 grams) dried minced onion

2 teaspoons (6 grams) dried minced garlic

1 teaspoon coarse salt

biscuits

2½ cups (325 grams) all-purpose flour

2½ teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon coarse salt

4 tablespoons (55 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

4 ounces (115 grams) plain cream cheese (half an 8-ounce foil brick), cold, cut into cubes

1 cup (235 ml) buttermilk

Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine the seeds with the dried onion, garlic, and coarse salt in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and 1 teaspoon salt. Scatter the butter and cream cheese over the dry mixture, and use your fingertips or a pastry blender to work them in until the mixture resembles rubbly sand. Add the milk or buttermilk, and stir until just combined, with the dough clumping together.

Drop the dough in about twelve equal mounds (it’s okay if you get more or less), one at a time, into the everything-seed mixture. Use your fingertips to give them a little half-roll through the seeds, and space them evenly on the baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough. (You’ll have some extra seeds. I love these as a garnish.) Bake until golden and your home smells like a bagelry, about 12 minutes.

note The biscuits are best on the first day. You can freeze the unbaked dough in mounds. Let warm slightly from freezer, then roll in the seeds before baking.

ricotta blini with honey, orange, and sea salt

I first discovered syrniki—fried quark or farmer’s-cheese pancakes—because my mother-in-law makes them for my kids for breakfast when they stay at her house. She’d pack up leftovers for us, but they weren’t the same the next day. It wasn’t until I had them straight from the skillet at a Russian restaurant in Brighton Beach—all faintly crisped edges, and with an almost oozing center, dusted with powdered sugar, and served with a fruit compote—that I understood why there were five comments on my site and two e-mails in a single year requesting a recipe.

It’s blasphemous, but I ditched the farmer’s cheese first, mostly because it’s not as easy to find, and replaced it with ricotta. From there, I swapped the raisins with currants, added sea salt and orange zest, and finished them with honey, a flavor combination I fell in love with at Olive et Gourmando, a café in Montreal. Syrniki by way of Canada sounds a little odd, I know, but there was no going back once we made them like this.

I’ve found that there are two common “types” of syrniki: taller ones that form perfect rounds and look almost like crumpets cooking in a skillet; and the ones that are less perfectly shaped, with an almost loose center and a tendency to collapse after they cool. I am, in syrniki and in most foods, on Team Ugly Food. The latter, to me, are much more plush and unforgettable, and they reheat beautifully…you know, should they last long enough to provide leftovers.

makes 16 pancakes

¾ cup (100 grams) all-purpose flour, plus ⅓ cup (45 grams) for rolling and more for sprinkling the tray

1 cup (235 grams) whole-milk ricotta

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon (15 grams) granulated sugar

Finely grated zest of ½ orange

1 teaspoon (5 ml) white vinegar

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon coarse salt

⅓ cup (45 grams) dried currants (optional)

Neutral oil, for frying

Powdered sugar, to finish

Honey, gently warmed

Flaked sea salt, to finish

Sprinkle a large tray lightly with flour. In a large bowl, whisk together the ricotta, eggs, sugar, zest, and vinegar. In a small bowl, combine ¾ cup flour, the baking soda, and the salt. Stir into the wet mixture until thoroughly combined, then mix in the currants, if desired.

Place the remaining ⅓ cup flour in a medium-sized wide-ish bowl. Drop large spoonfuls (about 2 tablespoons each) of the batter into the flour, and shimmy the bowl around to get the dough mostly coated in flour. Pick up a glob of dough gently with floured hands, and toss it back and forth between your palms to form it loosely into a ball. The dough will be very, very soft. Place the ball on a floured baking tray; then repeat with the remaining batter.

Heat a large, heavy skillet over medium heat. Add 3 tablespoons oil. Don’t skimp—most will drain off or stay in the pan. Shaking off the excess flour, drop 3 to 4 balls of pancake batter into the heated oil a couple inches apart, pressing each down to form a slightly flattened disc. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook until golden underneath, 1½ to 2 minutes. Flip each pancake, and cook until golden brown on the second side. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Repeat with the remaining balls of pancake batter, adding more oil if needed.

Transfer the cooked pancakes to a serving plate, and dust with powdered sugar. Drizzle honey over the pancakes. Sprinkle with a few flakes of sea salt. The pancakes are definitely the most magical right after they’re cooked, when they’re still soft in the center. They will flatten somewhat but still taste delicious after they’ve rested for a while.

loaded breakfast potato skins

I’ve worked from home for ten years now, which means I’ve probably answered the question “So—what do you do all day?” at least ten thousand times, and I want you to know that I have never once answered honestly. I mean, sure, I cook, update my website, and freelance, while also doting on my kids—but I think, if you could really peer deep into my brain waves, you’d see me spending an unholy amount of time trying to make totally unacceptable foods seem safe enough for routine consumption.

Case in point: loaded potato skins, which were the star of the party at the local strip-mall TGI Fridays when I was in high school. Potatoes are scooped out, fried to make a giant cup-shaped, deeply golden French fry, then filled with all sorts of amazing things, like cheese, sour cream, chives, and bacon. Alas, I do not have the metabolism (or, thank goodness, decision-making skills) of a 17-year-old, and so I’ve taken to making them this way instead: they’re baked, not fried; they actually contain protein in the form of a whole egg; and they require only a modicum of cheese, bacon, and sour cream to make them seem indulgent. And then I try to pass them off as breakfast, and they’re a huge hit; they’re also great for crowds, because you can prep everything in advance and then just bake the eggs when you’re ready to eat.

makes 8 potato skins, serving 4

4 large russet potatoes, scrubbed clean

3 slices (about 85 grams) bacon

1 tablespoon (15 grams) butter, melted

Salt

1 cup (85 grams) grated sharp cheddar

8 medium or large eggs

Freshly ground black pepper

⅓ cup (80 grams) sour cream

1 scallion, thinly sliced

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Prick the potatoes all over with a fork. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until crisp-tender. Leave the oven on, and cool the potatoes on a rack until you’re able to pick them up with a towel, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium frying pan, cook the bacon until crisp. Chop or crumble, and set aside.

to make the potatoes Halve them, and scoop out the centers, leaving a little potato flesh (about a ¼-inch wall) in the skins. Brush the insides and outsides with melted butter, then sprinkle with salt. Bake facedown for 5 minutes, flip faceup, sprinkle the centers with 1 tablespoon cheese each, then bake for 5 minutes more.

Crack an egg into each half. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese, and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until the whites are set and the yolks are loose. (You’ll want to keep an eye on these after 10 minutes.) Some eggs might finish before others; take them out as they do.

Grind black pepper over the eggs as soon as they come out of the oven. Serve each egg cup with a dollop of sour cream, plus scallions and bacon on top. Eat immediately. Pretend you’re back in high school—uh, in a good way.

note To make this vegetarian, just skip the bacon. You can also scramble the egg, which I do for my kid who is suspicious of runny yolks. To add some vegetables, sauté a little spinach, or chop a few steamed broccoli florets, and scoop onto the potatoes before you add the egg; but unless your potatoes are extra-large, limit the amount to a scant 1 tablespoon per potato-skin cup.

sticky toffee waffles

Prior to an all-too-brief trip to London 3 years ago, I had spent exactly zero minutes of my life thinking about, craving, or noting the absence of sticky toffee pudding in my life. Clearly, this was a misstep, but I’d always assumed it was exceedingly sticky, sweet, and quiveringly warm, none of which are my thing. I hadn’t realized that this pudding was as much about dried fruit as it was about the butterscotched puddle around it, and I hadn’t realized that dates, the fruit in question, taste simultaneously like whiskey, vanilla, and plums—which is to say, like some of the most wonderful things to eat in the world.

Now I realize that sticky toffee pudding—one of the most over-the-top British desserts—seems about as fitting for breakfast as an ice cream sundae followed by a shot of vodka—but what if I told you that these waffles are sweetened entirely with dates, with no added sugar? And that they are absolutely loaded with fruit? It’s a full 50 percent of the batter; the recipe basically has more fiber than the most earnest slice of whole-grain toast. Sure, you’re going to ladle them with the most decadently gooey toffee sauce and, if you’re us, finish it with a dollop of unsweetened whipped cream and a few flakes of sea salt (let’s not expect to see this as part of the American Heart Association’s recommended diet anytime soon). But I bet—no, I can just about guarantee you—that if you make these for holiday houseguests on a cold December morning, they may never leave, which means that perhaps you should not. Perhaps these should be our little secret.

makes 12 waffles

waffles

2 cups (11¾ ounces or 335 grams) dates

1½ cups (355 ml) boiling water

6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for brushing waffle iron

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon fine sea or table salt

1½ cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour

¼ cup (20 grams) cornstarch

toffee sauce

4 tablespoons (55 grams) unsalted butter

½ cup (120 ml) heavy or whipping cream

½ cup (95 grams) dark- or light-brown sugar

1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract

to serve

Dollops of unsweetened softly whipped cream

A few flakes of sea salt

prepare the dates Pit and roughly chop the dates, and place them in a heatproof bowl. Pour the boiling water over them, cover the bowl, and set aside for 30 minutes.

meanwhile, make the sauce Combine the butter, cream, and sugar in a larger saucepan than you think you’ll need, over medium heat, and bring to a very low simmer. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens slightly. Stir in the vanilla.

heat the oven To 350 degrees. Place a heatproof wire rack on a rimmed baking sheet nearby.

make the waffles Blend the date-water mixture with butter in a blender or food processor until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time and blend. Sprinkle in the baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and blend until combined. Add the flour along with the cornstarch and pulse just until flour disappears.

cook the waffles Heat your waffle iron. In my waffle iron, I find a low-medium setting to be best for these waffles. Brush the iron with melted butter, or coat with a nonstick cooking spray. Pour the waffle batter into the iron in about ½ cup scoopfuls. If it seems too thick to be pourable, you can stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons extra water. Cook the waffles according to manufacturer’s directions. As they finish, transfer them to the prepared rack. They will be soft. When all the waffles are done, finish them in the heated oven for 5 minutes, which will crisp them up.

to serve If the sauce has firmed, gently rewarm it. Ladle the sauce generously over each single waffle, then finish with a dollop of whipped cream and a few flakes of sea salt. Enjoy with abandon.

notes

These work with both Medjool and Deglet Noor dates but if you have access to both, we prefer the latter, which are often more firm.

The waffles themselves freeze fantastically well, and—ahem, lots of fruit! no added sugar!—without the sauce, they might even get passed off as a weekday breakfast. But the sauce can be kept in the fridge for up to a week. Rewarm it and stir before using.

raspberry hazelnut brioche bostock

Many years ago, before the web was sufficiently populated to tell you everything you needed to know about an eatery before you got there, we lived a few blocks from a pastry shop that had a line out the door every morning. We had all sorts of theories about it. “I bet they make an awesome chocolate croissant,” he wondered. “Or brioche! I bet they make amazingly tender and buttery brioche!” I hoped. When we finally made our way over there to try their croissants and brioche, we realized two things: one, both were delicious, but not exactly line-worthy; and, two, we had ordered wrong. Just about every other customer in the place was there for something else: a square of bread covered in almonds and powdered sugar that I had never seen before.

I’ve spent years making up for lost time with brioche bostock, a clever invention of French bakeries in which day-old brioche is brought back to life with a dousing of syrup, usually flavored with orange and liqueur, then spread with frangipane (a sweet, buttery almond paste) and thinly sliced almonds, before being baked until crisp and bronzed from corner to corner, and finally showered with powdered sugar. You might even call it “French French toast.” There’s no batter, no dipping, and no knife and fork needed. This toast is delightfully portable.

Though I love almond paste, when I made it at home, this combination of deeply toasted hazelnuts and fresh raspberries quickly became our favorite. A light coating of smashed berries perfectly offsets the buttery sweetness of the hazelnut frangipane on top, and a final crunch of coarse nuts and a dusting of sugar make it worth forming a line out the kitchen door. I promise.

makes 8 toasts

hazelnut cream

1¼ cups (175 grams) skinned hazelnuts, well toasted

pinch of sea salt

6 tablespoons (75 grams) granulated sugar

6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, cold if using food processor; otherwise at room temp

1 large egg

¼ teaspoon almond extract, 1 teaspoon brandy, or 2 teaspoons Frangelico liqueur

syrup

⅔ cup (155 ml) water

⅔ cup (130 grams) granulated sugar

A few thick peel strips from ½ orange

1 tablespoon orange liqueur, or ½ teaspoon orange oil (optional)

brioche toast

8 slices brioche, ¾-to-1-inch thick, lightly toasted if not already stale

1 cup (125 grams) fresh raspberries

Powdered sugar, for dusting

to make the hazelnut cream in a food processor Combine ¾ cup of the hazelnuts—reserve remainder for garnish—the salt, and the sugar in a food processor, and grind as finely as possible. Add butter, and blend until combined, scraping down the sides if needed. Add the egg and extract or flavoring; blend until combined. Transfer to a bowl, and chill until firm but spreadable.

to make the cream without a food processor Mince ¾ cup hazelnuts to a fine powder and mix with sugar and salt. Whisk butter with the hazelnut-sugar mixture, egg, and flavoring until combined. Chill until firm but spreadable.

make the syrup Combine the water, sugar, and orange peels in a small saucepan, and bring to a simmer. Stirring frequently, simmer until sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then fish out and discard the peels and add any liqueur or flavoring.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Place an oven-safe cooling rack on a baking sheet and arrange the brioche slices in one layer.

Generously brush each slice with the syrup. Divide the raspberries among slices of brioche and mash them roughly, unevenly, into the syrup-soaked bread. Dollop each slice with equal amounts of hazelnut cream, and use a small offset spatula or butter knife to spread it evenly over each surface. Don’t worry if it makes a mess of the raspberries already mashed on—that’s the point! Coarsely chop the remaining hazelnuts, and sprinkle some over each slice.

Bake the brioche for 10 to 15 minutes, until puffed and golden all over. Remove from the oven, and dust with powdered sugar. Eat warm or at room temperature.

note Brioche is traditional here, but you can use any enriched bread instead (such as challah).

polenta-baked eggs with corn, tomato, and fontina

These might be the coziest baked eggs I know how to make. Polenta (or grits) is cooked until soft and studded with sweet corn kernels, a couple dollops of sour cream, melty fontina, parsley, chives, and a swirl of tomatoes; then eggs are nested on top and baked. Because of dishes like this, the overlapping seasons of tomato and corn are one of my favorite points in the summer—which seems like a good time to tell you I also made this in January.

Gasp! It’s true. Don’t get me wrong: nothing makes me happier than getting in-season, exquisite fresh produce from a farm stand. It’s just that this only happens for a couple months of the year in the Northeast. The rest of the time, what’s left is what the grocery store carries. It’s never as good, but I’ve found that it’s a great baseline in recipes—as in, if I can make the saddest-looking corn taste incredible in the dead of winter, just imagine how great this will be when the good stuff arrives.

Thus, do know that this will work with cheap cornmeal, frozen kernels, and jarred sauce; it’s exceptional, even. We licked our plates clean. But should you find yourself with access to Anson Mills grits, Early Girl tomatoes, and the kind of corn that New Jersey excels at in August—oh man, you’re in for a treat. Trust us. We were lucky enough to have it both ways.

makes 2 hearty or 4 petite breakfasts

2 cups (475 ml) water

½ cup (70 grams) fine polenta or yellow cornmeal

½ cup (60 grams) fresh corn kernels, from 1 small cob (or use frozen, defrosted)

½ cup (55 grams) coarsely grated fontina, plus 3 tablespoons for sprinkling

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons (30 grams) sour cream or crème fraîche

¼ cup (60 grams) prepared tomato sauce or tomato purée

4 large eggs

Fresh flat-leaf parsley or chives, for garnish

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Bring the water to a simmer in a medium-sized saucepan over medium-high heat. Slowly whisk in the polenta, trying to avoid lumps then lower the heat to medium-low and simmer the mixture, stirring almost constantly, for 15 minutes. Stir in the corn kernels, and cook for 5 minutes more, continuing to stir regularly. Add ½ cup cheese, and stir until melted; then season well with salt and pepper. Add the sour cream, and stir until partially combined. (I like to leave a few creamy bits throughout.)

Coat a 1-quart baking dish or an 8-to-8½-inch oven-safe skillet with butter or nonstick cooking spray. Transfer the polenta to the dish, then dollop with spoonfuls of tomato; swirl them unevenly into the polenta, so that there are pockets of tomato throughout.

Smooth the top of the polenta and use a spoon to make four deep wells, and crack an egg into each hole. Sprinkle the whole dish with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with the 3 tablespoons cheese. Bake in the heated oven until the whites are firm and the yolks are runny; you can check progress by inserting a toothpick into the whites to see if they’ve firmed up. If you plan to serve this dish more than a few minutes after taking it out of the oven, remove the eggs from the polenta before they are done, because otherwise they will continue to cook in the hot polenta. If you’d like it to be a little brown on top, run the pan under your broiler when the eggs are only halfway as cooked as you like.

Sprinkle with parsley or chives, and serve with a spoon.

note This scales up well for a crowd.

magical two-ingredient oat brittle

You’d think that as someone who boasts craftsmanship of three granola recipes—or as much as one can over a dish that she hardly invented—I would always have a jar of it around. I don’t. I mean, we’re happier when we do, but the reality is that the overlap in the Venn diagram of All Granola Ingredients Are in Stock, and Desire to Make Homemade Granola and Not, Say, Binge on Orange Is the New Black is, for the sake of honesty, pathetically slim.

Enter: Magical Two-Ingredient Oat Brittle, in which the title is almost longer than the ingredient list. After making a maple-oat topping for a fruit crumble a few years ago, I wondered how it would stand up on its own and was delighted to find that it did. It’s a cinch to make and, once cool, can be lifted from parchment paper in large sheets with about 10 percent of the usual number of ingredients considered essential to do so. It keeps forever, which you can correctly read as me saying I happily ate from a jar of it that was at least a year old and I’ve lived to tell about it. It may not have the complexity of a twelve-ingredient granola recipe, but it has an intense crunch, a light sweetness, and as many clusters as your heart desires.

makes a heaped ½ cup brittle

½ cup (50 grams) old-fashioned rolled oats

2 tablespoons (30 ml) maple syrup

A couple pinches of sea salt

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a small dish, stir the oats, syrup, and salt together until the oats are coated with liquid. Spread the sticky mixture out on a small parchment-lined baking sheet in a thin layer; the oats should be touching each other but not in any piles. Bake for 10 minutes and take a look. You want it to be toasted light golden at the edges—this usually takes 3 more minutes, but it’s always safer to check. Remove from the oven, and let the brittle cool completely on the baking sheet, then lift it off in one pleasing sheet and break into chunks.

flipped crispy egg taco with singed greens

I have never met an intersection of eggs and tortillas I could walk away from without ordering it. My obsession was always bad—scrambled-egg burritos, enchiladas, baked eggs in black beans—but it went into overdrive when, a few weeks before I finished this book, my husband surprised me with a birthday weekend away in Mexico City. I would have needed a month to get through all the glorious ways to eat eggs, from huevos revueltos al gusto (scrambled with additions), rancheros mexicanos (fried with tomato, onion, and chiles), divorciados (two fried eggs, one with red salsa, one with green), motuleños (black beans, cheese, and then some), and al albañil (scrambled with hot salsa and fresh cheese) to ahogados (poached in salsa), all usually served with refried beans, avocado, and corn tortillas, not to mention chilaquiles. Hold me.

I came back with an aching desire to find the breakfast taco I could eat any day of the week that might even offset the effects of all the pan dulce (sweet breads and pastries) we also couldn’t resist. I found everything I needed right in the fridge, where a container of washed curly kale for salads, a bag of corn tortillas, eggs, and plain yogurt are almost always in stock. The greens are singed in a smoking-hot skillet for about 30 seconds, until they just start to crisp and collapse; the egg is fried until bubbling and crisp, and then flipped for just enough seconds so it’s still loose but will mostly stay within the confines of the taco; the tortillas are charred a little over the gas flame; and the whole mess is finished with a dollop of yogurt and as much hot sauce as makes your heart happy. Use avocado if you don’t want yogurt; use some diced tomato if you don’t like hot sauce; but, please, do not skimp on those greens and eggs.

makes 2 tacos

Olive oil

1 ounce (30 grams) curly kale leaves, washed, torn into largish chunks

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 small corn tortillas

2 eggs

2 dollops of plain yogurt

Hot sauce

Heat a small heavy skillet over the highest heat for a full minute. Coat the bottom of the pan with a glug of olive oil, and heat the oil until it is almost smoking, about another 30 seconds. Add the greens, and be careful, because they’re going to hiss and splatter. Use tongs to press them against the bottom of the pan so they singe on one side; then flip the greens and do it again. They should begin to wilt. Transfer them to a plate, and season with salt and pepper.

Again using tongs, hold the tortillas over a gas flame until they’re warmed and slightly charred. Add them to the plate with the greens.

Return the heavy skillet to a very high flame, heating it for another full minute. Add a good glug of olive oil (don’t skimp; most will stay in the pan, but a stuck egg is a sad one), and heat this for another full minute. Drop your egg in, and jump back—it’s going to pop and splatter insanely. This is not for the faint of heart. If you have the nerve to get closer, you can spoon a little of the cooking oil over the egg white to help it bubble. Season well with salt and pepper, and cook until the underside is a deep-golden color and crisp, about 2 minutes. Use a thin spatula to loosen the egg carefully from the pan and flip it; cook it for another 20 seconds or so. Transfer to a plate with the other ingredients. Repeat with the remaining egg.

Assemble the tacos by piling each tortilla with singed greens, placing an egg on top, then a dollop of yogurt, and a few shakes of hot sauce. Eat immediately, folding the taco as you pick it up, breaking the yolk.

alex’s bloody mary shrimp cocktail

Nobody knows who really invented the Bloody Mary, although there have been many claims—one Fernand Petiot in 1921 at what later became Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, the Hemingway Bar at the Ritz Paris, and also New York’s “21” Club. None of the above, however, can answer the question an alien might ask if dropped into a boozy weekend brunch in the year 2017 to find people drinking tall glasses of tomato juice and vodka enhanced with anchovyish steak sauce, hot sauce, horseradish root, olives, celery, lemon, and salt and pepper by choice, which is, forgive me, “Really?” But don’t listen to the skeptics; the drink has legions of fans including my husband and his family, which means I’ve had countless opportunities over the years to tweak my own version to their tastes: heavy on the horseradish, heat, and pickled things. It was only a matter of time before I mashed it up with my husband’s other classic restaurant favorite, shrimp cocktail, a more natural fit than it sounds when you consider that traditional shrimp cocktail sauce uses tomatoes enhanced with horseradish, spice, and lemon. We prefer quick-grilled shrimp to poached, and grilling on skewers allows you to use those skewers to prop the shrimp over the drinks. A salt, celery, and pepper rim makes it fancy. A rib of celery makes it traditional. And making it at home means you get all the shrimp, refills, and fixings you want without having to flag down a waiter.

makes 4 drinks

cocktail

1½ cups (12 ounces or 355 ml) tomato juice

¾ cup (6 ounces or 175 ml) vodka

2 teaspoons (10 ml) Worcestershire sauce

3 tablespoons (45 grams) prepared horseradish

8 dashes of hot sauce, plus more to taste

4 pinches of celery salt

A couple shakes of sweet smoked paprika, hot smoked paprika, or chipotle powder

4 pinches of fine salt

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

Juice of ½ lemon

shrimp

1 pound (455 grams) large shrimp, unpeeled

2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive brine, from jar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

6 to 8 skewers

1 tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil

Juice of ½ lemon

Cocktail onions (optional)

Olives (optional)

assembly

A pinch or two of celery salt

1 tablespoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

4 cups (680 grams) ice cubes

4 celery stalks, ideally with leaves still attached

make the cocktail Combine all the drink ingredients in a pitcher, saving the empty lemon half. Refrigerate until needed.

prepare the shrimp Toss the shrimp with the olive brine and salt and pepper to taste. Thread 3 onto the top half of each skewer, leaving an inch clear above the top shrimp. Brush the shrimp on the skewers with olive oil. Heat the grill as hot as you can. Once it’s fully hot, place the shrimp skewers on the grill. Grill for 4 to 5 minutes, flipping once or more as needed for even browning. Remove the skewers from the grill to a platter and squeeze the lemon juice over them.

You can serve the shrimp in one of two ways: leaving them on the skewers (you may wish to add an olive or cocktail onion to the empty inch on top) or removing them from skewers and hanging them off the edge of the glasses, classic shrimp cocktail style.

assemble the cocktails Mix the celery salt, kosher salt, and pepper on a very small plate. Use the empty lemon half from the cocktail-mixing step to wipe the top rim of four 11-to-12-ounce tumblers. Dip the rims in the salt mixture. Carefully drop 1 cup ice into each glass. Give the cocktail mixture in the pitcher a stir and divide it among the four glasses. Garnish with a celery stalk and a shrimp skewer or loose shrimp. Toast and feast!

note We triple this for a crowd.

perfect blueberry muffins

When early summer blueberries first show up at the market, it feels like sacrilege to bake with them—ditto with raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Mother Nature made them perfectly! Why drown them in batter, wilt them with heat, and then leave them out to dry? What brutes we’d be! But there’s a day in late August when something shifts. The high for the day is in the 60s and you wish for a cardigan. I live for cardigan weather. Suddenly the prospect of a berry baked into something warm and cozy, something that you might eat with your first hot coffee of the season, seems absolutely right.

I want these to be the last blueberry muffins you ever make because I culled everything I had ever eaten, read, or loved about muffins and squashed them into 9 overfilled cups. From Cook’s Illustrated, I learned that a muffin with a thick batter suspends blueberries, no coating in flour necessary. From Blythe Danner, I realized you could put an inordinate amount of berries in each muffin and still have a very good muffin. From Stella Parks at Serious Eats, I came to agree that a full teaspoon of coarse sugar on top of each muffin sounds crazy but actually makes for a delightfully crunchy lid. If the muffin underneath it isn’t too sweet, the extra sugar doesn’t put it over the top at all—it’s just right. From my own muffin recipes over the years, I knew I could one-bowl this (yes, it’s a verb, at least around here), and while I was at it, I could ditch the creaming of the butter and the sifting (sifting! To make muffins! NO). And FTLOG, who—in practice, not just in ambitious recipe writing—measures zest in half-teaspoons?

Finally, it had always bothered me that my recipe made 10 to 11 muffins only. A muffin recipe should make an even dozen! Did I make it happen? Nope. I went the other way and found this makes 9 much prettier towering muffins with perfectly bronzed domes; double it for a dozen and a half.

makes 9 muffins

5 tablespoons (70 grams) unsalted butter (cold is fine)

½ cup (100 grams) granulated sugar

Finely grated zest from ½ lemon

¾ cup (175 grams) plain unsweetened yogurt or sour cream

1 large egg

1½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon fine sea or table salt

1½ cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour

1¼ to 1½ cups (215 to 255 grams) blueberries, fresh or frozen (do not defrost)

3 tablespoons (35 grams) raw (turbinado) sugar

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a muffin tin with 9 paper liners or spray each cup with a nonstick spray. Melt the butter and pour into the bottom of a large bowl, and whisk in the granulated sugar, lemon zest, yogurt, and egg until smooth. Whisk in the baking powder, baking soda, and salt until fully combined, then lightly fold in the flour and berries. The batter will be very thick, like a cookie dough. Divide between the prepared muffin cups and sprinkle each muffin with 1 teaspoon turbinado sugar. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tops of the muffins are golden and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean (you know, except for blueberry goo). Let the muffins cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then the rest of the way on a rack.

These, like most muffins, are best on the first day. But we’ve found—through extensive “research”—that if you heat them split open under a broiler on day two with a pat of salted butter, they are so good that you’re going to forever hope for more blueberry-muffin leftovers.

notes

The smaller amount (1¼ cups) of blueberries listed in the ingredients will make a well-berried muffin. The larger amount (1½ cups) is for people—me! me!—who like just a little bit of muffin with their blueberries.