I have a group chat going with some friends that’s usually focused on knitting, but the topic often turns to recipes. (Which makes sense: What is cooking but arts and crafts with food?)
This broccoli-walnut pesto pasta by Genevieve Ko entered the chat to much fanfare, and rightfully so. It’s fast, a cinch to make and surprisingly complex in flavor: The mix of softly bitter walnuts, refreshing mint and punchy lemon and garlic really sings. Mostly, we love how this recipe turns that everyday crucifer into a luscious, I-can’t-believe-it’s-broccoli sauce.
I should note, too, that a member of this chat is a principal dancer with the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. So if you’re wondering if this pasta good enough for an elite professional athlete, the answer is yes.
Featured Recipe
Broccoli-Walnut Pesto Pasta
I’ll also pass you Christian Reynoso’s creamy coconut-lime rice with peanuts, another recipe that my ballerina bud has on repeat. I don’t think she’s the only one — check out those five stars and nearly 2,000 ratings.
There are some impressively large chicken legs in my fridge, and, after I split them into drumsticks and thighs, they’re destined to become sheet-pan gochujang chicken with roasted vegetables. Yewande Komolafe’s recipe checks all the boxes: spicy, sweet, salty, easy, versatile. She calls for a mix of squash and turnips, but, as she notes, you can swap in an equal amount of root vegetables, cauliflower, broccoli, whatever you like. (I keep the turnips; I’ll take any excuse to bring home a bunch of shiny white harukeis.)
And, as always, there are beans in my pantry. Melissa Clark’s fast vegetarian skillet chili — a New York Times Cooking classic — needs two 15-ounce cans of beans, dealer’s choice. (Kidney and black beans for me, please.) Fun fact: If you put Jocelyn Delk Adams’s sweet potato cornbread in the oven right as you start your chili, both should be done around the same time.
Lastly, I know we still have Friday to finagle, but I’m already daydreaming about what my weekend cooking project will be. Mark Bittman’s gravlax is a strong contender, a tiny bit of Saturday prep for gorgeous sheets of Sunday salmon.
And this malva pudding, a recipe by Eric Adjepong, adapted by Genevieve, is an absolute yes. I can’t resist any sort of soaked cake and I’ve already checked namoura and Persian love cake off my list. Now I must make this tender, apricot-flavored cake, drenched as it is with buttery sweetened cream.
