Zucchini with sage and caramelized onions

This simple dish celebrates summer produce and herbs like zucchini and sage. #caramelizedonions #sage #simplerecipes #dinner #lunch #vegetarian

This 5-ingredient dish (I’m not counting water, salt, and pepper) is super simple, but tastes surprisingly complex and can be customized in endless ways to suit your family’s tastes.

Take me to the recipe!

This simple dish celebrates summer produce and herbs like zucchini and sage. #caramelizedonions #sage #simplerecipes #dinner #lunch #vegetarian

So, I love zucchini. I actually kind of grieved when my glorious early zucchini plant withered and died thanks to a hungry squash vine borer this summer. But, truth be told, zucchini is kind of a zero in the flavor department. One of its best qualities is that it takes on the personality of whatever it’s paired with, right?

Take zoodles, for example. You would think the titular veg would be the star of the show, but those fake noodles are nothing without a great sauce!

Anyway, THIS zucchini dish has caramelized onions and plenty of salt for flavor, sage for herbiness, and goat cheese to give everything a creamy, saucy vibe. The zucchini is really there for body and to provide a base for the other flavors and it totally does the job!

This simple dish celebrates summer produce and herbs like zucchini and sage. #caramelizedonions #sage #simplerecipes #dinner #lunch #vegetarian

This simple dish celebrates summer produce and herbs like zucchini and sage. #caramelizedonions #sage #simplerecipes #dinner #lunch #vegetarian

But can we talk about sage for a second? Where our zucchini flopped, our sage flourished and we ended up with the most gigantic and brilliant green leaves. But sage feels so autumnal that I struggle to use it in the summer time. And in all fairness, the combo of caramelized onions, goat cheese, and sage does have an autumn vibe. But when paired with the summery zucchini, you can totally eat this in July without feeling like you’re trying to speed up time.

A couple of notes:

• I spiralized the zucchini, but when cooking the zoodles, they produce a lot of water. If you want something a little dryer or just don’t have/don’t want a spiralizer, just chop the zucchini into 1/2 inch cubes. They’ll be less wet, but no less delicious.

• We added white fish to this dish the first time we made it and it was my favorite iteration by far. You can absolutely add a can of beans, shredded chicken, or any other protein as well. But anything that requires more than a few minutes of cooking time (the white fish was thin and cooked in about 6 minutes) should be pre-cooked and added along with the zucchini to heat up during the veg’s short cooking time.

This simple dish celebrates summer produce and herbs like zucchini and sage. #caramelizedonions #sage #simplerecipes #dinner #lunch #vegetarian

Zucchini with caramelized onions and sage

Time: 30 minutes, all active
Yield: 2 large adult servings, 2 kid servings or more if you add protein

2 large onions, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 -3 cups water
1 tsp salt, divided, or to taste
5-10 x-large sage leaves (about 1½ to 3 Tbsp chopped fresh sage), to taste
2 large zucchini, chopped or spiralized
Pepper, to taste
½ cup soft goat cheese, or to taste

Heat the olive oil in a large pan with a tight fitting lid until a drop of water sizzles. 

Turn the flame to medium* and add the onions. Stir frequently until some browning begins on the onions or in the pan. Once this happens, add 2-3 Tbsp of water (or, enough to loosen those browned bits from the bottom of the pan), stir and scrape to loosen the browned bits, cover with the lid, and let cook for 2 minutes.**

Repeat this process until the onions are soft and have turned a dark brown color.

*If the onions or the pan are browning too fast, turn down the flame. 

**If there is too much water in the pan when you take off the lid after letting the onions cook for 2 minutes, turn up the flame and let the onions cook with the cover off until there’s more browning on the pan that can be deglazed.

Once the onions are browned to your liking (I usually stop after about 20 minutes), add ½ tsp salt and pepper to taste. 

Add the sage and stir well. 

(If adding protein to the pan, add it now and cook to your preferred doneness.)

Add the zucchini and stir into the onions and sage. Cook for 2-3 minutes, or until the zucchini is slightly wilted. I like the zucchini to have a bit of crunch, so if you like it cooked a bit more, add a few more minutes here.

Add the rest of the salt and pepper to taste. 

Top with the goat cheese and serve.

Browned butter and leek mashed potatoes

These browned butter and leek mashed potatoes are ultra creamy and decadent. A spring-y, quick, and special take on a comforting side dish for your holiday tables. #mashedpotatoes #springrecipes #holidayrecipes #easterrecipes #passoverrecipes

What’s better on your Easter or Passover table than some decadent (browned butter! cream!), spring-y (leeks!) mashed potatoes?

Take me to the spuds!

These browned butter and leek mashed potatoes are ultra creamy and decadent. A spring-y, quick, and special take on a comforting side dish for your holiday tables. #mashedpotatoes #springrecipes #holidayrecipes #easterrecipes #passoverrecipes

Spring holidays are the best. They feel like a gateway to blue skies, warmer weather, and, this year, like we’re one step closer to some sense of safety and normalcy. Maybe that’s overstating it, but last year’s holidays were SO WEIRD, right?. I was about 5 minutes postpartum with Z, so I’m sure everything felt worse in that state, but I remember being so afraid. We knew so little about Covid and how it spread. We wiped down our groceries with BLEACH. I was afraid to go in our front yard. We left our mail outside for WEEKS. WHAT THE FUCK.

Anyway, this year has been wild. I was actually imagining talking about it in the future. It’s going to be one of those conversations where the other people all went through the same thing, but we all need to talk about it like we were the only ones.

These browned butter and leek mashed potatoes are ultra creamy and decadent. A spring-y, quick, and special take on a comforting side dish for your holiday tables. #mashedpotatoes #springrecipes #holidayrecipes #easterrecipes #passoverrecipes

Anyway, about the potatoes. These are so quick and easy, but a little fancy and extra, which is what I like on a holiday table.

But let’s talk about ricing your mashed potatoes for a sec, shall we? I’m an avowed lazy cook/cleaner. I think it was years of dishwasher-less NYC kitchens that conditioned me to avoid extra dishes at any cost, so I really resisted using a ricer for a long time (and I still don’t use it unless it’s a special occasion). Some people are ricer devotees for achieving those ultra fluffy, creamy potatoes. And when you’re making straight-up, unadorned mashed potatoes, I do think the ricer makes a difference.

However, there are going to be lumps in these potatoes because we’re adding leeks, so I recommend skipping it and saving yourself some time and dishes.

Want to make these extra decadent and fancy? Add a drizzle of cream on top of the potatoes along with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt and some Aleppo pepper to finish it off. It’s *chef’s kiss*.

These browned butter and leek mashed potatoes are ultra creamy and decadent. A spring-y, quick, and special take on a comforting side dish for your holiday tables. #mashedpotatoes #springrecipes #holidayrecipes #easterrecipes #passoverrecipes

These browned butter and leek mashed potatoes are ultra creamy and decadent. A spring-y, quick, and special take on a comforting side dish for your holiday tables. #mashedpotatoes #springrecipes #holidayrecipes #easterrecipes #passoverrecipes

Brown butter and leek mashed potatoes

Time: 20 minutes, all active
Yield: About 4-6 side servings

1 lb Russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1-inch pieces
¼ cup heavy cream + more for drizzling 
1 tsp kosher salt, divided
4 Tbsp butter
1 small leek, trimmed, quartered and sliced
¼ tsp pepper 
Pinch of Aleppo pepper (optional)

In a medium soup pot, cover the peeled and chopped potatoes with cold water. Bring to a boil over a high flame. Once boiling, continue cooking at a rolling boil (you may need to turn the flame down if the water threatens to boil over) for 8-10 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender.

While the potatoes are boiling, clean and chop your leeks and set aside.

Add the butter to a small pan or pot and heat over a medium flame until the butter has melted and begins to bubble vigorously and pop slightly. If the popping is too much or too dangerous, turn the flame down slightly, but you want to maintain the bubbling. Let the butter cook for 1-2 minutes and check to see if little brown bits are separating and falling to the bottom of the pan beneath the bubbles. The butter should smell nutty. This may take a few minutes longer depending on your pan and how cold your butter was to start, so keep checking regularly.

Once the browning has begun, add the leeks and ¼ tsp salt to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, until the leeks also begin to brown. If the browning happens too quickly, turn down the flame.

Drain the potatoes and add ¼ tsp salt. Mash well. 

Add ¼ cup heavy cream to the mashed potatoes and whip vigorously with a spatula or whisk. When the leeks and butter are sufficiently browned, add them to the potatoes. Season with the remaining ½ tsp of kosher salt and ¼ tsp of pepper, or more to taste.

Corn and hominy salad

Take advantage of corn season with this raw, refreshing, and super flavorful corn and hominy salad.

Take me to the recipe!

This salad was inspired by elote or Mexican street corn. When we lived in NYC, my favorite thing to get at the street fairs that popped up on summer weekends (we called them “socks and sausages”) was the grilled corn with mayo, chili powder, cilantro, and cotija cheese. Spray a little lime over those babies and they were the perfect mix of smoky, salty, creamy, and acidic.

I started developing this recipe last summer and never got around to posting it before corn season was over. This salad uses raw corn, so you really want to get the freshest cobs at the peak of their season. You can use frozen or otherwise not-peak corn and give it a quick saute before making the salad, but the fresh, raw stuff is truly the best.

So, there are about 12 million elote salad recipes on the interwebs, so what makes this one different, you ask? Hominy!

Hominy is dried corn kernels that have been soaked in an alkaline solution. Hominy is actually used to make masa, which is the key ingredient in corn tortillas, tamales, and other staples of Mexican cuisine. It has a light corn flavor with a slightly nutty aftertaste. Actually, once you taste hominy, you know that it tastes exactly the way corn tortillas taste.

The hominy adds bulk to the salad that makes it more versatile than a side dish. I’ve added this corn concoction into other meal salads and eaten it on its own with some shredded rotisserie chicken. So, while technically a side dish, this salad can easily transform into the star of the show.

A couple of notes:

• I only use 1/2 of a garlic clove because I want to be able to taste all of the ingredients rather than just raw garlic. If you really like garlic, feel free to use more, but I REALLY REALLY like garlic and 1/2 of a clove was more than enough for me.

• You can find prepared hominy in cans at basically any grocery store. If you have some dried hominy that you want to rehydrate, find instructions here.

• Cotija cheese is a dry, salty cheese that’s close to a farmer’s cheese. Kind of like if Feta and Parmesan had a baby. If you can’t find it, substitute a dry, nutty, crumbly cheese.

Corn and hominy salad

Yield: about 5 cups of salad
Time: 10 minutes

4 medium ears of corn, kernels removed (about 3½ cups)
1 cup hominy
1/3 cup fresh cilantro, tightly packed (stems and leaves are fine)
3 Tbsp mayo
½ tsp kosher salt
Juice of 1 large lime (1 Tbsp)
½-1 tsp chili powder, to taste
½ large garlic clove
Water, as needed to thin out the dressing, added 1 tsp at a time
3 oz cotija cheese

Remove the corn kernels with a knife. I like to use a bundt pan to catch them as they fly around, but any old bowl will do.

Rinse the hominy and add it to the bowl of corn.

In a blender or food processor, add the cilantro, mayo, oil, salt, lime juice, chili powder (start with 1/2 tsp and add more to taste), and garlic and blend until smooth, adding tiny amounts of water to thin out the sauce as necessary.

Mix the cilantro dressing into the corn and hominy.

Taste for seasoning and add more salt, chili powder or lime juice.

Mix in the shredded or grated cojita.