I guess I must be exploring a theme, because this month, I’ve been making and eating a ton of bean dishes that are a bit like chili (in that they are warming and delicious), but that also happen to take advantage of totally different flavor profiles. Even better if they’re quick and easy and cheap, like this dish is.

This recipe, adapted from Food and Wine magazine, uses a bunch of clever tricks to pack a lot of Indian flavor into little-to-no work, like using a combination of quick-cooking yellow split peas and practically already-cooked canned chickpeas and kidney beans. The Magic Bullet makes things even easier by chopping up the jalapeño, garlic, and ginger, easy peasy.

Indian-Style Three Bean Dal

Ingredients

• 1 cup dried yellow split peas
• 3 Tbsp olive or vegetable oil
• 1 piece of ginger, about 1.5 inches, peeled
• 2 large garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 jalapeño, seeded (unless you like it hot)
• 2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1 small tomato, chopped
• 1 Tbsp tomato paste
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup water
• 15 oz can chickpeas, drained
• 15 oz can red kidney beans, drained
• Salt
• Rice or naan for serving, optional

Directions

1. In a large pot, bring six cups of water to a boil. Add the split peas and a generous pinch of salt and boil until just beginning to break down, about 50 minutes. Drain well.
2. Meanwhile, blend the garlic, jalapeno, and ginger in the Magic Bullet.
3. In a large, deep skillet, heat the oil over medium-high. Add the ginger, garlic, jalapeño, cumin and cayenne and cook until softened, about six minutes. Add the tomato and tomato paste and cook until the tomato is slightly broken down, about 5 minutes.
4. Add the cream, butter and water and bring to a boil.
5. Stir in the yellow split peas, chickpeas and kidney beans and season with salt. Simmer over low heat until thickened, about 15 minutes. Serve.

I was in Philly a few months back, doing something of a noodle crawl – it was pho-tastic – and one of the best things that I had was a dish that was not pho. It was a bowl of “Burmese cold noodles” at a little restaurant called Stock. It had a great mix of funky, chewy, crunchy, floral, and rich flavors… I just knew I had to make it myself.

This required a fair amount of reverse engineering. The menu described the ingredients as “wife’s noodles, sesame, turmeric-pickled celery, tofu, cilantro, daikon radish, house chili oil.” Well, OK, that’s confusing. The noodles that I remember were chewy and soft with just a bit of spring, so I substituted soba noodles. So far so good. I can get Chinese chili oil at the grocery store, always have some Chinese black sesame around for cold sesame noodles, and routinely fry up pressed tofu, so those are covered. Daikon radish? Meh. I remember that as just being crunchy stuff, and when I want to add crunch and flavor to an Asian dish, I go with fried ginger and garlic. Yeah, that’s good. Forget the turmeric-pickled celery nonsense, but I remember there being a clear fermented flavor, so I reached for the miso. And cilantro all over? Yes, please.

In the end, a funky, chewy, crunchy, floral, and rich dish, made in the comfort of my home… Yum.

Sesame Miso Cold Noodles with Fried Garlic and Ginger

Ingredients

• 1 pound soba noodles
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
• 1 piece ginger, peeled and diced
• 1 Tbsp Chinese sesame paste, or use tahini
• 2 tsp. miso (any kind)
• 3 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 Tbsp hot chili oil
• 3 scallions, sliced
• 1 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
• 1 Tbsp vegetable oil, plus more for frying
• ½ pound pressed tofu, cut into pieces

Directions

1. Cook soba noodles according to package instructions and cool them off.
2. Add a big glug of vegetable oil to a pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and ginger and cook until crispy, then remove to paper towels. Add another glug of vegetable oil, let it get hot, and then add the tofu. Cook until crispy on all sides, stirring frequently.
3. Meanwhile, blend miso, sesame paste, soy sauce, rice vinegar, chili oil, and vegetable oil in the Magic Bullet.
4. Mix noodles with sauce and top with cilantro, scallions, and fried ginger and garlic. Serve with a cucumber salad.

Do I really need to sell you on this one? Look at that picture! It contains mascarpone! That’s an Italian cream cheese. In a pasta! With delicious springtime asparagus! Are you crazy?! Scroll down to the recipe and get started making this!

Still here? Well, okay, you’re a tough sell. I can respect that. But seriously, I toast walnuts and cook asparagus in the same water as the pasta for extra convenience, making this essentially a one-pot dish, and there is garlic and nuttiness and the distinctive delicious asparagus flavor. It’s like mac and cheese – I suppose it is mac and cheese, what with the mascarpone and all – but more a subtle creaminess than cheesiness and nom nom nom this is good.

Sold?

This is an adaption from a book called At Elizabeth David’s Table, via Serious Eats, except the asparagus is my addition and a mighty delicious one, if I do say so myself. The Magic Bullet comes in with the assist for chopped garlic and grated parmesan.

Pasta with Mascarpone Cheese, Asparagus, and Walnuts

Ingredients

• 1 pound penne
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 bunch asparagus, woody stems removed, sliced into pieces
• 1/2-1 cup mascarpone
• 3 oz parmesan
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts, tossed in oil

Directions

1. Boil asparagus in heavily salted water until tender. Remove from pot with a slotted spoon and add the pasta. Cook until al dente and drain, reserving about a cup of pasta water.
2. Meanwhile, microwave walnuts for one minute. Blend parmesan in the Magic Bullet, remove, and pulse the garlic clove to chop.
3. Add butter, mascarpone, garlic, and half of the cooking water with the pasta over medium heat. Cook for one minute, turn off the heat, and stir everything up. Add parmesan, then continue to stir and add more cooking water if necessary so the sauce is nice and smooth. Add walnuts and asparagus and stir. Serve with black pepper and more parmesan.

Enjoy!

A long time ago, in a galaxy… well, okay, it was this galaxy. I bookmarked a recipe for Mark Bittman’s shrimp – also known as “The Simplest and Best Shrimp Dish” or “Shrimp My Way.” It sounded pretty good, but, for whatever reason, I never made it. Well, stop the presses: I made it recently and it is pretty good. I don’t know if it’s the best shrimp dish ever—no Bubba Gump here, I’ve yet to taste every shrimp dish in the world—but it’s pretty darn good. Delicious, garlicky, barely cooked shrimp with the beguiling, unexpected flavor of paprika. And it all comes together lickety split, especially if you use the Magic Bullet to prepare the garlic marinade.

I’d recommend serving this with, well, with anything would be pretty darn great, but I served it with a garlicky pilaf of quinoa and kale that provided crunch and a little interesting texture from the quinoa. Winner, winner, shrimp dinner.

Shrimp with Paprika and Garlic

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• about ½ pound shrimp, preferably raw, defrosted
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 1/2 tsp. paprika, any kind (I like smoked paprika)

Directions

1. Blend the garlic in the Magic Bullet.
2. Melt the butter in the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for a few minutes until just beginning to brown.
3. Raise heat to medium-high and add shrimp and spices. Season with salt and cook until just turning pink, about five minutes. Serve with the butter and oil.

What if you could make a pasta dish in less than thirty minutes using a clever mix of store-bought ingredients and homemade pizzaz that was delicious, unusual, and nutritious? (Well… It contains vegetables, at least.) And what if it all fit in one pot for easy cleanup and no stress? I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty good to me.

Adapted from The Kitchn, this dish uses store-bought frozen tortellini combined with sweet potatoes, spinach and just a litttttle bit of cream to make a delicious, satisfying weeknight dinner. Cutting the potatoes into pieces helps to make it all come together really fast, and, hey, your dishwasher will thank you.

The Magic Bullet comes in handy to give extra-super flavor from fresh herbs and garlic.

One-Pot Tortellini with Sweet Potato, Spinach, and Cream

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• leaves from several sprigs rosemary
• ½ tsp. black peppercorns
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 cup chicken broth (I use Better than Bouillon)
• 1 bag baby spinach
• 1/2 cup half-and-half or cream
• 1 12-ounce package frozen tortellini (I used cheese tortellini)

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a pot or Dutch Oven over medium heat.
2. Blend the garlic, rosemary, and peppercorns in the Magic Bullet.
3. Into the pot, stir in the sweet potato cubes, garlic, rosemary, and salt and pepper. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for about five minutes, until the sweet potatoes are just starting to soften.
4. Uncover the pot and add the broth. Add the spinach in handfuls, stirring until it wilts down, before adding more.
5. Stir in the half-and-half or cream, then cover and bring the liquid to a simmer.
6. Uncover and stir in the tortellini. Cook, stirring frequently, until the tortellini are cooked through, about ten to fifteen minutes.
7. Enjoy!

Sometimes your inspiration comes from a great food mind like Mario Batali, or Mark Bittman, or Kenji Lopez-Alt, or Julia Child. And sometimes your inspiration comes from an anonymous commenter at the bottom of a recipe on the Internet. That happens to be the situation here, as in my endless quest for the perfect carbonara, I came across this somewhat zany, completely delicious variation from a person named “aburitoro” in the comments section of a Serious Eats carbonara recipe. I mean, aburitoro does sound like someone who knows what’s what, and Asian + carbonara? What could go wrong?

As it turns out, this was really tasty; soy sauce added to the sauce amped up the umami quotient, and scallions and nori cut the richness of the dish in all the right ways. Definitely recommended!

Asian Carbonara Pasta

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound dried spaghetti
• ¼ cup diced bacon or pancetta
• 1-2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 whole egg plus 3 egg yolks
• 1 chunk parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp. black peppercorns
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• 3 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
• 4 scallions, sliced
• 1 piece of nori (dried sushi seaweed), ripped into pieces

Directions

1. Cook pasta until al dente in heavily salted water. Remove the pasta without draining the pasta water.

2. Add bacon to pan with oil over medium heat and cook until crisp. Turn off heat.

3. Blend garlic in the Magic Bullet and place in a large metal or glass bowl. Blend the parmesan and add to the bowl. Blend the black pepper corns and add to the bowl.

4. Add the eggs, egg yolks, garlic, parmesan, soy sauce and black pepper back to the Bullet and pulse a few times.

4. Add cooked pasta to the pan with the bacon and stir everything together. Add the egg mixture and 1/2 cup pasta water to the pan and stir. Separately, bring the leftover pasta water back to a boil.

5. Dump everything in the pan back into the bowl and place the bowl over the boiling water to create a double boiler. Let the pasta cook from the heat of the steam until you have a creamy sauce.

6. Serve immediately, topped with scallions and nori.

Enjoy!

Hello salad, my old friend.

I’ve come to enjoy you again.

Because as lately, I’ve been eating,

Foods that I should not be eating –

Pizza, mac n’ cheese,

Cheeseburgers, wings –

And yet the hunger deep inside my stomach

Still remains.

And so… I eat salad.

(With salmon and farro and Brussels sprouts, and a lemony vinaigrette.)

Salmon, Farro, and Brussels Sprouts Salad

Ingredients

• 1 medium wild salmon filet, about 8 ounces
• 1 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed and sliced
• 1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
• 2/3 cup farro
• ¼ cup olive oil, plus more for cooking
• Juice and zest from 1 lemon
• 2 Tbsp mustard (I used a mix of Dijon and spicy brown)

Directions

1. Add a dash of olive oil to a large pan over medium-high heat and add the brussels sprouts. Cook until beginning to brown, then remove to a bowl.
2. Pat the salmon dry with a paper towel and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add more olive oil to the pan and add the salmon, skin side down. Cook until salmon skin will release from pan without any resistance, then flip the salmon over and cook few minutes more until the salmon is medium-rare on the inside.
3. Meanwhile, boil the farro in two cups of salted water until cooked, about twenty minutes.
4. In Magic Bullet, blend the olive oil, lemon juice and zest, and the mustard.
5. Add the farro, cucumbers and brussels sprouts to a bowl. Add the vinaigrette and stir everything around. Plate the salad, topping with salmon.

This dish is such a classic for me that I couldn’t believe I’d never blogged about it for Magic Bullet. It’s an easy weeknight dish: an incredibly delicious pasta with somewhat off-beat ingredients and reasonably healthy to boot.

If you think you don’t like cauliflower, this will turn you into a convert: the high heat gets it crispy and sweet and delicious. And if you think you don’t like anchovies, well, first of all, you’re nuts, but second of all, this will also turn you into a convert: the combination of raw garlic and anchovies (which combine to create the lovely Italian flavors of “bagna cauda”) gives a lip-smacking, slap-your-grandma flavor burst in lieu of a sauce. When I started making this dish, I wasn’t too acquainted with using fennel seed, either, but it gives a nice subtle anisey flavor that really contrasts nicely with the rest.

With a big thank you to Adam Roberts (aka the Amateur Gourmet), from whom I’ve adapted this amazing dish.

Pasta with Cauliflower and Garlic Bagna Cauda

Ingredients

• 1 pound short pasta (like rigatoni)
• 1 head cauliflower, cut into small florets, stem removed
• 1 tin anchovies, reserving oil
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 Tbsp fennel seeds
• Olive oil, to taste
• Big dash of red pepper flakes
• Grated parmesan cheese, for serving

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Roast cauliflower florets until crispy, about twenty minutes. Meanwhile, boil pasta in heavily salted water until al dente.
2. Blend garlic in Magic Bullet, then add the anchovies with their oil and the red pepper flakes and blend.
3. Mix together the pasta, the blended ingredients, and the cauliflower. Drizzle with olive oil for added richness. Serve, passing parmesan.

Enjoy!

What is it with grain salads? For decades, we didn’t know they existed, and now they’re everywhere. Here’s a hint: they’re delicious.

In this one, I tried out a new grain: pearled barley. It’s sort of like farro, but a little less nutty and a little more… barley-ey? It’s great for a weeknight, since it boils up to al dente in fifteen minutes.

This fish sauce vinaigrette, adapted from The Kitchn, pulls everything together nicely with tart, umami, and salty notes. Although fish sauce is famously not fishy, here, I play up the seafood element by pairing the sauce with griddled scallops (scallops a la plancha). To get a beautiful crust on the scallops (or any protein), I recommend salting them a day before and leaving uncovered in the fridge. And roasted brussels sprouts, too, for vegetal, crispy, chewy deliciousness. Obviously.

Fish Sauce Vinaigrette with Pearled Barley Salad

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 2 Tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tsp. honey
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• ¾ cup pearled barley
• 1 pound brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
• Half a bundle of scallions, sliced
• Protein of choice, cooked to taste – I used scallops

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
2. Blend the vinegar, fish sauce, honey, and olive oil in your Magic Bullet.
3. Meanwhile, boil the pearled barley in heavily salted water for fifteen minutes or until al dente. Rinse with cold water to cool.
4. Toss the brussels sprouts with a dash of olive oil and a hefty dash of salt and roast in the oven until crispy and brown, about twenty minutes.
5. Toss brussels, scallions, barley, and protein with the vinaigrette.
6. Enjoy!

Hey, if you haven’t been to Mexico City yet, what’s stopping you? The New York Times says it’s the number 1 place to visit this year. I’ve actually been twice in the past year. What’s so great about Mexico City? In a word, FOOD. Street food is everywhere in Mexico City and people are always eating and the flavors are good. Like, really good. Tacos, soups, enchiladas, raw tuna with avocado on fried tortillas, grasshoppers – you name it, if it’s delicious, people in Mexico City are eating it.

Okay, so if you can’t get to Mexico City, or at least can’t get there in the next week, try this delicious Mexican corn salad. I even used feta cheese in place of cotija or queso fresco cheese, just to make it totally gringo – erm, Americanized – for you. It can be a little hard to find authentic Mexican spices and cheese if you don’t happen to live near an ethnic supermarket, although most major grocery stores are starting to up their variety of flavorful global ingredients.

Known as esquites, this is really elote in a bowl, and if neither of those things mean anything to you, just think grilled (or griddled) corn with mayonnaise, cheese, and chili pepper. Yeah, yum. Plus, this way you can eat it without worrying about getting sick from fresh vegetables while still, well, eating your vegetables.

Adapted from Serious Eats.

Mexican Corn Salad (Esquites)

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 4 ears corn, shucked with kernels sliced from cob
• 2 Tbsp mayonnaise
• 2 oz feta cheese (or cotija cheese)
• ½ cup sliced scallions
• 12 cilantro sprigs, stems roughly removed
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 large clove garlic, peeled
• Juice from a lime
• Chili powder, to taste

Directions

1. Heat oil in a large non-stick skillet over high heat. Add corn, season with salt, toss once or twice, and cook, stirring frequently, until browned, about ten minutes.
2. Meanwhile, blend cheese in your Magic Bullet cup. Remove to a bowl and add the garlic to your cup. Blend the garlic and add to your bowl. Add the cilantro to your cup, blend, and remove to the bowl.
3. Once the corn is ready, add along with the other ingredients to your bowl, stir it all up, and taste for salt.

Enjoy!

If you love peanut butter like I do, you probably spend all your time trying to figure out how to work it into more recipes. For whatever reason, that’s not something that’s done very often, at least not here in the ol’ U. S. of A. But, as it turns out, in West Africa they use peanut butter to create a delicious and nutritious soup, loaded with lots of vegetables and sweet potatoes for a healthy, savory, creamy, peanut buttery delight. Even better, it all comes together in under an hour using tasty, fresh ingredients, making this a great weeknight dinner that’ll knock your family’s socks off.

I’ve adapted this recipe from a giant of Senegalese cooking, Mark Bittman. I’ve also added some extra-savory things to make it even tastier.

P.S. This reheats great the next day.

Peanut Stew with Sweet Potatoes, Chicken, and Kale

Ingredients

• ¾ cup peanuts
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 3-inch piece ginger, peeled
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• ½ pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into chunks
• 3 cups chicken broth (I use Better than Bouillon)
• 3 cups water
• 1 very large sweet potato (about two pounds), peeled and sliced
• 8 tomatoes from a can, roughly chopped or sliced
• ½ pound kale, cut into ribbons (I used half of a big bag)
• 1/3 cup natural, organic peanut butter
• 2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp fish sauce
• Salt, to taste
• Hot sauce, to taste

Directions

1. Blend peanuts in your Magic Bullet until chopped (don’t make peanut butter) and remove to a bowl.
2. Pour oil into a Dutch oven or pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft, about five minutes.
3. Blend the garlic and ginger in your Magic Bullet. Add to the pot and cook until fragrant, about a minute.
4. Add chicken and continue cooking for another few minutes, until just coloring.
5. Add the peanuts, chicken broth, water, and sweet potatoes.
6. Bring to a boil over high heat, then turn heat down to medium-low.
7. Stir in tomatoes and kale, then cook, stirring occasionally, until chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes.
8. Add the peanut butter, soy sauce, and fish sauce, and stir until peanut butter is combined. Taste for salt and adjust thickness by adding more peanut butter or water. Serve, passing hot sauce.

Enjoy!

This much is clear: if you can make stovetop macaroni and cheese that is much more delicious than what comes from the box in less than half an hour with minimal ingredients, you must do it.

This recipe is from The Food Lab, Kenji Lopez-Alt’s newish tome of a book about all things food science, or rather recipes involving food science. The real, secret strength of this recipe is the way that it gets gooey and delicious, while maintaining that great cheese flavor that mac and cheese is all about. This miracle is accomplished with a few special ingredients: cornstarch and evaporated milk, rather than a béchamel, provide creaminess without any off-tasting or gritty flour, and just a touch of American cheese allows for the cheese to melt through and through. An egg also adds amazing pasta-grabbing ability.

The best part? Virtually no technique is required. Just boil up some pasta and throw all the ingredients together. Grate your cheese in the Magic Bullet and mix – and that’s it!

Stovetop Mac and Cheese

Adapted from The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound elbow macaroni
• 1 5-ounce can evaporated milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp ground mustard
• 1/2 pound extra-sharp cheddar
• 1/4 pound American cheese
• 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, cut into hunks
• 1 tsp. hot sauce, or to taste
• frozen peas, optional, to taste

Directions

1. Cook pasta in heavily salted water until barely al dente. Optional: add frozen peas about a minute before the pasta is done.
2. Blend the cheeses in the Magic Bullet, then move them to a bowl with the cornstarch and stir. Add the other ingredients (except the pasta!) to the Magic Bullet and blend or shake until well-mixed.
3. When the pasta is cooked, drain it and return it to the saucepan. Over low heat, add the butter and then everything else. Season to taste with salt and serve while hot.

Hey, what if you could make a pasta dish that was rich and satisfying and perfect for any day? Okay, that’s sort of my mantra (or is it my chakra?) but, in any event, this is an earthy and creamy dish that is pretty low in fat and makes a perfect weeknight dinner in 30 minutes or less. Sold? Sold.

Adapted from Martha Stewart, that old so-and-so. Serve with truffle oil and/or pinot noir.

Pasta with Mushroom and Ricotta Cream Sauce

Ingredients

• 2/3 pound rigatoni, or other pasta
• 1 Tbsp butter, plus more to taste
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup chicken broth (I use Better than Bouillon)
• 1 pound white or crimini (baby bella) mushrooms, sliced
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 tsp. thyme, picked from sprigs
• Juice from ½ of a lemon
• Parmesan cheese, to taste

Directions

1. Boil pasta in heavily salted water until al dente or just short of al dente.
2. In a large pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until softened, about five minutes.
3. Meanwhile, blend the garlic and the thyme in the Magic Bullet. Add the garlic and thyme to the pan and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
4. Add mushrooms; season with salt and pepper and cook until browned, about eight minutes. Meanwhile, stir up the ricotta and the chicken broth in your Magic Bullet.
5. Remove skillet from heat and stir together pasta, ricotta sauce, lemon juice, chicken broth, mushrooms, and any extra butter or pasta cooking water, as desired. Stir until everything is warmed and the pasta is well-coated with the sauce and mushrooms.
6. Serve, passing parmesan.

Enjoy!

Lasagna noodles should not be used for anything other than lasagna!

Well… Or you can also break them up and use them in a delicious pasta just like any other pasta, except with nice chewiness and softness and breadth and all the things that you love about lasagna with completely different flavors. So there’s that.

This is a nice, basically one-pot meal; you cook the sweet potatoes in the same pot as the noodles with delicious butter, thyme, and garlic, and add creamy ricotta to pull it all together. (It’s lasagna. There should be ricotta.)

As a cheffy extra step, the fresh sage is also fried in butter and dried on paper towels to make it extra crunchy and delicious. You can skip that if you don’t want crispy, fried delicious crunch and sage flavor on your pasta… But you do want that, don’t you?

Adapted from Food52.

Lasagna Noodles with Sweet Potato, Ricotta, and Sage

Ingredients

• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1” cubes
• ½ pound lasagna noodles
• 3-4 Tbsp ricotta cheese
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 bunch sage, leaves removed
• leaves from a few sprigs of thyme

Directions

1. Bring a pot of heavily salted water to boil. Add the potatoes and cook until soft, about ten minutes. Remove to a bowl with a slotted spoon.
2. Break the noodles in half and add to the water. Cook until al dente.
3. Meanwhile, blend the garlic and thyme leaves in your Magic Bullet.
4. Add butter to a pan over medium heat. Wait until butter is melted and beginning to foam, then add the sage and cook until crispy. Remove to paper towel-lined plated with a slotted spoon.
5. Add the garlic-thyme mixture to the butter and cook until fragrant, just 30 seconds.
6. Mix together the garlic, thyme, and butter with the sweet potatoes and noodles in a bowl. Salt to taste. Serve with the fried sage on top.

Enjoy!

Here’s an easy, delicious side salad that goes well with almost anything. Bitter arugula contrasts nicely with sweet corn, made flavorful by browning in a pan, and rich, fragrant, and sweet shallots – all cut by a simple lemony vinaigrette that’s deliciously tart. This is incredibly easy – I used frozen corn – and hits all the flavor receptacles in your brain. Hat tip to Blue Apron for coming up with the recipe idea.

I served this with some salmon “croquettes” from Trader Joe’s, warmed up in the oven and served on toast with mayo. The lemon in the vinaigrette really cut the fattiness of the salmon, and the salad has enough going on that the meal is really well rounded. I happened to have some avocado lying around so I threw that in too just for good measure.

Make sure to really get the corn good and brown for extra flavor. Of course, you could use freshly shucked corn, and that’d be even better, but we’re not really seeing that in the farmers markets around here anymore.

Shallot-Corn Arugula Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp butter
• ½ lb frozen corn, thawed
• 1 bag arugula
• 3 shallots, peeled and sliced
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 Tbsp vegetable or olive oil
• chunks of avocado, to taste

Directions

1. Melt butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallots and cook until softened, then add the corn and cook until quite brown.
2. Blend lemon juice and oil in Magic Bullet.
3. Mix arugula and shallot-corn mixture, dress with the vinaigrette, and add avocado if you like. Serve with a salmon sandwich or anything, really.

Enjoy!

Polenta is one of those things that makes you wonder exactly what you’ve been doing with your life. OK, that’s an overstatement, but still, you can whip up this delicious, rich, corny and creamy side dish in about fifteen minutes with minimal work and expense. It’s only about three ingredients.

I buy polenta – rough ground cornmeal – from the Whole Foods bulk bins, and it’s comically cheap. If you’re waiting for the catch, the catch is that it took you (however many years old you are) to figure this out, and what’s your excuse? Or maybe you knew all about polenta — knew about it your whole life, in fact. Well, good for you.

In any event, I like to serve this as with meats braised in a savory sauce, like short ribs in red wine, or anywhere you’d normally serve mashed potatoes. It’s also great the next day under a fried egg, for breakfast.

Polenta with Butter and Parmesan

Ingredients

• 1 cup polenta (rough ground cornmeal)
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 large chunk parmesan (about 1/4 cup after blending)
• Salt to taste

Directions

1. Blend parmesan in Magic Bullet.
2. In a large pot, heat four cups of water and a big pinch of salt over high heat.
3. When the water is boiling, add the polenta bit by bit, whisking all the while.
4. Reduce heat to low and cook about eleven minutes until the polenta is very thick.
5. Turn off the heat and add the butter and then, gradually, the parmesan cheese. Keep whisking and taste for salt.
6. Serve with a saucy dish.

I think that easy, delicious, complex side dishes are a genre that needs more exploring. For example, this dish. It takes very little work, uses ingredients that pack a ton of vibrant yet nuanced flavors, is salty and a little bit sweet, and is very healthy to boot. The base of the sauce is a miso-soy, garlic-ginger concoction, which basically just screams “ingredients that punch above their weight!” I use it here with asparagus, but really it would go well with any green vegetable; the original recipe from which I’ve adapted it from Kitchn.com, which used broccolini, but regular broccoli or even broccoli rabe or kale would be terrific and delicious.

Serve this opposite any simply prepared meat and starch, and you have yourself a surprisingly sophisticated meal, easy enough for a weeknight yet elegant enough for company. The marinade, if you want to call it that, seasons and oils the vegetable all in one, and if you coat your cookie sheet with aluminum fool you’ll have very little cleanup. Done and done.

10-Minute Miso Asparagus

Ingredients

• 1 bunch asparagus, woody ends chopped off
• 1 Tbsp miso paste
• 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp minced ginger
• 1 clove garlic
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Blend the garlic in the Magic Bullet, then add all the other ingredients except the asparagus and pulse a few times.
3. In a big bowl, rub the miso mixture all over the asparagus.
4. Put on a cookie sheet and roast until browned and soft, stirring once or twice during cooking if you like. Serve.

What is it about heat that has us craving salads? I live down the street from a salad place, and the first hot day of summer is always the same: lines down the block. I like salad as much as the next person, and sometimes it’s nice to vary it up a little.

Here’s an interesting salad using broccoli slaw, broccoli’s little brother and coleslaw’s cousin. (Does that also make coleslaw broccoli’s cousin?)

Anyway, this recipe has multiple advantages: it’s a little different (due to the slaw), it’s very easy (my grocery sells pre-made broccoli slaw), it’s cheap, it’s very delicious, and apparently it can be made ahead without much wilting (killer slaw!). It’s topped with a delicious peanut butter and soy based dressing, too, which I’m sure would work on many salads. I used pan-fried salmon here, but feel free to sub in your protein of choice.

Adapted from The Kitchn.

Broccoli Slaw Salad with Peanut Butter Dressing

• 1/2 cup peanut butter, any type
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 3 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp. water
• 1 tsp. hot sauce, any kind
• 1 tsp. sesame oil
• 12 oz bag of undressed broccoli slaw
• 1 medium red bell pepper, core removed, sliced
• cooked protein, any type
• 1/4 cup croutons (I used broken up crackers)
• 1/4 cup roasted peanuts
• 1/4 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

Instructions

1. Blend the peanut butter, rice vinegar, soy sauce, water, hot sauce, and sesame oil in the Magic Bullet.
2. Put the broccoli slaw and the pepper in a large bowl and toss with the dressing.
3. Just before serving, add the peanuts and cilantro. Top with protein and serve.

So a few months ago I showed you how to make the world’s most delicious, easiest mac ‘n cheese on the stovetop. That was pretty good. Heck, that was great. But how often can you eat plain homemade mac ‘n cheese? OK, don’t answer that.

In any event, here’s a variation on a theme: extremely easy stovetop mac ‘n cheese that is amped up with Spanish flavors and roasted cauliflower, which as I have noted in the past, is having a bit of a cultural moment. I call it: El Macaroni de Espana.

The cauliflower is caramelized with distinctive flavor and crunchy texture and the pimenton is smoky and earthy with smoked cheese for even more savory notes and the mac ‘n cheese is creamy and gooey and melty. Yeah, not bad for a weeknight. Plus, it has vegetables!

El Macaroni de Espana (Spanish Mac n Cheese)

Adapted from The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lb elbow macaroni
• 1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
• 1 5-ounce can evaporated milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp ground mustard
• 1/2 pound smoky fancy cheese, like smoked Gouda
• 1/4 lb American cheese
• 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
• 4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) butter or margarine, cut into hunks
• Smoked paprika, to taste
• Frozen peas, to taste (optional)

Instructions

1. Cook pasta in heavily salted water until barely al dente. Meanwhile, toss cauliflower with olive oil, salt, and paprika and roast in a 450 degree oven.

2. Blend the cheeses in the Magic Bullet, then move them to a bowl with the cornstarch and stir. Add the milk, mustard, cornstarch, and egg to the Magic Bullet and blend or shake until well-mixed.

3. When the pasta is cooked, drain it and return it to the saucepan. Over low heat, add the butter and then everything else. Stir and season to taste with salt and more paprika and serve while hot.

There are times when you want the tart flavor of a balsamic vinaigrette to dress your peppery arugula, and there are other times when you want a thick, rich salad dressing that doesn’t exactly scream health food. For the latter times, I present to you this avocado ranch dressing. It’s rich and delicious, but by using some sneaky ingredients it actually isn’t that heavy.

Avocados are having a little bit of a cultural moment (you can get them on any sandwich at Potbelly!) and this dressing takes full advantage of both their richness and flavor. I also use a bunch of lime as well as Greek yogurt to give it more tang and a bit of body, which you want to keep this more in the “modern take on ranch dressing” category and less in the “this is ranch dressing with an avocado blended into it” category.

I’d recommend serving over romaine or iceberg lettuce with some sliced cherry tomatoes and chopped red onion for an updated version of a steakhouse classic.

Light Avocado Ranch Dressing

Ingredients

• 1 ripe avocado, peeled and pitted
• 1 5.3 oz package Greek yogurt
• 1/3 cup skim milk, plus more to taste
• 1/3 cup light mayo
• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt, plus more to taste
• Juice of half lime, plus more to taste

Instructions

1. Blend garlic clove in Magic Bullet until well pulverized.
2. Add other ingredients and blend. Taste for salt and lime and add more milk as necessary to thin out into a dressing consistency.