Week Eleven: TikTok Pasta & Spring Greens

Welcome back to Dinner Diary, friends! I hope you’re eating well and enjoying the spring weather, wherever you are.

Sunday 4/23/23

Roast chicken and butter lettuce salad

A new week! I’ve been meaning to roast a whole chicken for a while, and decided that today was the day.

I followed this recipe by Ina Garten (but I did NOT rinse the chicken, as she advises, because that’s actually gross and dangerous. Sorry, Ina). Instead of lining the roasting pan with carrots and fennel, I used what I had, which was potatoes and wedges of cabbage. An hour and a half sounded like an extremely long time to wait for food, so we ate our salads first.

I’ve been feeling inspired by spring to experiment with more greens, and branch out from my usual routine of spinach and kale, so tonight I made this simple and beautiful butter lettuce salad. My friends, this salad was transcendent. I made a few tweaks: I used a homemade lemon vinaigrette I had in the fridge, and added a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and a tablespoon of honey. Instead of using manchego, I used a cheese I had on hand, an Asiago with spicy bits of pepperoncini in it. And instead of castelvetrano olives, I used the kalamatas I had on hand. But I made no substitutions where the butter-toasted Panko breadcrumbs were concerned. And the crowd (me and Anne) went wild.

The chicken did come out perfect, as Ina promised. The skin was crispy and well-seasoned, the meat juicy. But my favorite part (as usual) was the vegetables that cooked in the drippings: sweet, caramelized, tender cabbage, and melty-soft potatoes. If you’ve never cooked vegetables underneath chicken, I highly recommend it. You don’t have to use a whole chicken, if you’re new to the process and that intimidates you; you can start with some chicken thighs or drumsticks. Just season them and lay them gently down on a bed of starchy vegetables. Cook as usual. And feast.

Monday 4/24/23

Pasta primavera with pan-seared salmon

I was excited to make this pasta primavera recipe by Melissa Clark for the New York Times (by the way, you can click on that link even if you’re not subscribed to NYT Cooking; as a subscriber, I can “gift” ten recipes a month that recipients don’t need a subscription to read).

I did a simpler pan-seared salmon tonight instead of the lemon and browned butter one I usually make, because I wanted the spring vegetables in the primavera to be the star of the show. I got my wish: humble asparagus and snap peas, cooked gently in butter, took center stage and shined brightly, wreathed by a halo of fresh linguine and supported by a chorus of Parmesan, garlic and Greek yogurt. I didn’t use tarragon because I couldn’t find any at the store, but I’m proud of myself for using parsley. I usually don’t bother with fresh herbs, but I’m open to building new habits. Especially if it tastes this good.

Tuesday 4/25/23

Greenest Green Salad with roast chicken

The spring vegetable parade continues! Tonight I made this Greenest Green Salad, also from NYT Cooking (What can I say? Their newsletter was really compelling this week.) Another vibrant, springy winner. I ignored the instructions to boil the snap peas for 90 seconds, because a) I didn’t feel like going to the trouble and b) they were already perfect on their own, just as crisp and sweet as they could be. Why mess with perfection? I also ignored the green onions part, because I don’t like green onions most of the time. The snap peas, lettuce and cucumbers made a wonderfully fresh and crunchy trio. I protein-packed our salads with some crumbled feta, pepitas, and chopped roast chicken from the other night.

I’d never made my own Green Goddess dressing before, and was only vaguely aware of what it was, but I followed this recipe pretty closely (only omitting the tarragon and chives) and was stunned by how good it was. I think I’m becoming a parsley person, which is delightful because it’s a nutritional powerhouse. You know how I feel about a good nutritional powerhouse. I’m going to be making this dressing all spring and summer.

So fresh and so green, green.

Wednesday 4/26/23

Pasta primavera with roast chicken and butter lettuce salad

Lots of repeats this week, but I’m not complaining. This was the last of the pasta primavera; I added the last of the roast chicken from Sunday, and a handful of feta just because I could. And I made the same butter lettuce salad that I made on Sunday night, and it was just as good. Toasting the Panko breadcrumbs in butter is a new-to-me trick that I’m going to be doing a lot of.

As president, I promise to put a bowl of butter-toasted breadcrumbs on every table.

Thursday 4/27/23

Chinese takeout: steamed pork buns, orange chicken, sautéed triple vegetable, red bean buns

Tonight we took a break from fresh green salads and ordered Chinese takeout from nearby Ling Long Xuan (normally I’d link to their website, but they don’t appear to have a working one). This was a new place for us, and I’m glad we tried it.

The steamed pork buns were good, although the filling was more like a pork and chive dumpling filling; I had hoped for the bright red, sticky-sweet barbecued pork filling of char siu bao, which is one of my favorite foods of all time and which I have not yet managed to track down in Jersey City. The bun itself was a bouncy and fluffy delight.

I ordered the orange chicken. Loyal readers may recall that’s another of my all-time favorites, and here it was outstanding: crispy nuggets of good white meat in a sweet, tangy sauce that was perfectly goopy. It reminded me of the orange chicken from the excellent (and now closed) Michael + Ping’s in Gowanus, which was our go-to Chinese takeout place when we lived in Brooklyn. This orange chicken came with a surprising and welcome amount of broccoli, lightly steamed, still crunchy, and not cooked into limp oblivion like it often is. This allowed me to pretend I was making healthy food choices while also eating fried meat soaked in sugar sauce.

Anne ordered something called Sautéed Triple Vegetable, without knowing what it was or what kind of sauce it came in. Brave! The gamble paid off, though; it turned out to be a traditional Northern Chinese dish called Di San Xian, meaning “three treasures from the earth,” consisting of potatoes, bell peppers and eggplants in a spicy, garlicky brown sauce. I don’t think I’d ever eaten potatoes in a Chinese dish before, but it was a real treat. Highly recommend.

I saved the steamed red bean buns for dessert—red beans blended with sugar into a smooth paste and steamed inside fluffy white dough. The dark paste has a subtly sweet, slightly nutty flavor that I love. Our old neighborhood in Brooklyn, Sunset Park, was packed with Chinese bakeries selling these buns, and Portuguese egg tarts, and addictively eggy little sponge cakes. This is reminding me that I still need to check out the 99 Ranch Market in downtown Jersey City, as it might be my best bet for finding these delicacies without crossing the river back into NYC.

Friday 4/28/23

Pizza and salad

Tonight, I kept things easy with a frozen Newman’s Own Supreme pizza (we love a Newman’s Own pizza in this house) and a side salad: lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, pepitas, and another batch of that unbelievable green goddess dressing. I picked the onions off the pizza because in addition to being an adventurous eater and enthusiastic cook, I am also five years old. Why would you ruin a perfectly good pizza with onions?

I included the La Croix can in the shot for you, Aunt Mel 💛

Saturday 4/29/23

TikTok baked feta pasta with shrimp

I am not a TikTok person. I do not, as a rule, know what the youth are up to, and when I find out, I am either appalled (eating Tide Pods) or impressed (fighting climate change, dismantling gender norms). But even I have heard of the viral TikTok baked feta pasta, probably because I subscribe to a large number of cooking-related newsletters.

Basically, you take a big block of feta cheese and bake it in the oven with some cherry tomatoes, olive oil and seasoning, so that it melts into a bright, creamy sauce for pasta. I finally tried it tonight (a full four years after its Internet debut) and we loved it! The original recipe, created by Jenni Häyrinen, can be found here; I followed this modified version that included shrimp, and it was unbelievably good. Because I had so much fresh basil in the fridge, I threw in a big handful right at the end of cooking, and topped each bowl with a little more.

This dinner was outstanding, even in a week of great dinners. It was “fire.” It was, dare I say, lit. (The baby’s only sixteen months old, but I’m already practicing for a future of being a deeply embarrassing parent). I may not use TikTok, but based solely on this pasta recipe, I believe the children are our future and the kids are all right.

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Thanks for reading! I love sharing my dinner life with you all. Here’s the link to last week’s diary, in case you missed it, and here’s a link to some great news for The Woks of Life family, whose cookbook was just nominated for a James Beard award! I don’t know them personally, but I’m a huge fan of their blog, and I’m so happy to see their work getting recognized. Congratulations to the Leung family!

In birthday fundraiser news: there’s only one week left to meet my goal of raising $300 for City Harvest before my birthday. We’re more than halfway there! This organization does amazing work, connecting surplus food that would otherwise get thrown away with community organizations that help feed families in need. Important stuff! If you can spare it, you can toss a few bucks in the Team Dinner Diary bucket at this link right here. Have a great week!

Love,

Hannah