Week Sixteen: Bean Freaks & Grandma Pies

Hello, friends and family! Happy Pride month to all! Let’s review a week of dinners, shall we?

Sunday 5/28/23

Late pizza lunch

Today we hosted a lovely late-afternoon gathering in Riverview Park with friends, complete with fantastic pizzas from Pizza Masters on Central Ave, which we hadn’t yet tried. These pies were solid! We ordered an excellent margherita, a classic pepperoni, one with roasted red peppers, and a Grandma pie, which I have just learned originated in Long Island. Food history is so fascinating.

Other noteworthy snacks at the party included a friend’s excellent homemade guacamole (without cilantro! I felt so seen) and my famous salted brown butter rice krispie treats—not a recipe I developed, but one I refuse to share nonetheless. (Normally I’m happy to share recipes, but I suspect my ability to make these treats is the only reason people still invite me to parties, so I guard it closely. Thank you for understanding.)

Someone else brought these incredibly sophisticated jalapeño and blood orange seltzers, which I am still thinking about. You may already know that I save the leftover pickling liquid from my jalapeño jars (never throw away flavor!) because it packs a fun hit of spice and acid to a skillet of black beans, but now I’m thinking I might mess around with it and develop a spicy summer mocktail. Maybe with watermelon? Watch this space.

Since we feasted all afternoon, we weren’t hungry for dinner. Hosting a chill picnic in the park was fun and I plan to do it again very soon, so local friends, if you weren’t able to make it to this one, stay tuned!

Monday 5/29/23

Carla’s beans, and green goddess salad with broccoli, sugar snap peas, and tomatoes

Still making my way through this treasure trove of vegetables our friends gave us over the weekend. The sugar snap peas were starting to wilt, so I used a new-to-me magic trick: I plunked them into an ice bath for about an hour and they were crunchy as new. Amazing! I discovered this trick simply by googling “uses for wilted sugar snap peas,” which I often do for an ingredient juuust past its prime that I can’t bear to waste. There are lots of creative and resourceful people out there fighting the good fight against food waste, and I love availing myself of the wisdom born of their experience.

I went with Samin Nosrat’s green goddess dressing from the New York Times instead of the viral TikTok one, because I prefer the version with anchovies. I’m an anchovy person now—who knew? Life is long, and full of surprises. I chopped all the veggies up tiny, doused them in the dressing, and we enjoyed these green creations on our balcony in the evening sun.

I also made a big pot of Carla’s beans, which I refuse to shut up about, so we had charming little bowls of brothy white beans alongside our salads. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—beans in the pantry are like money in the bank.

Special guest appearance from my wee chef’s garden: strawberries, nasturtiums, and parsley.

Tuesday 5/30/23

Tofu stir fry with red pepper, carrots and sugar snap peas

I recently bought a new jar of tahini and it’s been looking at me pointedly from the pantry, insistent on becoming another batch of Kate’s magical tahini sauce. Who am I to argue with the wisdom of tahini? I started this dreamy sauce on the stovetop, as Kate instructs, but I guess the heat wasn’t low enough, because the tahini started clumping up into a strange fudge-like consistency that reminded me of halvah (which I love, but have never had for dinner—yet). So I started over in a bowl, without heat, instead using a tablespoon of cold water to whisk the tahini into a smooth creamy sauce. This time I added about a teaspoon of sambal oelek for spice, and a little hit of MSG for extra savoriness. Exquisite. The sauce formed a beautiful friendship with a batch of pan-fried tofu and stir-fried veggies, which I served over quinoa. One of my favorite dinners this week.

Wednesday 5/31/23

Potato gnocchi with a gathering of spinach, tomatoes and beans

I originally designed this meal around roast chicken, but it turned out that the chicken thighs hadn’t completely defrosted in the fridge overnight. I’m still squeamish about using the microwave to defrost raw meat and I was too hungry to thaw them slowly in cold water, so I decided to forge ahead with the rest of the meal as planned, tagging in Carla’s beans as a protein substitute. Beans to the rescue!

I sautéed sliced garlic in hot olive oil, added halved cherry tomatoes, and then wilted a few big handfuls of chopped spinach in the same pan. A few spoonfuls of beans. Juicy, savory, hearty, summery.

Over dinner, I said I didn’t know what to call this mixture I’d made to spoon over the gnocchi, because it wasn’t quite a sauce. “It’s a gathering,” Anne said confidently, making me laugh. An elegant solution.

An exclusive gathering of veggies.

Thursday 6/1/23

Big Beany Salad with roast chicken

Today I had my first full day of training for my new job at a charming little organic cafe right on the park. I was admiring an enormous pot of chickpeas in the kitchen, complete with a glistening emerald-green piece of kombu, and I happened to mention to the kitchen manager that I was a big fan of beans (in my excitement and new-job nerves, I may have used the words “bean freak”).

So when lunchtime rolled around, she presented the whole team with these gorgeous green salads on blue tin plates: kale, greens, broccoli, grape tomatoes, quinoa, deliciously spiced pepitas, and plenty of chickpeas and black beans. She said the salad was inspired by me, and she wanted to welcome me to the team with a super-beany salad. What hospitality, y’all. I’ve found my people!

At the end of the shift, I thanked her again for her salad, and gushed about how much I loved it, and she sent me home with the rest of it in a big box. So I plated it for dinner alongside some roast chicken; it was satisfyingly light and summery, but hearty and filling at the same time. Super easy dinner.

Incidentally, a google search for “bean freak” led me to this interview with Steve Sando, founder of an heirloom bean company called Rancho Gordo. They sell a very cool assortment of heirloom bean varietals, in case anyone’s wondering what to get me for Christmas. They also sell these funky bean earrings, which I wouldn’t personally wear—please do not get me bean earrings for Christmas—but I fully support the existence of bean-based jewelry. Let your bean freak flag fly.

Friday 6/2/23

Big Quinoa Salad with roast chicken

Since I had some roast chicken and cooked quinoa in the fridge, I decided to do a reprise of last night’s Big Salad, tossing the quinoa with chopped spinach, diced apple, carrots, golden raisins, and a toasted seed medley. Dressed with my favorite lemon vinaigrette.

Honestly, I could eat a salad like this every night; it epitomizes the essential FETCH dinner characteristics of Filling, Easy, Tasty, Cheap and Healthy. The secret to a truly filling salad, I’ve learned, is to pack it with protein, fiber and healthy fats. The trick to a dinner salad that feels like a delight, instead of an arduous drudgery of endless chewing, is to pack it with varying tastes and textures. You want crispy, crunchy, chewy, soft, bitter, sweet, tart, salty, and savory all at once. Ideally, each bite should leave your palate swirling in beautiful confusion. What the heck am I eating? your mouth should ask. Shhhh, the salad should reply. Just go with it.

Saturday 6/3/23

More pizza

I’m aware I live a charmed life: two pizza parties in one week. This time, we were at a rooftop going away party for friends who have lived in Brooklyn for many years, and are moving away this month. To celebrate the city, they asked guests to bring an iconic local treat (I didn’t bring a local treat, I brought a double batch of my aforementioned salted brown butter rice krispie treats, because I know from experience that people expect this of me, and they will say something if I show up without them.) I loved this idea! It was fun to see the spread of NYC snacks: gorgeously seeded challah loaves, black and white cookies, Italian rainbow cookies, super-thick chocolate chip cookies from Levain, banana pudding from Magnolia Bakery, and the iconic Steve’s Key Lime Pies from Red Hook, among others. Truly a beautiful feast.

There was, naturally, a good amount of pizza, including Grandma pie. I mentioned the recent deep dive I’d done into the origins of Grandma pie (“You would do pizza research in your spare time,” someone said, and I chose to take that as a compliment). It sparked a lively debate about what constitutes a Grandma pie (rectangular shape, cut into square slices, cheese layered underneath the tomato sauce instead of over it), what makes it different from a Sicilian pie (Sicilian has thicker, fluffier crust), where to get the best of each (too many opinions to summarize). Nothing was settled definitively, but it was a beautiful New York moment, loved ones coming together from as far away as New Jersey and Long Island to laugh, reminisce, eat pizza and discuss the things that really matter—like pizza.

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Thank you for reading! Here’s the link to last week’s Dinner Diary, in case you missed it, and here’s a link to a recipe for baked oatmeal muffins, which I like to keep on hand for the whole family to snack on. I haven’t tried all the little variations the author provides, I generally just throw a bunch of nuts and seeds in the banana bread base and call it a day. Although I did add a spoonful of jam to the tops of a few of them, and that was a good time. Not technically a dinner recipe, although you can certainly eat whatever you like for dinner; I for one will never stop you from doing your own thing.

See you next week!

XO,

Hannah