Few things can redirect a bad mood or a bad week like basking in the glow of a freshly deep-cleaned kitchen. Sunlight refracts off glistening counter tops; the smell of synthetic lemon wafts in the air; every dish, rag, spice container and skillet idles in its rightful place.
After all that scrubbing and sweating, who dares touch the degreased burner? I don’t want to splatter the stove, I don’t want to pile the sink with plates, I don’t want to disrupt this fragile, newly restored ecosystem.
But I gotta eat! Minimal mess is ideal, so there will be no high-heat sautéing tonight. Just shy of ordering takeout lies the quick, single-skillet recipe, relying heavily on pantry staples and dirtying little save for said pan and a spoon — and no plates, if you eat straight from the pan like the free-will-possessing adult that you are.
I like a recipe that requires just a few minutes on the stove-top and then goes straight into the oven, like Melissa Clark’s cheesy chile crisp white beans. There’s minimal chopping (just slice up some garlic and scallions) and fewer than five minutes spent on a burner before the dish is baked to warm, melted perfection. “This is bananas tasty and fun to make,” wrote Claire, a reader. “Love all the cheesy bean bakes, but this is the best so far,” wrote Tanya, another reader (a coincidence, I swear!).
Still, I wonder if Tanya has had a chance to make Alexa Weibel’s five-star creamy, spicy tomato beans and greens. Readers rave about the recipe’s minimal effort, rich flavor and forgiving nature. The dish does, technically, require one additional bowl to toss together the panko and arugula topping. But if you eat out of that same bowl once you top the beans, things cancel each other out. That’s my kind of girl math.
Creamy, Spicy Tomato Beans and Greens
Just as good at protecting a spotless kitchen is a dish prepared in a Dutch oven, like Carolina Gelen’s zingy sour veggie soup. The pot’s high sides will keep the pantry all-stars (tomato paste, a jar of sauerkraut) and the heaps of easy-to-prep vegetables (shred the carrots and the zucchini on a box grater) from getting all over your cooktop.
A burbling soup is the way to go if you’re trying to get rid of the scent of Fabuloso rather than revel in it. The xawaash in Ifrah F. Ahmed’s maraq misir, a hearty red lentil soup, has a much more intoxicating aroma. You can easily prepare the xawaash, a spice blend popular in Somali cooking, at home with ingredients you are likely to have already:
To make ¼ cup of the blend: Toast 8 teaspoons ground cumin, 2 teaspoons ground coriander, 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, ¼ teaspoon ground cloves, ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom in a small nonstick pan over low heat, stirring continuously, for 1 minute. Stir in 1 teaspoon ground turmeric.
Or make Andy Baraghani’s golden potato and greens soup, which, like Carolina’s and Ifrah’s recipes, is vegan. This marigold soup is a spin on potato-and-leek soup, but requires no dairy. Instead, Andy creates a thick, creamy texture by gently mashing some of the potatoes to release their starches. Operative word being gently: You just cleaned in here!
Cheesy Chile Crisp White Beans
Maraq Misir (Red Lentil Soup)
Golden Potato and Greens Soup
One More Thing!
After years of sticking to cheap earbuds, terrified of investing in something I easily and frequently lose, I finally bought my first pair of AirPods this month thanks to a Prime Day supersale. As a bit of a tech-gear Luddite, I knew nothing of their ability to tamp down background noise as well as to amplify the voices of people you’re talking to, a feature my colleague Pete Wells wrote about this week.
These AirPod settings may provide a solution to one of the most frustrating aspects of dining out today: Restaurants can be so, so loud. Pete put the devices to the test in dining rooms “known to wreak mayhem on the eardrums” to see if they make hearing your companions any easier, and he walks you through how to make the most of the available listening modes (which, he notes, are buried in the settings).
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
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