This is a bit of a riff on the chana dal recipe in my first cookbook, From Scratch. Chana dal is one of my favorite meals of all time. But the lentils you use for chana dal are large and can take up to 2 hours to cook so I rarely take the time to make it. This version of curried red lentil and spinach stew is much faster and a little lighter without the cream. So this is as the easy, fast, summery version of chana dal for when you don’t feel like tending a pot for a couple of hours. This makes a pretty big batch, but you could easily double it and keep it for meals throughout the week or freeze leftovers.
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I had planned to share this lovely warm barley salad I made last week with you guys, but since I got back from Texas, one thing has dominated my thoughts: queso.
Queso; that gooey, warm dip made mostly of cheese with a little chili and tomato for extra flavor. Northern friends might call it nacho cheese. The Texan version is ubiquitous at Tex Mex places, parties, and on every appetizer menu. The key to a good Texan queso is to use processed cheese or velveeta. There really is no other way to get that particularly gooey, creamy texture.
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I love egg salad and have made something approaching 79 different versions of it over the years. So when a reader recently wrote to me asking for an egg salad recipe that was all the excuse I needed to share one of them with you here.
I never much liked the bland, mayo and celery version that is the mainstay of delis and work lunches—too much mayo! But once I realized that it’s eggs and not mayo that’s the main ingredient I got pretty obsessed.
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