| Good Saturday morning, all. I feel like this is such a basic, cliché thing to say, but I am thrilled that it's now the time of year when I need to pull on a sweatshirt or fleece jacket each time I head out the door in the morning. The comfort of soft, fluffy fabric is like a never-ending hug. Soon it will be time to bust out the flannel bedsheets, the couch throw blanket, the over-the-top sherpa-lined pajama pants. With them will come the irresistible urge to get cozy — and stay that way. Dragging myself out of bed or off the couch and into the kitchen once I'm warm and comfortable, especially on chilly days, can be a real challenge. There are plenty of other reasons you might not be eager to cook, and everyone's entitled to those days. We've talked about how hard it can be to recover your motivation in the kitchen and find your way back to enjoying cooking. I was thinking about that when I read some of the comments in response to Kristen Hartke's Chicken Katsu Sandos, a stellar Japanese-inspired dish featuring crispy breaded cutlets, crunchy slaw and tangy sauce. The gist: Why would you go to all that effort for just a sandwich? To which I say, why wouldn't you? (It is a phenomenal sandwich, by the way.) Far be it from me to tell you how you decide what is worth your time and effort, but once you start down that road, you could probably talk yourself out of making anything at all. Sure, it's just a sandwich. Or maybe you're just cooking for yourself. But a meal is rarely just food. There's almost always at least a little something else there, whether an opportunity to slow down, share a table, show someone you care, eat something that brings you joy, or even save money and ingredients. So, yes, going to the "trouble" of cooking can be worth it. That doesn't mean you need to do a ton of work to get an outstanding result. For proof, check out Aaron Hutcherson's Apple, Sausage and White Bean Skillet. This 25-minute, one-pan recipe leans on ready-to-use sausage and canned beans for convenience and flavor. Apples, onions and arugula lend seasonal appeal, but feel free to use the formula of sausage + beans/legumes + fruits/vegetables to create your own version. "Fun/easy to make and very tasty," read one early review. "I am looking forward to making some of the variations mentioned in the article." "My family loved this!" said another. Ellie Krieger was on the same wavelength with her Skillet Cod With Miso Butter and Warm Slaw, which features fish fillets steamed on a bed of onion, cabbage and carrots. The miso is a shortcut to flavor without a laundry list of ingredients, and the all-in-one cooking method keeps the dishwashing to a minimum. You'll find a similar approach in the Parsi-Style Fish Packets With Spicy Mint Chutney that Daniela Galarza shared from cookbook author Maryam Jillani. Packet cooking can prevent delicate seafood from overcooking, not to mention seal in flavors. In this case, those flavors come from a vibrant coconut-herb chutney you'll find in parts of India and Pakistan. And, of course, the self-contained packages make for less mess. This is the kind of low-effort, high-impact dish we should all have in our back pockets. Sometimes the effort put into an ingredient happens long before it reaches our kitchens. That's certainly the case with maple syrup, the result of not only the trees weathering a constant cycle of freezing and thawing, but also an extensive process by producers to tap, collect, boil down and bottle the sap. So why not appreciate all that by highlighting this precious commodity in a drink? Allison Robicelli's Nonalcoholic Maple Old-Fashioned is the answer. She likes to use bourbon-barrel-aged maple syrup for its smoky flavor, though you can pick any good syrup to feature in this zero-proof homage to a classic cocktail. How else can we inspire you in the kitchen? Join Aaron and me in our live weekly cooking chat Wednesday at noon Eastern, where we can offer suggestions. Send along your questions now, then be sure to come back when we start the conversation. Until next week, happy cooking. |
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