Guides

In my book, a good exercise session involves a worthy reward. I’ll walk for miles if my journey ends at the ice cream shop. I’ll jog—to meet a friend for a manicure. And if there’s a picnic finale for my bike ride, I’ll be pulling on my spandex shorts.

I love to bike—I really do. Since I spend a lot of time cooking and eating, and I’m known to mix up drinks to toast, with friends, to all our hard work, I end up craving the physical exertion of a cruise through the park, both the tough uphills and the exuberant downhills. (I waxed poetic about riding the Manhattan Bridge recently, in this post, and I’ll actually have more about biking for you tomorrow.)

By the time I’m done sweating, my mind and body are both in the mood to relax and hang out with friends. Even as summer gently morphs into fall, that hang out can still be a picnic. If you’re planning to meet up with friends, best to pack your blanket, snacks, and drinks in a sturdy backpack so you can concentrate on the ride. That means a couple laps around the park, or a decently long jaunt on the path by the waterfront.

I can’t carry all the picnic necessities as I ride, so any mobile picnic has to be a potluck. I’m happy to tote the bottle of Smirnoff Sorbet Light Lemon, so long as I’ve assigned the limes, seltzer, and lemon-lime soda to a buddy.

Other necessities? Cups, of course. Plates, napkins, and some kind of silverware is preferable, if you only use those plastic knives to cut limes and stir drinks. (I should say: check out the rules that apply to your public spaces to be sure you can drink there.) I also recommend a Frisbee, for when you get your second wind, post-ride.

Rest the bike, unpack the backpack, pop open the drink. Sitting at a post-bike picnic, matching cheese to crackers and sipping my cocktail, I’m pretty sure I’ll never dread working out again.

I wrote this sponsored post in partnership with Smirnoff Sorbet Light and Style Coalition. Thanks for supporting the sponsors that help inspire BGSK’s content!

Every year, around this time, my love for vegetables seems to expire. All summer, I’ve embraced simplicity, drizzling tomatoes with olive oil, eating cukes on my way home from the market, and schmearing plain corn with butter. When I dig a little deeper into my fatigue, though, the truth comes out: I’m not tired of all vegetables, just raw ones.

The answer, during this time of vegetable plenty, is to use the harvest in recipes, not just in salads. And I’ve got tons of recipes, for veggie side dishes and mains, that will make all those plants palatable again. Ditch the kale salad and get cooking!

**12 Great Cooked Veggie Dishes for Salad Fatigue**

1. Baked Tomatoes with Breadcrumbs & Thyme. Turn tomatoes into warm, gooey, and crunchy little numbers simply by slicing them and roasting them beneath a crown of breadcrumbs. These taste delightful at room temperature, so make them in advance, ditch the boring caprese salad, and delight in tomatoes anew.

2. Quick Cabbage with Mustard Seeds. Much as I adore a good slaw, I love how cooked cabbage takes on an almost butter aspect-without, however, much butter added at all. I start this dish by toasting mustard seeds in hot oil. After that, there’s not much more to do, besides savor the warm, almost-creamy vegetable.

3. Roasted Caponata Salad with Goat Cheese & Chickpeas. OK, so you might not usually eat eggplant or zucchini raw anyway, but in this simplifed, roasted version of caponata, you’ll love how the softened vegetables mingle with their tangy-sweet dressing, hearty chickpeas, and creamy cheese.

4. Iranian Greens Omelet. A new-to-me style of cooking eggs, Middle Eastern omelets are made by overstuffing beaten eggs with lots of filling-or so it appears. In fact, though you’ll feel like you’re throwing in way too many greens, the spinach, herbs, and scallions cook down to make this a totally vegetable centric main course.

Since we’re talking parties, I wanted to share with you the details of the anniversary event Alex and I threw for his parents a few weeks back. A theme takes a party to the next level, and taking in all the components-the number of guests, the timing of our travel to Maryland, the likes and dislikes of the crew, and the abundance of summer produce-we choose a Biergarten theme.

We kept the decorations simple: a big Biergarten banner, a few little flags for the cheese plate, a table runner, and some oversized beer steins as vases for flowers. Drinks were bottles of good German beer-naturally!

As for the food! What we liked best about the menu we created is that it mainly featured easy, make-ahead dishes. It was split between items we could order by mail straight to Maryland since we were coming from New York late Friday night (great German sausages, frozen hot pretzels from Lancaster, PA) and a vegetable platter we’d throw together from what we found at the nearby farm stand.

We featured mini potato pancakes and zucchini cakes for the first course, then moved to hot pretzels, which we took from the oven in batches as guests settled in. They were a huge hit! Finally, Alex grilled four kinds of sausages-Weisswurst, Bratwurst, Chicken Bratwurst, and vegetarian sausages-as I put the finishing touches on the three vegetables: a potato salad, a red cabbage slaw, and a big oval plate of fresh cucumbers and tomatoes.

Dessert was a vegan interpretation of a Black Forest Cake, made and served in two single layers. A lot of the party doesn’t eat dairy, so I thought doing the “icing” on the side in the form of hot fudge sauce and ice cream would work, and people assembled their own Black Forest Sundaes. I can’t say enough good things about this cake-it’s sweet, fruity, and fudgy, and you’d never know it’s vegan.

Aside from the party itself, I loved shopping with Alex’s brother and cooking with two of his aunts, and it was a pleasure to be all together in a big kitchen, chatting, listening to music, and cooking loads of food.

**Biergarten Party Menu for 25**

Assorted German Beers

Mini Potato Pancakes with Chive Sour Cream
Bite-Sized Zucchini Cakes with Chive Sour Cream
Cheese Plate

Hot Pretzels
Honey Mustard

Bratwurst, Weisswurst & Chicken Bratwurst from Schaller & Weber
Vegetarian Sausages
Mustard

Simple German Potato Salad
Sweet Red Cabbage Slaw
Tomatoes & Cucumber Wedges

Vegan Black Forest Cakes
Hot Fudge Sauce - Vanilla Ice Cream - Dairy-Free Chocolate Sorbet

There’s a continuous run of birthdays in mid-August. I counted and recounted on my fingers and eventually concluded that I know birthday girls and guys who lay claim to each day from the 15th to the 25th. This includes my uncle, my mother in law, both of my sisters, and Bill Clinton (August 19th).

Birthdays mean festive food, food that delights the revelers, party star and guests alike. I put together this list to inspire more/better opportunities for birthday feasting. Let’s start at cake and eat ourselves back through intimate dinners and cocktail feasts, not to mention breakfast, which should naturally be an extraordinary meal on birthday mornings.

**What to Cook for Birthday Feasts**

Cake!
1. Giant Layered Cookie Cake. I’ve long loved the cookie cake for its whimsical flair and ease of assembly. To make the cookie confection more of a cake, I’ve layered it with a cream cheese frosting. Can’t beat this one for awesome presentation!

2. Chocolate Mousse Pie. This delicious cake meets pie meets mousse meets gooey chocolatey perfection has a million things going for it, including the fact that it’s both dairy and gluten free.

3. Raspberry Lemon Birthday Cake. The combination of dense lemon cake and pink raspberry buttercream makes this cake equal parts girly, summery, and crowd pleasing.

4. White and Black Pepper Marble Cake. Perfect for picnic and potluck celebrations, this sturdy cake allows for easy transportation, no cake carrier needed. The flavors develop with time, so feel free to bake this one a day in advance.

I eat a lot of vegetarian food, even though I’m not a vegetarian. Especially during the summer, when weekends consist of grilling sausages, burgers, and hot dogs, I gravitate towards grains, beans, and salads for some balance during the week.

Yet I’m often guilty of running to the cabinet for pasta when I go to make a meatless meal. Many of the most satisfying vegetarian dinners are based on lasagna, linguine, and orzo, but other grains and vegetables can be the starting point too. I thought I’d share inspiration for pasta-free vegetarian dinners good enough to serve to guests, and the BGSK archives yielded a ton of options I hope you’ll enjoy. (Note: despite being pasta-less, some but not all of these mains are gluten-free.)

**Vegetarian Mains, Hold the Pasta**

1. Seared Pepper Tacos with Pintos and Avocado Crema. A combination of spicy peppers and onions and home-cooked pinto beans makes these vegan tacos hearty and healthful. Don’t forget the avocado crema-that’s key.

2. Middle Eastern Carrot Tacos. We go fusion here, bringing carrots dressed with spices and herbs to the center of a cheesy taco. And, look, there’s avocado on top of these, too! (How could I not?)

3. Fried Rice with Shiitakes and Cashews. Fried rice used to be a dish made out of leftovers. Now I cook rice precisely for the purpose of mixing it with mushrooms, cashews, and scrambled eggs for this filling, easy main dish.

4. Sweet-and-Sour Tofu with Bok Choy. This recipe, which originally came from a reader, hits a perfect balance of sweet, tangy, and filling. Paired with bok choy and rice, this one dish makes for a complete vegetarian meal.

When we were shooting images for In the Small Kitchen, our photographer, Josh, took a step back while photographing the umpteenth chicken recipe-the Mediterranean Baked Chicken in the Dinner Party chapter-and said, “So, you make as much chicken as my mom always did.” (Josh grills a mean chicken himself.)

So it goes: chicken is easy to buy and quick to cook. It’s filling and pretty healthful and an all-around go-to for cooks, harried or not, and that’s probably why it’s been a home cook’s favorite for generations.

Anyway, just because I cook a decent amount of chicken doesn’t mean that I cook it in the same way as someone’s grandma. The chicken recipes on BGSK are often exotically spiced, baked instead of fried, or marinated for a long time to boost moistness and flavor. No dried-out chicken breasts here, I promise. (FYI, I usually like to use whole chickens or skin-on thighs or breasts from my local butcher, Fleisher’s.)

**Everyday Chicken Recipes for Weeknight Meals**

1. Seared Chicken Breasts with Cherry Tomato Pan Sauce and Fresh Mozzarella. In this dish, there’s a sweet, tart explosion of juice that comes with heating cherry tomatoes in the oven, turning them into a pan sauce for quickly seared chicken. Melty wedges of mozzarella are icing on the cake.

2. Chicken Curry Wraps. The curry ramps up the mayo in this salad, the celery and shallot add an awesome crunch, and the raisins provide a haunting sweetness that in turn makes the curry taste even better. This incredibly tasty chicken salad becomes the filling in make-ahead wraps brilliantly suited to dinner in the park.

3. Green Chile Chicken. Filled with vegetables, this south-of-the-border chicken stew makes the most of pantry ingredients, though you may need a special supermarket run for the can of green chilies. As soon as you find fresh corn at the market, throw the sweet kernels in.

4. Ginger-Honey Chicken Wings. Baking chicken wings turns them crispy and rich, almost as if they’d been fried (but without the mess or the added fat). After baking, a teriyaki-inspired sauce coats the wings. Snack on these whenever, or make them the main course of dinner by serving them on top of rice with some greens on the side.

In summer, a pitcher of iced tea beckoning from the fridge can salvage the sweatiest day. When I need some sanity after a long summer commute, I try not to forget how cold drinks, from flavored teas to fruity cocktails, can help reduce the effect of the humid weather, sticky subway, and growling but necessary window air conditioner unit.

This summer, I’ll be mixing up new cocktails and downing no-recipe-needed cold beer. For this first heat wave, I rounded up my favorite drinks from summers past. What will you be sipping?

**6 Cool Summer Drinks**

1. Iced Strawberry Green Tea. A twist on iced green tea that makes the most of in-season strawberries, using them to create a syrup, which then sweetens the tea.

2. Chai Tea Latte. The milky, sweet, spiced tea qualifies as both a drink and an afternoon snack. Change up the formula as you see fit, adding more honey for your sweet tooth or extra cardamom for extra earthiness.

3. Sun Tea. Last season, I got obsessed with keeping a jar of sun tea in my fridge at all times. As hydrating as water, the tea kept me cool and quenched, especially the non-caffeinated versions. With sun tea, the tea steeps in the cold fridge, so you never even have to bother with boiling water.

4. Easy Peach Limeade. In this no-cook drink, peaches marinade in lime juice and sugar to create a nectar as beautiful in color as it is delectable in taste. Serve with crackly plum cake for a summer version of afternoon tea.