From Our Small Kitchen

In a small kitchen, you don’t need a lot of equipment to cook great food. Still, you do need some pots, pans, utensils, and dishes–obviously. In the BGSK book, you’ll find a bare bones list of necessary tools, but I’ve long wanted to bring you a similar resource on the web.

So we’re going one by one, stocking up our virtual pantries and maybe our real ones too. You can see the whole “set” here.

How I try to keep the specialized kitchen equipment to a minimum! One of the items I was strictest about for as …

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I hesitate to admit this when I’m about to tell you to summon summer with roasted tomato panzanella, but I haven’t found as much displeasure in the weather this winter as I ordinarily do. New York City is the proud provider of freezing cold sunshine, and I have a hard time frowning on sunny days or during Prospect Park’s especially beautiful winter golden hour, even when the sun forgets it’s supposed to heat as well as brighten. We visited Lake Placid in January, which put cold into perspective and also reminded us that snowshoeing is a reason to leave the …

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Key lime pie is perfect for this in-between time of year. (Especially today-Pi Day 3.1415!) It’s green (extra points for St. Patrick’s Day), citrus is in season, and it tastes like summer when there is still snow on the ground. Depending on whom you ask, authentic key lime pie is either decidedly baked or not baked. This is a no-bake recipe. The pie comes together in a snap, and will transport you straight to the Florida Keys. In fact, it comes to you from Florida, and is a recipe my boyfriend has made since he was a little boy. …

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The best food I cook comes from recreating imaginary dishes. I don’t usually know where my cravings spew from, but all of a sudden I’ll be steaming onions in turmeric for tagine, and I’m perfectly happy with the situation. After all, the best long-term way to keep yourself in the kitchen is probably to make what you want, consciously or unconsciously, so that the result is satisfying enough that dirty dishes don’t put you off cooking for weeks to come.

That’s why I look to restaurants less for home-cooking inspiration than for home-cooking breaks and tastes of foods I …

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A sandwich with meat, cheese, and a real vegetable inside? I should know about this.

That’s what I thought when, in researching a piece on Philly Cheesesteaks, I got extraordinarily distracted by the discovery of the steak hero’s porky brother, the Roast Pork Sandwich. While most sandwiches claim a couple tomato slices or some lettuce as all their vegetables, this sandwich has a heap of sautéed broccoli rabe inside with the pork and the cheese. That makes it, in my book, a complete meal, and therefore a dish I should know about.

Even better, both the pork and rabe …

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Do you have a favorite pancake recipe? Rosa Parks did: hers had peanut butter in the batter.

My mom told me this about two seconds after my deadline for this pancake piece. I interviewed Neil Kleinberg of Clinton St. Baking Company for the article. His secret? Egg whites and tons of butter.

Putting aside the delight of knowing about a secret ingredient, the 1/3 cup of peanut butter in the batter here makes these cakes more sustaining. You don’t get as hungry or as sleepy after eating them as you do with regular pancakes.

Even better, once you’ve added …

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The other day, I looked at the price on the box of quinoa and saw a stamp of $7.99. Twelve ounces of Ancient Harvest brand quinoa (by far the best-tasting) had soared up to eight dollars! From 2007 to to 2013, the price per pound of quinoa doubled, but this was the first time I’d seen the box retail for quite that much. I put it back, went home, and started eating farro.

The story makes sense. The rebranding of quinoa as a superfood turned it into a grain we ate all the time. But unlike rice, which has long …

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This winter has gotten me hungry for travel, and I’m delighted to introduce this post, by Carly Diaz, which transports us to the kitchens of Amsterdam. It’s a recipe for a traditional mashed potato and kale dish called Stamppot that I know we should make one of our wintry edible traditions back home.

Stamppot is one of the most traditional dishes in the Netherlands, a straight-from-grandma’s-kitchen kind of meal. Hearty and simple, it can be bought ready-made from the ubiquitous Dutch grocery store chain Albert Heijn or easily made at home. Translated as “mash pot,” it is essentially mashed potatoes …

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Some days require a quick chocolate fix, and these gluten-free cookies are just the ticket.

Deeply fudgy and altogether satisfying, they take just minutes to whip up and don’t require any flour. I think they might be a miracle cookie. With a crispy outside and a brownie-like fudgy interior, there is something for every chocolate lover in these cookies. A glass of milk is almost a required accompaniment. When a midnight craving hits, keep this recipe close at hand. That is, if you don’t memorize it after the first few times making it.

I like to think these are healthy-ish, …

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I love beans for a lot of reasons, but my affection definitely derives from their price. Beans are cheap. Even the best beans are cheaper than almost anything else you can buy to eat. And they’re such a great reminder of how inexpensive cooking for yourself is, if you stay aware. Eliminate some of the frou frou trendy ingredients you see in the magazines, and notice, at the grocery store, that quinoa’s price has doubled (!), and you can feast almost every day for a couple of dollars per meal, a price that might allow for an occasional culinary splurge, …

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