SPINACH-RICOTTA CALZONES

Do I really need to explain why cheese-and-greens-stuffed dough is a good thing? I felt like putting a new spin on my pizza routine while A was out of town, and this recipe from Annie’s Eats seemed just the ticket. I’d made calzones filled with basic pizza toppings before and been underwhelmed, but I think leaving out the tomato sauce and using it as a dip instead might be the key to success, with less mess and risk of sogginess. Rolling out and folding each piece of dough is a little more work than making one big flat crust, but other than that, this is a cinch and makes a great dinner (and handy leftovers that I bet would also freeze well) year-round.

The original recipe made two calzones, but I liked the idea of four single-serving ones better, even if it means more futzing with dough. I also used a full pound of spinach, because that’s how big the bags are at Trader Joe’s; it makes the calzones a bit more filling-centric and, of course, greener, but I like them that way. Other than that, the only tweak I made was to use dried oregano because I had a lot of other fresh herbs on the shopping list already. Plus, I actually enjoy the taste of dried oregano—it’s the quintessential pizza flavor! The first time I made these I also threw in a little fresh basil, just because I had some that needed to be used up, and the second time I tried a little dried basil, which was good too. And while the vegetarian nature of these was part of the appeal for me, A has made it very clear that some pepperoni or sausage would not go amiss as far as he’s concerned, so that may be a future variation.

10-16 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
8 ounces (1 cup) whole-milk ricotta cheese
4 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 ounce Parmesan cheese, grated
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 large egg yolk
2 cloves garlic, minced
1½ teaspoons minced fresh oregano, or 1 teaspoon dried oregano
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pound pizza dough
1 large egg lightly beaten with 2 tablespoons water, for egg wash
Pizza sauce (this one is my current go-to), for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.
2. In a bowl, combine the spinach, ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan, olive oil, egg yolk, garlic, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Stir well until evenly combined, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and divide it into quarters. Working with one piece of dough at a time, use a rolling pin to flatten the dough into a thin round, about 6 to 8 inches in diameter. Repeat with the other portions of dough.
4. Spread a quarter of the spinach filling over half of each dough round, leaving a 1-inch border at the edge. Brush the edge with the egg wash. Fold the other half of the dough over the filling, leaving ½-inch border of the bottom edge uncovered. Press the edges of the dough together and crimp to seal.
5. Carefully transfer the sealed calzones to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Using a sharp knife, cut 5 steam vents in the top of the each calzone. Brush the tops with the remaining egg wash.
6. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes, rotating the baking sheet halfway through. Transfer the calzones to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes. Serve warm with pizza sauce.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good. Calzones are best reheated in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until warmed through.

BAKED EGGS WITH SPINACH AND MUSHROOMS

This feels a little anticlimactic after the big Potato Salad Revelation. I thought the recipe (from Gourmet via Smitten Kitchen) sounded a little boring, but useful: one of those easy, cozy egg dishes that can be whipped up with little energy and on short notice—the first day back from vacation, say, when the fridge is nearly bare and you just want to grab a few things at the store and throw something together. Spinach, mushrooms, and eggs…what’s not to like? Er, unless you don’t like one of those three things. But I like all of them and know they go well together, in a non-earthshattering kind of way.

Except I was pleasantly surprised by how much flavor is packed into this dish and how much we enjoyed it. Not to mention it’s relaxingly flexible—I used more spinach and mushrooms because those were the package sizes I’d bought and I wanted to use them up, and it was just fine—and can be scaled up to serve six or more, making it just as nice for brunchtime entertaining as for a lazy weekday dinner. The only flaw is that my eggs have turned out too hard both times so far, but that’s easily fixed with a bit more attentiveness; I’ll try them after 5 minutes next time instead of the original 7 to 10. And even oversolid, they still tasted great, so no big deal. Apparently it even makes good leftovers, although I’ve yet to try that. All in all, this recipe is a good reminder that sometimes basic food can be best.

10-12 ounces baby spinach leaves
¼ cup finely chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
5-8 ounces cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/3 cup heavy cream
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons finely grated Parmesan

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Bring ½ inch water to a boil in a 10- to 12-inch ovenproof heavy skillet (not cast-iron), then add half of spinach and cook, turning with tongs, until wilted, about 30 seconds. Add remaining spinach and wilt in same manner, then cook, covered, over medium-high heat until spinach is tender, about 2 minutes. Drain in a colander and cool under cold running water. Gently squeeze handfuls of spinach to remove as much liquid as possible, then coarsely chop.
3. Wipe skillet dry, then melt butter over medium-low heat and cook onion and garlic, stirring, until softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and increase heat to medium, then cook, stirring, until mushrooms are softened and have exuded liquid, about 3 minutes. Stir in cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and chopped spinach and bring to a simmer.
4. Remove skillet from heat and make 4 large indentations in spinach mixture. Break an egg into each indentation and bake, uncovered, until egg whites are set but yolks are still runny, 5 to 10 minutes. (Check them after 5 minutes.) Lightly season eggs with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with cheese.

Serves: 2 (can be doubled or tripled as needed)
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Untried by me, but word on the street says it’s decent.

EGG DROP SOUP

This recipe, also from Budget Bytes, is the perfect side dish to accompany baked egg rolls in your DIY Chinese-takeout-themed meal. It’s easy, fast, and light yet nourishing…and making egg ribbons is fun. I had much more success with these than with my previous attempts in Italian wedding soup, probably because this broth is thickened slightly with cornstarch to help suspend them, or maybe just because Budget Bytes did such a good job explaining how to create a swirling vortex and drizzle them in.

The first time I made this, I figured I might as well use the whole 8-ounce package of mushrooms (the original recipe only calls for 4 ounces), but I felt that the finished soup was a bit too mushroom-heavy, so the second time I split the difference at 6 ounces. The first time I used spinach as my greens and the second time baby bok choi. The recipe’s flexible, is what I’m saying. The overall flavor is delicate, and I’m not a Sriracha fantatic, but I highly recommend stirring at least a few drops into each serving; you won’t be able to taste it exactly, but it adds just the right zip of acidity and spice to keep the soup from verging on blandness.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and grated or minced
4-6 ounces fresh button mushrooms, sliced
3-4 green onions, sliced
8 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 large eggs
2 cups fresh baby spinach or shredded baby bok choi leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
Sriracha to taste (optional)

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Ad the ginger, mushrooms, and green onions and sauté until slightly softened (5 minutes).

2. Add chicken broth and soy sauce. Turn the heat up to high and bring to a rolling boil.

3. While waiting for the soup to boil, place the cornstarch in a small bowl and add just enough water to dissolve it (about 2 tablespoons); stir together until smooth. When the soup reaches a boil, stir in the cornstarch slurry.

4. Whisk the eggs in a bowl with 2 tablespoons of water. Turn the heat off and wait for the soup to stop boiling (one minute or less; if you have an electric stove you may want to move it off the burner). Using a large spoon, swirl the soup in the pot in a circular motion. Once it’s all moving consistently in the same direction, slowly drizzle in the whisked eggs. (If you want thicker egg threads, swirl a little slower and/or pour a little faster.) Do not stir the soup for at least one minute while the eggs set. Allow the swirling current to slow to a stop on its own.

5. Once the egg threads are set, stir in the spinach or bok choi and allow to wilt, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with Sriracha (I like about 5-6 drops per serving).

Serves: 6
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good. Not sure it will freeze well, but it keeps for a week in the fridge.

SPINACH SOUP WITH GARLIC THYME CROUTONS

I have several green soups in my repertoire—broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, and even green bean (the point at which I actually had the short-sightedness to declare that my collection of pureed green soups was complete)—but somehow I’ve missed out on the most obvious variety. Of course spinach is ideal for soup because it you can cram a lot of it in there and it shrinks down to practically nothing. But spinach soup never sounded especially appealing to me until this Joy the Baker recipe caught my eye. So many pureed vegetable soups risk being bland, especially when potatoes are involved, so I look for big added flavors to keep things interesting, and this one had some of my faves, red pepper flakes and lemon juice, as well as an intriguingly large dose of dried thyme. (You might be tempted to use fresh, but I think dried has its own unique character and works well here.) The soup is great, fresh and green and velvety, but let’s face it, the croutons are the big stars here. Their spicy, salty, herby, garlicky, unrepentantly buttery crunch make this soup a knockout. A isn’t a fan of pureed soups and almost never eats the leftovers, but a plentiful supply of croutons was enough to lure him back for a second helping the next day. And I may be a vegetable soup lover anyway, but I’m not made of stone, and I found the crunchy, seasoned bread bites irresistible.

Making my own croutons isn't a revelation for me, but I’d never thought to put them on soup before. Now that I’ve started, I want to put them on everything.

Croutons:
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 tablespoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Salt to taste
4-6 heaping cups stale bread cubes
Soup:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons dried thyme leaves
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon salt, plus extra to taste
2 cups peeled, diced red potatoes
4 cups low-sodium chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
6 heaping cups fresh spinach leaves
Juice of half a lemon

1. To prepare the croutons, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, place bread cubes on the parchment, and set aside. Heat oil and butter in a medium sauté pan until butter is melted. Add sliced garlic and cook for 3 minutes. Remove garlic from the pan and discard. Remove pan from the heat, add thyme and red pepper flakes, and stir to combine. Drizzle melted butter mixture over the bread cubes. Sprinkle generously with salt and toss with your hands, then spread cubes out in a single layer. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until bread is golden brown and crisp.

2. To prepare the soup, heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and sauté until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, thyme, red pepper flakes, and ½ teaspoon salt and sauté for 2 minutes. Add potatoes and sauté for 3 minutes more.

3. Pour in chicken stock and bring to a low simmer. Simmer for about 15 minutes, or until potato chunks are cooked through. Reduce heat to low and add spinach leaves. Stir and cook spinach down in the hot broth for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and puree soup with an immersion blender, or in a regular blender or food processor in batches. Once soup is pureed, stir in lemon juice and season with salt to taste.

4. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with croutons.

Serves: 4
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; store leftover croutons separately from soup.

SPINACH AND FETA PIES

Hand pies, hand pies! I feel like every hand pie recipe I’ve tried (this is my third) has been slightly troublesome in some way, yet I still love them. Because how could one not like filling enveloped in a flaky, buttery crust? In this case, the real “trouble” was only that I had way too much filling to fit inside the amount of puff pastry called for, necessitating the purchase of another box of pastry dough and the assembly of another four pies a few days after the initial eight. Maybe I was supposed to have filled them fuller, although I really don’'t see how I could be expected to cram more in there or stretch the dough any thinner. Since the unbaked pies keep very well in the freezer, ready to be whipped out and baked up for easy future weeknight dinners, this was actually a boon—except for the legitimate obstacle of finding good puff pastry dough. Most ordinary grocery stores only carry the Pepperidge Farm stuff, which I’ve used in a pinch but it has a scarily long list of ingredients, including partially hydrogenated oil and high-fructose corn syrup. Trader Joe’s has a great, reasonably priced all-butter puff pastry dough, but it turns out it’s considered a “seasonal” item and isn’t available year-round. After trying my luck at no less than three separate Trader Joe’s locations and coming up empty, I desperately turned to a gourmet grocery store in my neighborhood and bought a box of good-quality all-butter puff pastry for an embarrassingly high price ($10!). Then when I discovered I’d need even more pastry, I tried Whole Foods, where I found…that same brand of good-quality all-butter puff pastry, for the same exorbitant price. Reader, I paid it. Even having spent an atrocious $15 on puff pastry, the rest of the ingredients came so cheaply and I made so many pies that I figure they still averaged out to only a few dollars per serving. I’m sure DIY is the way to go here, but I just don’t foresee myself learning how to make pastry in the near future, so next time I see puff pastry in stock at Trader Joe’s, I’m filling up my freezer. But really, with all that butter, puff pastry is only a “sometimes food” anyway (as Cookie Monster would say), so its scarcity won’t ruin my life.

Beyond all these travails, the filling itself was really easy to make (except I really loathe defrosting and squeezing out frozen spinach; it gets everywhere) and delicious, reminiscent of spanakopita. Spinach + feta + lemon is a match made in heaven. I was first inspired to make these by a post on Budget Bytes that showed a similar filling baked into a single pie, also a nice idea (and it uses just one sheet of puff pastry, which is both cheaper and healthier) but I do love a hand pie, so some Internet searching turned up this even better version (because it uses feta too) at Small Time Cooks. (The original recipe is from Everyday Food, but for some reason it doesn’t show up on a search of the Martha Stewart site.) I love that the recipe included freezing directions, since puff pastry is best freshly baked; I’ll employ that technique with all other hand pies from now on.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
40 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
2 cups crumbled feta
Juice from 1 large lemon (2–4 tablespoons)
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Coarse salt and ground black pepper to taste
1 large egg, beaten with 2 tablespoons water, for egg wash
All-purpose flour, for work surface
1 to 1½ boxes frozen puff pastry, thawed but still cold (where each box is about 16 to 17 ounces and contains two sheets of pastry; start with two sheets, or one box, and use the third if you still have leftover filling)

1. In a medium skillet, heat oil over medium heat; add onions and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl; mix in spinach, feta, lemon juice, and cayenne. Season filling with salt and pepper to taste, and set aside.
   
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, with racks in the upper and lower thirds.
   
3. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out each of two sheets of dough into a 12-inch square; cut each square into quarters to make 8 smaller squares. Dividing evenly, spoon filling onto the center of each of the 8 squares. Lightly brush two adjoining edges of each square with some egg wash. Fold these edges over filling to form a triangle; press firmly to seal (dough should be tightly pressed around filling). With a floured fork, crimp edges.
   
4. If you still have filling left over, repeat step 3 with the remaining sheet of dough to make 12 pies.
   
5. Transfer pies to two baking sheets (lined with parchment if desired); brush tops with remaining egg wash. Bake until golden and puffed, 35 to 40 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through.

Serves: Supposedly 8, with one pie apiece, but for me, this made 12 pies, and I sometimes ate 1.5 pies per serving, so 6-12
Time: 1½ hours
Leftover potential: Good; already-baked puff pastry isn’t as good the next day (it tends to get kind of greasy, although it still tastes just fine). But it’s easy to freeze the raw pies and bake them later. Just place the unbaked pies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and put them in the freezer for an hour or so; once they’re frozen, package them up (I just placed them in a Tupperware box with waxed paper between the layers, but you can also wrap them individually in plastic wrap and put them in a resealable plastic bag) and you can store them in the freezer for up to 2 months. To bake from frozen, just unwrap them and follow the directions in step 5, adding 5 to 10 minutes to the baking time if needed.

ITALIAN MEATBALL SLIDERS WITH SPINACH-MOZZARELLA SALAD

Once I get interested in a food I can get a little obsessive about it (see: poached eggs, quinoa, feta, fritters), especially when it’s a seasonal fruit or vegetable (see: corn, asparagus, fennel, radishes) that won’t be available at its peak quality for long. This can lead to long stretches where we eat the same types of things at least once a week, sometimes for months on end. No matter how delicious those things are, I know the repetition can be a little wearying for anyone who doesn’t share my passion, so I like to keep a few simple comfort foods in my back pocket, things that can be made year-round and that A is always happy to see on the menu, thus softening the blow that we’re also having, say, kale salad for the third week in a row. Ideally, though, these comfort foods will still be fresh, wholesome, and not too indulgent. That’s a tall order, but luckily, this is the sort of thing Cooking Light excels at, which is why I keep renewing my subscription. Two summers ago, it brought us a now-favorite, BBQ pulled chicken sandwiches, and now it’s served up another slam dunk.

I’ve never been particularly interested in meatball sandwiches or sliders or making burger-type foods at home, so I’m not sure exactly what attracted me to this recipe beyond the fact that the photo was very colorful and appealing, and I suspected A that would enjoy it. I suppose my enjoyment of meatballs has been steadily increasing over the years, from lemony pork meatballs with noodles to Italian wedding soup, as I’ve realized that, never a big fan of slabs of uninterrupted meat, I’ll take these little spiced, seasoned bites over a steak any day. I knew that A, who can have a bird-like appetite at times, would appreciate the petite, nonoverhelming quality of the mini sandwiches, and I liked the fact that they looked easy to put together but didn’t resemble anything else in my recipe collection.

Folks, these are incredibly delicious! I was a bit weirded out when I stirred the ricotta into the ground meat—there was enough that the whole mixture turned white and creamy and gooey, which made it trickier to form the meatballs—but the cheese is the secret ingredient that keeps these relatively lean meatballs so tender and moist. For the sauce, I just used a can of Trader Joe’s tomato sauce, then spiced it up with 1 teaspoon each of dried oregano, dried basil, and balsamic vinegar, plus a pinch each of fennel seed and black pepper, after I added it to the skillet—basically a streamlined version of my pizza sauce. I didn’t see slider buns at any of my usual shopping sites, so I just bought some small buttermilk dinner rolls from a bakery at the farmers’ market and they worked perfectly. (In the future, I’d like to try making little versions of yogurt sandwich rolls for this purpose.) The resulting sandwiches are messy, but so crowd-pleasingly enjoyable. Just don’t leave off the fresh basil leaves, as I accidentally did the second time I made this. They’re not just a garnish; they add a welcome bright, grassy note.

Pondering what to serve alongside this, I figured I might as well go with the simple spinach salad that the magazine suggested as an accompaniment. It sounded a little dull to me, but I knew I wanted some color and vegetables on the plate, and I rarely say no to cheese. It turned out to be an excellent choice; it was easy to make and surprisingly complex-tasting, more than the sum of its parts. The spinach, mozzarella, red pepper, onion, and balsamic dressing completed the Italianate flavor profile so perfectly that I’d never bother serving the sliders without the salad, and for your convenience I’m just combining them into a single recipe below.

Confession: I did not toast my panko (too lazy; seemed unnecessary) or my buns (just noticed that instruction in the original recipe now) and nothing seemed amiss, so I’m marking those steps optional. I suppose toasting the bun might keep the sauce from making it soggy, but as long as you eat these promptly after assembling, I don't think sogginess should be a major problem.

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 shallots, finely diced
1 cup thinly sliced red bell pepper
½ cup thinly sliced red onion
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
⅜ teaspoon salt, divided
¾ teaspoon black pepper, divided
6 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mozzarella
⅓ cup part-skim ricotta cheese
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
¼ cup panko, toasted if desired
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
⅛ teaspoon salt
8 ounces lean ground pork
2 4-ounce links turkey or chicken Italian sausage, casings removed
1 large egg
1½ cups lower-sodium marinara sauce
6 cups baby spinach
12 slider buns (or small dinner rolls, split in half horizontally), toasted if desired
12 large basil leaves

1. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large skillet over medium heat; swirl to coat. Add garlic and shallots to pan; sauté 3 minutes or until shallots are softened, stirring frequently. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

2. While the shallots are cooling, combine red bell pepper, red onion, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, ¼ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper, and mozzarella in a large bowl; let stand while preparing the rest of the meal.

3. Combine the ricotta, parsley, panko, ½ teaspoon black pepper, red pepper flakes, ⅛ teaspoon salt, ground pork, Italian sausage, and egg with the shallot mixture in a large bowl. Mix well with your hands, then shape mixture into 12 (approximately 1-inch) meatballs; flatten each meatball slightly.

4. Return pan to medium-high heat. Add remaining 2 teaspoons oil to pan. Add meatballs to pan; cook 6 minutes, turning once. Add marinara sauce; bring to a boil, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 8 minutes or until meatballs are done.

5. Add baby spinach to the red pepper mixture and toss well.

6. Top the bottom half of each bun with 1½ tablespoons marinara sauce, 1 meatball, 1 basil leaf, and top half of bun. Serve with spinach salad on the side.

Serves: 6 (2 sliders and about 1 cup of salad each)
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good, if you store the salad and sliders unassembled. For the salad, store the red pepper mixture separately from the spinach, store both elements in the refrigerator, and combine just before eating. For the sliders, store the meatballs with their sauce separately from the buns, store the meatballs in the refrigerator and the buns at room temperature (or in the freezer), then reheat the meatballs in the microwave (you can also microwave the buns to thaw them, or just briefly to soften them if they are a bit dry), and put them on the buns just before eating. You can either put the basil on top of the meatballs before you store them (it will discolor a bit but will taste just fine), or add it freshly when it’s time to eat.

ORZO SALAD WITH SPINACH, FETA, AND LEMON

Clearly, even though I keep telling myself I’m not in the market for any more pasta recipes, I am still powerless to resist certain ingredients, and feta and lemon are definitely on the list. This is basically a spring/summer version of one of my favorites, orzo with chicken, lemon, and dill—similar core elements, but cool and refreshing instead of hot and melty, brightened up with lots of green vegetables.

My mouse hand crept relentlessly toward the “Save on Delicious” button as soon as I spotted this Dinner With Julie post in my feed reader. I paused only to think, “Could I add even more green things to this concoction?” After a quick Food Blog Search session, the answer was clear (thanks to this Two Peas and Their Pod recipe): asparagus. That was the only change I made to the original, except that I increased the orzo quantity to use the whole package, and skipped the rice vinegar (which I don’t have) in favor of more lemon juice.

All quantities are pretty much up to you here. I’m not exactly sure how much spinach I used, but I remember thinking there could be more of it; I loved the way its crisp, springy texture contrasted with the softer ones of the pasta and cheese—even after the salad spent several days in the fridge, it magically didn’t seem to get wilted or slimy—and I ended up adding even more of it to the leftovers, until it felt like half pasta and half greens. So I’m guessing at 6 ounces; use whatever seems right to you. Same with the onion; a little raw onion can go a long way, of course, but its crunch and bite are welcome here. And let’s face it, I probably had a heavier hand with the feta. I liked the asparagus, but you could leave it out (and, if you’re making the pasta more than a few hours ahead of serving, you may want to, because asparagus is quicker to discolor when subjected to acid and age). Whatever you do, this is a fresh, incredibly quick and easy, light but satisfying salad that would make a perfect entrée on a hot day or an excellent addition to a picnic, BBQ, or potluck menu.

This is one of those basic discoveries that gets me really excited. Sometimes I glance at a recipe and wonder if it’s really worth my trying, even though it looks tasty, because it seems so simple and overlaps so many other recipes I’ve made before. Because I tend to gravitate toward certain ingredients, I’ve tried a lot of different combinations of them over the years. I try to resist letting my recipe collection balloon out of control; my ideal has always been to have a streamlined, well-curated list of favorites, but of course thanks to the number of food blogs I read and my own need for variety in writing this one, my virtual recipe box is always bulging. I tend to forget the fact (or maybe I just fear it, and the boundless options it represents) that ingredients can be combined in many different ways, and just a small variation can yield brand-new flavors, colors, and textures. In other words, even though this salad didn’t seem surprising or revolutionary to me at first glance (it’s no strawberry pizza, for example), I enjoyed it so enormously that it instantly won a spot in my regular rotation.

1 pound orzo
½ pound asparagus (optional), tough ends trimmed off, sliced into 1-inch pieces
6 ounces fresh spinach, thinly sliced
1 small red onion, finely chopped
4 ounces crumbled feta
Grated zest and juice of 1–2 lemons
2–3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook the orzo according to the package directions; drain well, running under cool water to cool it down, then dump into a bowl.

2. If using asparagus, steam until crisp-tender. Run under cold water to stop cooking, then add to the bowl with the orzo.

3. Add the spinach, onion, feta, and lemon zest to the orzo.

4. In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle over the orzo mixture and toss well to coat.

Serves: 6
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Great. Will keep in the fridge for up to a week.

STRAWBERRY AND ASPARAGUS SALAD

Asparagus + strawberries + mint + lemon = spring in a bowl. Add feta and spinach and you can’t hold me back. I might never have thought to combine these exact ingredients before stumbling across this salad from Bev Cooks on the magical Interwebs, but of course they go together brilliantly. (I’ve already combined strawberries and avocado, so why not strawberries and asparagus?) I doubled the recipe to serve four (as a side), swapped the feta in for goat cheese (not my fave), and upped the lemon juice ratio in the dressing (I like mine acidic). I used salted pepitas because I happened to have some on hand, and I did like them against the sweetness of the strawberries, but I think a lot of other options would work well here, too—pecans, sunflowers seeds, almonds, or even walnuts. The lemon-mint dressing was particularly nice; I had contemplated trying some sort of balsamic dressing instead, worried about the mint being too overpowering and weird, but it was subtle, just enough to add a crisp and refreshing aftertaste, and kept this salad on the delicate side, which is perfect for spring. I ate some leftover dressing on plain spinach later in the week and it was so good on its own that I started envisioning using it on other fruit-with-greens salads throughout the summer (I bet it would be nice with blueberries or peaches).

1 bunch (about ½ pound or less) asparagus, ends trimmed, stalks sliced into 2-inch pieces
10 mint leaves
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
About 3 cups baby spinach
About 1 cup strawberries, rinsed and thinly sliced
¼ cup pepitas, toasted
¼ cup crumbled feta or goat cheese

1. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Add the asparagus and cook until bright green and crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Drain and cool in an ice bath or under cold running water. Pat dry.

2. Using a mini food processor or an immersion blender, combine the mint leaves with the oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

3. Arrange the spinach in a bowl or on a plate. Top with sliced strawberries, blanched asparagus, toasted pepitas, crumbled cheese, and a good drizzle of the lemon-mint dressing.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: OK, but you should store the components separately and assemble them only when ready to eat.

WHITE BEAN AND SPINACH SALAD WITH WARM BACON VINAIGRETTE

And here’s yet another spinach salad with bacon that I’ve plopped an egg atop. But this one has white beans! Despite its marked similarity to many of the other new salads I’ve been discovering ever since I learned to poach an egg, I still became entranced when I spotted it at Thursday Night Smackdown, where the writing is always entertaining and insightful but the recipes are normally too complicated for my lazy ass. This one is simplicity itself—basically just canned beans on a bed of raw spinach—but the huge flavors of the vinaigrette, with its generous hits of bacon and garlic mixed with shallots, mustard, and vinegar, make the humble ingredients seem fancy.

I doubled the recipe so I could have leftovers (see note below), added the egg, and nixed the canned beans in favor of the dried yellow eye beans I’d bought on a whim at the farmers’ market. Normally I prefer dry beans to canned, but these cooked up bigger and starchier than I’d expected, and although they were still plenty delicious, I think the canned beans might actually have a better texture here and soak up more of the vinaigrette flavors, so I’m going to try canned next time. Other than that, this salad was an easy-but-sophisticated-feeling one-dish dinner—but then, it’s hard to go wrong with that much bacon. If you want to cut back on the bacon or the garlic, I’d understand.

8 strips thick-cut bacon, diced
2 large shallots, minced
12 medium cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup sherry or apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 15-ounce cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed, or 1 pound dried white beans, cooked and drained
½ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
9–12 ounces baby spinach
4 eggs (optional)

1. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook, stirring occasionally, until the fat has rendered out and the bacon is crisp. Use a slotted spoon to remove the bacon from the pan to a plate lined with paper towels, keeping the fat in the pan, and turn the heat down to medium-low.

2. Add the shallots to the pan of bacon drippings and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds more.

3. Whisk the mustard into the vinegar, then pour the mixture into the skillet and stir to combine. Mix in the beans and pepper and cook for a few minutes to heat through. Toss in the parsley and bacon.

4. Put the spinach in a large bowl; dump the bean mixture over the top. Toss everything together, then let it sit for a few minutes. If desired, poach the eggs and place one atop each serving of salad.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good, if the bean mixture is stored separately from the spinach. If you want to eat two servings right away and two servings later, as we did, only combine half the bean mixture with half the spinach in Step 4. Store the leftover bean mixture separately from the leftover spinach. When you’re ready to eat them, heat up the bean mixture and then combine it with the spinach. The leftovers would probably still work OK if they’re all combined ahead of time, as long as you don’t mind wiltier spinach. But obviously, if you’re planning on topping this with a poached egg, don’t poach the egg until you’re ready to eat the leftovers.

TORTELLINI WITH SAUSAGE, FENNEL, MUSHROOMS, AND SPINACH

Even though I’m not actively trying to accumulate new pasta recipes (because I already have more than I can make in a year), every now and then I encounter one I can’t resist. I initially struggled to disregard this one when I spotted a simplified version at Dinner With Julie—I mean, it looked tasty, and I love filled pastas, and mushrooms and spinach and sausage go so well together, and I don’t have anything like that in my archives, yet it seemed too basic to be worth breaking my ban—but when I saw that the original Bon Appetit recipe also contained fennel (in three forms, no less: bulb, seeds, and fronds), I caved. Now that seemed special. Plus, it looked like the perfect easy weeknight meal for someone who’d just come back from vacation and wanted to eat some vegetables but hadn’t had a chance to go to the farmers’ market.

I’m not sure if I was just off my game, but this wasn’t quite as quick to throw together as I’d expected. Not laborious whatsoever, mind you, but not effortless…just your standard pasta recipe, basically. I blame the fennel, which always feels awkward for me to deal with, especially because I have to struggle to wrest the fronds away from a cat that is inexplicably obsessed with chewing on them. (Like, he can smell the fennel as soon as I bring it through the door and follows me around until I get it into the fridge. It’s pretty cute, actually.) Plus, I cooked my fennel mixture a bit longer than 15 minutes because I like it super-tender, not crunchy at all. So I guess if you’re looking for an unusually fast dish, try the Dinner with Julie version. But if you love fennel, stick with this one, because it’s going to be right up your alley.

Long story short, this is delicious. I knew the flavors would play well together, but I was still surprised by how much I liked it. The saucy-but-not-goopy texture was particularly delightful; that little bit of cream gives it some unctuousness without descending into heavy cream-sauce territory (in fact, if you hadn’t read the recipe, you might not notice it was there at all). I didn’t really make any changes. I did use chicken Italian sausage, which only comes in the sweet variety at Trader Joe’s, so to add spiciness I put in ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes along with the garlic and fennel seed. I might select a different tortellini next time, though. It cracked me up that the original recipe specifies only “dried tortellini with pesto filling or fresh tortellini with 3-cheese filling.” What happens if you use dried cheese tortellini or fresh pesto tortellini—will the dish explode? Still, I followed the rules and went with dried pesto tortellini, mainly because it handily comes in a 1-pound package at Trader Joe’s, whereas the fresh tortellini comes in odder sizes and I’d have to use something like 1.6 packs to equal a pound. I use the dried cheese tortellini all the time for pasta salad, but I hadn’t tried the pesto variety before and found it a little salty and fake-tasting (it reminded me more of dried basil than fresh). It wasn’t as noticeable in the finished dish, but I think I could do better. Oh, and I initially scoffed at the recipe’s direction to return the tortellini to its cooking pot and then add everything else to it—why not keep things cleaner and easier and add the tortellini, spinach and cheese to the skillet with the bubbling sauce, as in most pasta recipes? I’ll tell you why—because that skillet gets full nearly to overflowing, even before you try to add the bulky-before-wilting spinach leaves. I made a mess of the surrounding stovetop in the process, so I’ve learned my lesson there.

Anyway, despite my reluctance to add to my massive collection, I guess I’ve acquired another favorite pasta recipe, because this one’s a crowd-pleasing keeper.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large fennel bulb, trimmed, halved through core, thinly sliced lengthwise (about 3 cups), fronds chopped
1 pound spicy Italian sausages, casings removed, sausage coarsely crumbled
8 ounces fresh cremini mushrooms, sliced
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon fennel seeds, coarsely crushed
½ cup heavy cream
1 cup low-salt chicken broth
1 pound dried or fresh pesto or cheese tortellini
5–6 ounces baby spinach leaves
½ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra for serving

1. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add sliced fennel bulb, sausage, and mushrooms; sauté until sausage is brown and cooked through and fennel is almost tender, 12 to 15 minutes. Add garlic and fennel seeds; stir 1 minute. Stir in cream, then broth; boil until liquid is reduced and very slightly thickened, 2 to 3 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, cook tortellini in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain tortellini; return to same pot.

3. Add sausage mixture to tortellini in pot. Toss over medium heat until blended. Add spinach; toss gently until spinach wilts. Stir in ½ cup cheese. Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with chopped fennel fronds, and serve with additional cheese to taste.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: High.

SPINACH SALAD WITH MUSHROOMS, BACON, AND POACHED EGG

Yes, another salad with an egg on it. Yes, another warm bacon vinaigrette. I am nothing if not predictable. Don’t dismiss this as a repeat, though, because it’s not, and it’s incredibly delicious to boot.

I’m not sure what exactly inspired me to go Googling spinach-mushroom-bacon-egg salads, except for the irrefutable logic that if spinach + mushroom = good, and spinach + bacon = good, and bacon + egg = good, then spinach + mushroom + bacon + egg = quadruply good. I stumbled across rough versions of what I was hankering for at Beyond the Peel and The Pioneer Woman Cooks. The first recipe seemed like it might be a little too simple (no real dressing, just vinegar); the second one had some mouthwatering additions (onion, Dijon) but was fussier. I thought I’d try the second one, except with poached eggs instead of hard-boiled (and no sugar—I hate it in dressings), but in the end I basically followed the first one, adding onion and mustard. It was Saturday night and I was feeling too lazy to make a separate dressing, so I just stirred the vinegar and Dijon in with everything else that had been sautéing in the bacon drippings, and what do you know? It was just fine. Better than fine, really. I loved it, and A mentioned to me several times how good it was. Without the egg, it would probably make a nice side dish; with one egg, it could grace your brunch table; with two eggs, it’s a light but gratifying spring evening meal.

4 strips bacon, diced
½ small red onion, thinly sliced
4 ounces cremini mushrooms, sliced
3 ounces baby spinach
1–2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2–4 eggs
Asiago, Parmesan, or Pecorino Romano cheese to taste, shaved or shredded (optional)

1. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Once the pan is hot, add the bacon and fry until crisp. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and set it aside on a paper towel to drain.

2. To the bacon fat in the skillet, add the onions and mushrooms. Saute for about 10 minutes, or until onions are tender and mushrooms are golden.

3. Add vinegar and mustard to the mushroom-onion mixture and stir well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the bacon.

4. Meanwhile, poach eggs. (I use this method.)

5. Place 1½ cups of spinach on each plate. Top with the mushroom-onion-bacon mixture and then with the poached eggs. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with cheese if desired.

Serves: 2
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Unknown. You could probably store the mushroom-onion-bacon mixture separately in the fridge, reheat it, and then put it on some spinach when you’re ready to eat it, but you’d have to wait to poach your eggs until then.

SPINACH, MUSHROOM, AND FETA PIZZA

Last fall, I attempted an improvised spinach, mushroom, and feta pizza inspired by one I saw on TV. It was good, but unbalanced because I vastly underestimated how much spinach to use. That old shrinks-when-you-cook-it trick gets me every time! This is why I don’t cook without recipes, people. But recently I realized that the answer to this conundrum was right under my nose, in the form of a recipe for spinach and feta pizza I’d bookmarked months before at Eggs on Sunday (the source of so many of my favorite pizza recipes). This recipe very cleverly amps up the spinach volume by making it into a pesto—which also provides a hit of garlic (so nice with spinach and mushrooms) and a nice sauce-like element that is often missing from non-marinara-based pizzas. All I had to do was follow the directions, add in some mushrooms, and voila! I had the spinach-mushroom-feta pizza of my dreams.

I bought the biggest bag of spinach at Trader Joe’s, 12 ounces, and then felt compelled to use it all on the pizza so it didn’t go to waste, and although it was a great way to get my greens for the day, I probably could have eased up on it slightly. I had the right amount of pesto (I can’t report on exact quantities; it was just as much as I could fit in my tiny food processor), but I went a bit overboard on the sauteed spinach. I do like my pizza toppings applied with a generous hands (more vegetables = always a good thing), but I’m guessing 9 or 10 ounces might have been a happier medium. I briefly sautéed my mushrooms before adding them to the pizza, because I like them that way (they tend to do that incredible-shrinking-ingredient act too, so if you shrink them down a bit first you can fit more of them on the pizza) and I’m still using that pizza-on-the-stovetop method that I really need to tell you about sometime, and this ensures that they get fully tender even though the pizza doesn’t spend much time in the oven), but do what you like. Either way, I promise this will be delicious.

1 pound pizza dough
1 large bunch spinach, rinsed and spun dry (about 9 to 12 ounces)
1 garlic clove
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Olive oil to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
8 ounces cremini mushrooms, sliced
About ¾ cup grated mozzarella cheese
4 to 6 ounces crumbled feta cheese

1. Take about half of the spinach, cut off and discard the stems, and place the leaves in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Add the garlic clove and Parmesan and process until finely chopped. Drizzle in a few tablespoons of olive oil and blend, continuing to add olive oil until the pesto reaches the consistency you like; it should be spreadable but not too liquidy. Season with salt and pepper, and set aside.

2. Cut the stems off the remaining half of the spinach leaves, and sauté that spinach in a little olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat until wilted. Remove to a cutting board, let cool slightly, and coarsely chop.

3. Optionally, heat a little more olive oil in the same skillet (once the spinach has been removed) and sauté the mushrooms until they have softened and shrunk a bit.

4. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Stretch out your pizza dough and lay it out on a baking sheet that’s been generously dusted with cornmeal.

5. Spread the spinach pesto on the pizza dough (you may not use all of it, but if you have extra, it freezes well), then top with the mozzarella, mushrooms, chopped sauteed spinach, and crumbled feta.

6. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the crust is browned and the cheese is melted.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good

SPINACH-APPLE SALAD WITH MAPLE-CIDER VINAIGRETTE

Hot damn, this is a great fall-winter salad. I saw something similar on Annie’s Eats last month and thought it looked good, although I wasn’t quite sold on the dressing. (You can tell I’ve truly become a mustard convert, because I looked at the recipe and thought, “But where’s the Dijon?”) Then I skimmed the comments and noticed that someone mentioned making “almost the exact same thing but it had a maple-cider vinaigrette…and curry spiced pecans.” One quick Google later and I located that very recipe, from Southern Living, on MyRecipes, where it had an “Outstanding” rating—and Dijon in the dressing. Sold!

I made no changes to the recipe, except to halve the quantities because two people don’t need eight servings of salad (hence all the rather odd measurements; I went with “pinch” for the spices rather than “1/16 teaspoon,” but if you have a measuring spoon that small, by all means, go for precision) and to substitute feta for the goat cheese because I don’t like goat cheese. It sounds like kind of a hassle to have to candy the pecans, but (a) it’s actually super-easy, reminding me that I should make spiced, candied nuts all the time, because they are also awesome, and (b) you can make them ahead of time if you want, although I don’t recommend it because they’re so tasty they’re likely to get gobbled up as snacks before you even get around to making the salad. I do sort of question calling them “curried” pecans when they actually have more ginger than curry, and just as much salt and cayenne as curry; mine didn’t have a really noticeable curry flavor, but they were so good just as they were that I don’t really feel the need to tinker with the spice mixture—I just renamed them in my version of the recipe instead.

We loved everything about this salad—the crunch of the apple, nuts, and onion against the tenderness of the spinach and the creaminess of the feta; the salty-savory-sweet balance (the dressing is seriously delicious—I’m normally pretty sparing with salad dressings because I hate a soggy salad, but I used every last drop of this one); the colors; the wonderful fallishness; everything. I made it twice in the space of two weeks, first with this chicken recipe and then again with this one; it went perfectly with both and I’m still not tired of it, so you can bet it will be a cold-weather standard on my menu from now on. It makes a generous amount, so that even though I’d still technically call it a “side dish” (because it’s not quite hearty enough for me to make a meal of on its own), it took center stage at the table, with our small plates of chicken looking like side dishes in comparison. Which, really, is the way I prefer it—lots of veggies, fruit, and cheese with a modest garnish of meat!

Spiced candied pecans:
3 ounces pecan halves
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1½ tablespoons sugar
⅛ teaspoon ground ginger
1 pinch curry powder
1 pinch kosher salt
1 pinch ground red (cayenne) pepper

Maple-cider vinaigrette:
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup (I recommend Grade B)
1½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
⅓ cup olive oil

Salad:
5 to 6 ounces fresh baby spinach, thoroughly washed
1 small apple, thinly sliced (original recipe calls for Gala; I’m not sure what kind I used, since I tend to buy a big assortment of apples at the farmers’ market and then forget which one is which by the time I get them home, but I’d recommend leaning toward the tarter, firmer end of the spectrum)
½ small red onion, thinly sliced
2 ounces crumbled feta

1. To prepare the pecans, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss pecans in melted butter. Stir together sugar and next four ingredients in a bowl; add pecans, tossing to coat. Spread in a single layer in a nonstick aluminum foil- or parchment-lined pan. Bake 10 minutes or until lightly browned and toasted. Cool in pan on a wire rack 20 minutes; separate pecans with a fork. (Pecans may be made up to 1 week ahead; store in an airtight container.)

2. Meanwhile, to prepare the vinaigrette, whisk together cider vinegar and next four ingredients. Gradually whisk in oil until well blended. (Vinaigrette may be made up to 3 days ahead; cover and chill until ready to serve.)

3. To prepare the salad, combine spinach and next three ingredients in a bowl. Drizzle with desired amount of vinaigrette; toss to coat. Sprinkle with pecans.

Serves: 4 as a large side dish or a light lunch
Time: 40 minutes
Leftover potential: Poor for the completed dish, but the pecans and the vinaigrette will each keep tightly sealed and refrigerated for several days, and the rest of the salad is easy to put together, so you can make some salad right away and the rest later.

WARM SPINACH SALAD WITH SAUSAGE AND ROASTED VEGETABLES

I did a pretty good job of overcoming my slight resentment of main-dish salads this past summer; thanks to recipes like this, this, and this, we quite happily ate salad as an entrée almost once a week. As winter approaches, raw, cold meals become far less appealing, yet I don’t want to break this healthy Salad Night habit completely. I have a couple of warm salad recipes, but now I’m on the prowl for more. I have no idea what series of link-clickings led me to this one at For the Love of Cooking, but why even bother talking about that when we should be talking about how much this salad kicks ass? Yes, I just swore, albeit mildly, about a salad, on a blog that my mother reads. That’s how good it is. If I were talking to you about it in person, I might swear downright emphatically. WE $@*!ing LOVED THIS #&!% SALAD.

Really, this is quite similar to a recipe I already have, but served over spinach, with a balsamic Dijon vinaigrette and some cheese on top, additions I would have never thought to make. It manages to be simultaneously wholesome and hearty, with all the fresh and colorful appeal of a salad in a warm, filling, satisfying meal. The combination of vegetables is perfect; along with the expected onion, potatoes, and garlic, you get asparagus (which, sure, may not exactly be in season right now, but we all know how awesome it is when roasted), mushrooms (which I never think to roast but are great that way), and tomatoes (which I have a whole treatise on; see below). Although I usually roll my eyes when some online recipe commenter talks about how they added chicken to a perfectly good vegetarian dish to “make it a meal,” as though meals are somehow not complete without meat products, I gotta say that the savory, meaty sausage does really make this feel like a meal. The spinach wilts gently under all this caramelized, roasty goodness. The dressing adds moisture and a welcome zesty acidity, and the feta does its usual salty, creamy, fabulous thing. All that and it’s easy to throw together on a weeknight.

I made only minimal changes. I probably ended up using more vegetables than called for—I got greedy when picking out my mix of cute little potatoes, and I threw in the whole 8-ounce package of mushrooms and the entire bunch of asparagus because I didn’t want to get stuck with the orphaned vegetables. The original recipe called for 12 ounces of spinach, which, although it’s technically 4 servings according to the nutritional information on the package, is a tremendous quantity in its raw state; maybe my vegetables and sausage weren’t piping-hot enough to wilt the greens sufficiently when I put the salad together, but that amount of spinach wouldn’t have fit in any of my entrée bowls. I just eyeballed it, using one to two generous handfuls of spinach per serving, which probably came to more like 8 or even 6 ounces total.

I also used cherry tomatoes instead of the little on-the-vine ones used in the original recipe or the plum ones used in its Real Simple source. I’ve recently fallen in love with roasted cherry tomatoes (the maple syrup in the recipe I use sounds weird, but go with it! It adds a sweet smokiness without tasting anything like pancakes; I typically scarf them all straight off the baking sheet before I can manage to take a photo of them, which is why I haven’t posted the recipe yet), but of course the key to the ones I’m used to is letting them roast face-up, undisturbed, until they dry and wrinkle. Here, roasting the tomatoes with the other vegetables and tossing them periodically, they break down quite a bit, so their juices leak out and spread over the baking sheet, meaning that all the vegetables turned out much less crisp than I’d envisioned. I think this could be resolved by either (a) roasting the tomatoes ahead of time using my usual recipe (I’ve been meaning to try adding those to salads anyhow, if I can ever stop snacking on them) or (b) roasting the tomatoes at the same time as the other vegetables, but undisturbed on a second baking sheet, not to mention there’s always the option of (c) just using larger tomatoes as the original recipe does. I may give one of those methods a try in the near future just for kicks, but I don’t know if any changes are really necessary, because the recipe turned out so damn delicious just as I made it, and it’s certain to be a Salad Night staple for us throughout the winter.

UPDATE, 1/13: If the idea of out-of-season asparagus doesn't appeal, substitute a couple of handfuls of trimmed green beans, cut into 1-to-2-inch pieces. It's just as excellent.

1 cup cherry, grape, or plum tomatoes, halved
1 medium red onion, sliced into wedges
1 cup baby potatoes, halved, or quartered if larger (I used a mix of yellow, red, and purple)
1 cup mushrooms, quartered (I used cremini)
1 bunch (about 12 spears) asparagus, tough ends removed, remaining spears cut into 2-inch pieces
4 large cloves garlic, with skins left on
1 tablespoon olive oil
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
4 Italian sausages (I used Trader Joe’s Garlic and Herb Chicken Sausage, which I highly recommend)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons coarse-grain Dijon mustard
1 small clove garlic, minced
6 to 12 ounces fresh spinach
2 to 4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with tin foil and coat with cooking spray. Place the tomatoes, onions, potatoes, mushrooms, and 4 whole unpeeled garlic cloves on the baking sheet. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Place in the oven and roast for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the asparagus and continue to roast for 10 minutes, or until the asparagus and potatoes are fork-tender.

2. While the vegetables are roasting, make the salad dressing by whisking the vinegar, 3 tablespoons olive oil, mustard, water, and 1 small minced garlic clove together in a small bowl until emulsified, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. Also while the vegetables are roasting, cook the sausages in a skillet over medium heat for 10 minutes or until done.

4. Once the veggies are out of the oven, carefully remove the skin from the garlic cloves and then slice the roasted garlic. Toss the warm vegetables (including the garlic) and sliced sausages with the spinach and dressing until evenly coated. Top with feta.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good, if not yet mixed together. Store all the elements (roasted vegetables and sausage, spinach, dressing, and cheese) separately, and when you want to eat them, reheat the vegetables and sausage and then add to the spinach, dressing, and cheese.

SWEET CORN HASH

Shortly after making chilled avocado soup with a corn-bacon-jalapeno-onion-cilantro topping so delicious I could have just as happily eaten it sans soup, I stumbled across a recipe that’s pretty much exactly that. This iteration—from The Way the Cookie Crumbles, based on a version by Joy the Baker, who is the source of the avocado soup recipe, so we have truly come full circle here—is rounded out into a hearty breakfast (or, in my case, a cozy Saturday night supper) with the addition of potatoes and eggs. I punched up the color and vitamins by serving the whole thing over a bed of greens (spinach because I had an orphaned half-bag in the fridge, although I would have used arugula otherwise), which added a nice freshness and texture—the greens achieve a pleasant state of semi-wiltiness, with the egg yolk coating them like a dressing. The original recipe didn’t call for jalapeno, but Bridget mentioned adding roasted green chile, and since jalapeno had been so tasty in the soup topping, I figured it would be good here, too (spoiler: it was). And, in a further effort to replicate the magic of the soup topping, I subbed cilantro for parsley again and was well pleased.

My one misstep was to distrust the idea of cooking potatoes in the microwave (I know it’s perfectly possible, but I’ve never done it and our microwave is rather temperamental, so I wimped out). The original Joy the Baker recipe calls for them to be roasted, but my oven’s still defunct (GRRR), so I boiled them instead. This of course (a) took more time than microwaving and (b) made them quite soft and damp, which in turn made them take forever to get browned and crispy in the skillet, and they broke down quite a bit in the process. I don’t know why I didn’t just start frying the potatoes from a raw state, which is what hash recipes usually direct you to do, except that sometimes it’s hard to get the potatoes tender that way before they’re too well browned on the outside, and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s a crunchy potato. (This is, in my view, the downfall of 70 percent of restaurant breakfast potato preparations.) In retrospect, I should have just tried the microwave method. Next time! For there will certainly be a next time; this is my favorite version of hash I’ve ever made. I loved the way the sweetness of the corn balanced out the smoky fried flavors, with a hint of spice from the pepper and brightness from the cilantro. Also, I’m late to the party with this—it took me a long time to learn to tolerate runny yolks—but I’m becoming obsessed with topping things with eggs. Note to self: Eat more eggs; you like them. Also: learn to poach.

4 slices bacon, chopped
4 medium red potatoes, cubed
1 onion, chopped
1 medium jalapeno, seeded and chopped
4 ears corn, kernels removed
¼ cup cilantro, minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 eggs
4 large handfuls spinach or arugula (optional)

1. In a large nonstick skillet (preferably cast iron) over medium heat, cook the bacon until almost crisp.

2. While the bacon cooks, put the potatoes in a medium microwave-safe bowl; spoon a couple teaspoons of rendered bacon fat from the skillet into the bowl; stir. Cover the potatoes loosely and microwave on high for 3 minutes, stirring twice.

3. Add the onions, jalapeno, and potatoes to the skillet with the bacon; cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 8 minutes. Stir in the corn and most of the cilantro.

4. Lower the heat to medium-low. Using the back of a spoon, create 4 wells in the hash. Break one egg into each well; season with salt and pepper. Cover the pan and cook, without stirring, until the white is set, about 8 minutes. Garnish with the remaining cilantro; serve immediately, over spinach or arugula if desired.

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: OK, except the eggs will not keep or reheat well. If you’re planning to save some as leftovers, fry the eggs separately for the servings you’re going to eat right away (as shown in the photo above), then fry additional eggs as needed when it’s time to eat the leftovers. Alternately, you can break the eggs into the cooking pan but break the yolks of the ones you want to save for leftovers, so that they cook thoroughly and harden (they will be slightly tough in the leftovers, but edible—more of a scrambled consistency).

HERB GARDEN POTATO SALAD WITH SPINACH AND LEMON

I seem to be accumulating a lot of potato salad recipes for someone who hates potato salad—or at least claimed to until last year, when I realized it doesn’t necessarily have to be ice-cold and dripping with mayonnaise). Just when I think I’m all set with my two faves, along comes another good-looking recipe, like this one from The Kitchn, so alluring with its lemony greenness. I love potatoes with dill and parsley and shallots, I love lemon-olive oil dressings, and I love spinach, so it seemed like it couldn’t go wrong—and it didn’t, even though I tried my best to flub it by temporarily forgetting how many ounces are in two pounds and only putting in three-quarters of the amount of potatoes. Luckily, one of the main things I like about this recipe is how many greens are packed in here, yet they’re wilted by the heat of the potatoes so you still feel like you’re eating a potato dish, not a leafy salad with potatoes in it. Even A, not always a veggie fan, claimed to like my overly high ratio of spinach to potatoes and said he’d happily have it that way again.

Aside from that inadvertent change, I did make one important improvement to the recipe: adding Dijon mustard to the dressing. I think mustard and potatoes are BFFs, but even if you don’t care for the flavor of mustard that much, a dab of it in a salad dressing will work savory wonders without necessarily being identifiable as mustard. I always add it to my everyday lemon vinaigrette, and since the dressing here was basically the same thing, I thought it seemed a shame to leave it out. Mine was probably a pretty heaping spoonful, but I’ve added it to the recipe below as a more modest 1 teaspoon; use your judgment depending on your degree of mustard love. My one regret: Adding the 1 teaspoon of sugar that the original recipe called for. I was trying to play by the rules the first time around and trust that it added some important element, but I should have trusted my instincts—I enjoy my lemony tartness straight up, so I could taste the sweetness in the dressing and didn’t like it. I wouldn’t add the sugar in the future, and I’ve removed it from the recipe below.

Lemons and dill and new potatoes always remind me of spring, so that’s when I’d be most likely to crave this salad, but it was good in the summer too. Plus, since it can be served warm and the ingredients are things most people can get fresh year-round, it would be a lively way to brighten up your winter diet.

2 pounds extra-small Yukon Gold potatoes
1 large lemon, juiced and zested
⅓ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
5 ounces fresh baby spinach, well-washed
⅔ cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, loosely packed
⅔ cup fresh dill fronds, loosely packed
3 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat a large pot of water to boiling and salt the water generously. Add the potatoes and cook for 15 to 18 minutes, or until they are quite tender and creamy. Drain, slice each potato in half, and place them in a large bowl.

2. In a measuring cup, whisk together the lemon juice, zest, mustard, and olive oil. Whisk until well-combined; it will be thick and opaque yellow. Pour over the hot potatoes and stir gently until the potatoes are coated with dressing.

3. Slice the spinach leaves into thin ribbons. Mince the parsley leaves and the dill fronds as well. Add the spinach, parsley, dill, and shallots to the potatoes, and toss gently. The spinach and herbs will wilt as they are combined with the hot potatoes. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. Serve warm, at room temperature, or chilled.

Serves: 4–6
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good.

BEEF, SPINACH, AND MUSHROOM LASAGNA

We don’t eat much lasagna at Chez Bookcook; A likes the traditional meaty-cheesy variety, whereas I prefer something lighter, more vegetably, and more interesting, so we’re forced to make do with the other 3.7 billion (er, 51 at last count, to be precise) pasta recipes in my repertoire. I’ve only dabbled in making it a few times (my only recorded effort is here) and have never hit upon a recipe I found particularly noteworthy…until now (cue trumpet fanfare).

This iteration from Baking Bites isn’t wildly exotic, but it strikes a perfect balance between the traditional tomato-beef lasagna and my vegetal cravings by adding mushrooms to the sauce and spinach to the ricotta, and it contains just enough cheese to be comforting without being greasy or heavy. It’s kind of like a cross between my spaghetti sauce and stuffed shells recipes, and it pleased both factions in our home equally well. A even got excited over eating the leftovers, which is high praise indeed from him. Plus, it’s fairly easy to make and used up some of the ancient no-boil noodles I had in the cupboard (I know some people don’t care for them, and granted it’s not difficult to boil noodles, but in addition to their convenience I actually like their more al-dente texture). I’m tossing out my old recipes and sticking to this one from now on.

Aside from adding basil to the sauce, the only changes I made to the recipe were by necessity: since my tomato sauce came in 15-ounce cans and my ricotta in a 15-ounce tub, I was a few ounces short on liquids, and my lasagna came out a tad on the dryer side. I may have exacerbated this by squeezing the liquid out of my thawed spinach—the recipe didn’t specify this, but every other recipe I’ve seen that uses frozen spinach calls for it, so I did it as a matter of course. It made for a rather crumbly ricotta mixture; instead of “spreading it into an even layer” on the lasagna, I found myself dabbing it in dollops. So I think I’ll experiment with not squeezing the spinach next time, or at least squeezing it less enthusiastically. For now, I’ve just put “drained” in the recipe, because I don’t think it should be swimming in liquid.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cups cremini mushrooms, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 pound lean ground beef
Salt and pepper to taste
32 ounces tomato sauce
10 ounces chopped frozen spinach, defrosted and drained
16 ounces ricotta cheese
⅓ cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
9 no-boil lasagna noodles

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and sauté for 2–3 minutes, until just beginning to soften. Add mushrooms, garlic, red pepper flakes, oregano, and basil and cook for an additional 3–4 minutes, until mushrooms are softened. Add ground beef and cook just until meat is no longer pink, breaking it up with a spatula as it cooks. Add tomato sauce, turn heat to medium-low, and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

2. While the sauce simmers, combine spinach, ricotta, and Parmesan in a large bowl and mix well.

3. Cover the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with about 1½ cups of the tomato-meat sauce. Evenly space three no-boil lasagna noodles on top of the sauce layer. Top noodles with about half of the spinach mixture, spreading it into an even layer. Top with about half of the remaining sauce. Top this sauce layer with three more noodles, followed by the ricotta spinach mixture, followed by the remaining noodles. Pour all of the remaining sauce over the noodles and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Cover loosely with a piece of aluminum foil.

4. Bake for 30 minutes, then uncover the lasagna and bake for an additional 10 minutes, or until sauce is slightly bubbly. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before slicing.

Serves: 8
Time: 1½ hours
Leftover potential: Good.

TORTELLINI SOUP

The only food I remember liking at my college’s cafeteria (besides the always-available salad bar, breakfast cereal, and ice cream, which made up most of my diet) was tortellini soup, which only made its appearance during select weekend brunch services. I recall numerous Sunday mornings on which my roommate, K, and I hauled ourselves out of bed at 11:00 and trudged across campus just in the hope that we might find tortellini soup waiting for us. (I believe I usually ate it with a side of Lucky Charms. Oh, college.) I doubt the soup was very good, but it was better than a lot of the other cafeteria offerings and even at my pickiest, I’ve always loved tortellini.

I hadn’t thought about that soup in years, until I saw this recipe from The Well-Fed Newlyweds featured on the Tasty Kitchen blog, and then I had to make it for old time’s sake. It’s basically a fresher, more flavorful update of the herby tomato broth studded with cheese tortellini that I dimly recall. There’s nothing particularly earthshattering about it, but we enjoyed it well enough to have it again. I like that it has some substance from the pasta, but it’s lighter than eating a big bowl of noodles with sauce, and there’s a generous hit of green goodness from the spinach (I love how easy it is to keep cramming greens into a soup, because they shrink down so easily to unassuming wisps). Best of all, it comes together in no time, making for a simple yet comforting weeknight meal.

I added basil to the ingredients because it’s pretty much a no-brainer when you’ve already got tomatoes, cheese, and oregano involved. I was thinking fresh basil would be great (I’d stir it in at the end with the spinach), but I didn’t have any on hand, so I just used some dried basil along with the dried oregano. I used Trader Joe’s cheese tortellini, but I’d be tempted to try the pesto variety to amp up the flavor even more next time.

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, minced (about ½ cup)
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon dried basil
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
1 15-ounce can whole or diced tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 9-ounce package fresh or frozen tortellini, any variety (I used cheese)
3 cups fresh spinach, chopped and loosely packed
Grated Parmesan cheese to taste

1. In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion. Cook until the onion is softened, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the oregano, basil, broth, tomatoes, and salt and pepper to taste. (If using whole tomatoes, you can break them up with your fingers as you add them to the pot, or break them up with a spoon once you’ve added them to the soup.)

3. Bring the soup to a boil and add the tortellini. Cook according to the package directions.

4. One minute before the tortellini are done, add the spinach. Stir to combine. When the tortellini are cooked, remove the pot from the heat immediately so they do not overcook. Season with additional salt and pepper, if necessary.

5. Serve topped with grated Parmesan cheese.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Great—tastes even better the next day.

SPINOCCOLI PIZZA

When I saw this recipe at Annie’s Eats, my first thought was Hey, I don’t have a broccoli pizza in my repertoire yet! My second thought was how nifty it is that Annie and A share a hometown, Bloomington, Indiana, and that this pizza is based on a beloved specialty of a restaurant I’ve heard A speak of, Mother Bear’s. (I think I’ve eaten there once myself.) Obviously, we were fated to give this a try. A admits he’s never tried Mother Bear’s spinoccoli pizza, not having been the type in his youth to order an all-vegetable pizza, no matter how alluringly cheesy. So I can’t compare Annie’s creation to the original, but I can definitely vouch that this is one tasty pizza. I usually avoid recipes that rely on white sauces—haunted by too many experiences with heavy, pasty, bland spinach lasagnas, mac and cheeses, and vegetarian casseroles—but this one was subtle and blended with the cheese to give the pizza a just-right chewy texture, not too moist or too dry or too creamy. The cheese (the cheddar is a nice touch) and the green vegetables, perfectly balanced, are the stars here; there aren’t really any other flavors except for the gentle garlic infusion in the sauce (which as a garlic-lover makes me want to experiment with mincing the garlic and just leaving it in there for a stronger hit). But really, when you’ve got cheese sauce and broccoli, who could ask for anything more?

Since I was using Trader Joe’s crust and a rectangular baking pan, I think my pizza was a little larger than the recipe was written for, so I amped up the vegetable quantities slightly. (I am a fan of amping up the vegetables when they will go unnoticed beneath a blanket of cheese, particularly when it’s spinach, which cooks up so much smaller than you expect that you can always fit in a little more.) Afraid of the heavy/pasty/bland curse of bad white sauce, I didn’t quite use all of it when topping the pizza, which I regretted later when it turned out to be so pleasant and unobtrusive. The thin layer I used was fine, but a tiny bit more moisture wouldn’t have been unwelcome. Next time (which will be soon; I’m craving spinoccoli again just from writing this) I’ll use it all.

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
¾ cup heavy cream or half-and-half (I used half-and-half)
1 clove garlic, smashed but left whole
Salt and pepper, to taste
6 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 pound pizza dough
¾ cup packed baby spinach leaves, torn
1¼ cups very small broccoli florets
2 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
2 ounces shredded cheddar cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

2. To make the sauce, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Whisk in the flour and cook, whisking constantly, until bubbling and light golden, about 1 minute. Whisk in the heavy cream and garlic, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens and bubbles. Remove from the heat and whisk in the grated Parmesan until completely melted and smooth. Discard the garlic clove.

3. Roll out the pizza dough and place it on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal. Spread the sauce over the crust. Sprinkle the torn spinach leaves over the sauce, then evenly distribute the broccoli florets. Top with the shredded mozzarella and cheddar cheeses.

4. Place the pizza in the oven and and bake until the cheese is melted and bubbling and the crust is lightly browned, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before slicing and serving.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Good.