Go for the gold: What to Cook This Week

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Heami Lee for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Rebecca Bartoshesky.

Sunday, August 30, 2020

What to Cook This Week

Julia Moskin

The week before Labor Day is always one of the most jumbled of the year: summer and fall, looking forward and back, extremely lazy and terribly busy all at the same time. This year, things are especially shambolic. Let’s try to embrace the chaos, and cook whatever we’re hungry for.

On Monday, I want sabudana khichdi (above), because Samin Nosrat made me want it. “The chewy pearls and creamy bits of potato,” she writes of the Maharashtrian tapioca pilaf, “were studded by the crunch of golden peanuts and the occasional cumin seed. A hint of sweetness was balanced by salt, lemon and the alternating flames of ginger and green chile.”

Tuesday, I might hit the farmstand forMelissa Clark’s roasted zucchini with garlicky bread crumbs and mozzarella. She makes slabs of zucchini into a super satisfying dinner. (Just add a tomato salad.)

By Wednesday, I will be craving some heat, like Sue Li’s black pepper-spiked stir-fry of shaved beef sirloin and green cabbage.

Thursday, you could put together some crudités from the produce drawer, make this rich green dip and order pizza.

And, because no matter how crazy things get, I can’t shake the habit of a slow-cooked dinner on Fridays: David Tanis’s baked freekeh with chicken, yogurt, almonds and herbs. He uses the smoked wheat from the Middle East, but it also works with easier-to-find farro.

If you’ve been on the fence, I hope this is the week you sign up for NYT Cooking. Subscribers get all of our recipes — nearly 20,000 of them — plus collections, cooking videos and support from the real humans at cookingcare@nytimes.com.

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I’ll see you tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll be on Twitter and Instagram.