Hello Friends, A few weeks ago, I stopped by my aunt and uncle’s house in Vermont en route home from a soccer tournament with my daughters. It was a Sunday, late in the afternoon, and we couldn’t stay long, so we made the most of it, sliding into stools around their big farmhouse table, ready to receive all the nourishment time would allow. Within minutes of arriving, my aunt had toasted us thick slices of peasant bread and slathered them with butter. As we savored our toast, she poured us glasses of homemade iced tea and pushed plates of strawberries and apricots our way. With two dogs lounging at our feet, we wished we could stay forever. She sent us off each with a sugar cone piled high with scoops of vanilla ice cream, and as we drove home, my youngest, Tig, asked when we could make the iced tea again. I had first made it with her several summers ago, after she returned from my parents’ house raving about it. The recipe comes from the Prouts Neck Cookbook, the source of dozens of recipes many of the women in my family relied on for years. This past Monday, I made the iced tea with Tig, who, one week into summer break, already seems bored. I enlisted her to squeeze the lemons and sent her out back to cut some mint, the only herb I can’t kill. Twenty minutes later, the tea was done, chilling in the fridge, and about an hour later, we were ladling it into ice-filled glasses and relishing its quenching abilities. Every time I make this tea, I wonder why I don’t make it more often as it is so very good: lightly lemony, slightly sweet, and incredibly refreshing. If you are expecting company this week for a July Fourth gathering or planning a future summer get-together, I can’t recommend it enough.
Dogs in Vermont!
The Prouts Neck Cookbook:
July Fourth RecipesFriends, I'm wishing you all a Happy Fourth 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 If you're entertaining today or this weekend, find a few ideas in this post and a few favorites below.
Flag Cake (a fun one to do with kids)
Whipped Cream Cream Cheese Frosting — every time I make this frosting, either for the above-pictured flag cake or this birthday cake, or this carrot cake, someone asks for the recipe, always calling out its texture.
Classic Italian Dressing + A Chopped Salad Laura Vitale's Whipped Ricotta with Honey + Pistachios (crowd pleaser!) The Easiest No-Knead Brioche Buns
4-Ingredient Balsamic-Roasted Mini Peppers
Trader Joe's 3-Ingredient Lentil Salad
Peach-Frangipane Galette (mixed berry galette is a fun one, too)
Strawberry Paloma Slushie (great for a crowd 🎉) Virtual Cooking ClassOn Thursday, August 1st from 6-7:15 pm, I’ll be teaching a virtual cooking class on Sicilian and Grandma-style pizzas. I’ll be making three recipes from Pizza Night. This class is part of Milk Street’s summer pizza series, which includes classes taught by Peter Reinhart and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. Use PIZZANIGHT15 for 15% off my class. Summer Squash Pizza with Garlic Confit, Basil & Burrata
In Friday's pizza newsletter, I shared a recipe for the above-pictured pizza, and I also reviewed my Breville Pizzaiolo, a countertop electric pizza oven. Get the recipe and watch the video here:
Thank YouThank you to all who have ordered Pizza Night.
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Bread enthusiast. Vegetable lover. Omnivore. If the kitchen is your happy place, you're in good company. Let's hang.
Friends, hello! Somehow summer is over, the kids are back to school, the hockey carpool has resumed, and, well, I find myself asking: how?! This summer in particular felt like a blink. Alas. Today, I have three things to share with you: First, corn on the cob: at some point in the middle of the summer, I stopped making it. Three of my children have braces, and as I noticed them night after night struggling to strip the kernels from the ears on their plates, sending corn flying everywhere,...
Hello Friends, A couple of weeks ago, I returned home to find Caroline Chambers' new book, What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking, at my door. Its arrival could not have been more timely: we had just returned from England, and in addition to feeling jet lagged or perhaps because of the jet lag, well, I didn't really feel like cooking. As I flipped through, I noticed the chapter organization — "15-ish Minutes," "30 Minutes," "45 Minutes," etc. — and immediately felt inspired. Surely I...
Friends, hello! Yesterday my copy of Jenny Rosenstrach's new book, The Weekday Vegetarians Get Simple, arrived, and about 30 minutes later the above-pictured tart, the book's cover photo, emerged from my oven. It was one of the fastest dinners I've ever assembled in a very long time and a reminder that a handful of good ingredients — good puff pastry, excellent tomatoes, deliciously creamy blue cheese — go a long way. Three years ago, Jenny wrote The Weekday Vegetarians, in which she shared a...