Hi Reader, Welcome to a new Saturday email. I've been wanting to write an email like this for a long time. My emails usually contain recipes, sometimes tips and links to products I use. But this is a bit different. It's just a personal letter from my kitchen table to yours, once every week, on Saturdays. I'm imagining that you are sitting at a table and sipping coffee, reading this and nodding along, thinking of the good things from your week as well. Each week, I hope to share a few good...
22 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, We’re in the Olympic Peninsula (in Washington) for Memorial Day weekend. We missed the ferry we wanted to get on by 2 cars yesterday (and they cut in line in front of us, so really we should've made the ferry, but that's a story for another day). It did feel like the ferry was full of bikes and coolers and people with very ambitious plans. Ours is quieter than that. The baby is along for the ride, which is its own kind of plan, and mostly we’re doing slow mornings, cold beaches,...
30 days ago • 2 min read
Hello Reader, The first time I boiled tofu, I thought it was a strange thing to do. But it really is not! Two minutes in simmering salted water and the tofu firms up enough to hold its shape through the sauce. It also loses that raw soy taste that shows through when it isn't seasoned from the inside. Mapo tofu is silken tofu in a Sichuan sauce built on doubanjiang, a fermented Sichuan bean paste that you absolutely should consider getting for your pantry (this is the brand that I use and love...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hello Reader, These six dinners are the ones my readers kept reaching for in April, and most of them lean hard on what's still good right now (i.e., asparagus, peas, fresh herbs, lemon). The quick links if you already know what you want: Easy, cheesy asparagus casserole Green goddess pasta bake Coconut red lentil curry Chickpea Buddha bowl Spicy edamame peanut noodles Mushroom stroganoff Here's the rundown. Easy, cheesy asparagus casserole Asparagus is at its peak right now, and this is the...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, Quick reminder: I'm giving away a $50 Amazon gift card at the end of the month. All you have to do is leave a comment on any recipe you've made from Urban Farmie telling me how it turned out. Up to five entries per person. Takes a minute. Full rules here. But now, let's talk about Thai curries. Most home Thai curries taste flat. Mine did for years. I'd follow a recipe, simmer it forever, add more paste, add more salt — and it was fine, but it never tasted like what I'd eaten in...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader - My daughter is two and she already has strong opinions about food. She loves these pancakes — which is saying something, because I've watched her reject perfectly good food for reasons I still don't understand. She loves how fluffy they are and calls them "clouds" and that's the highest praise a toddler can give a pancake. But I mean, just LOOK at them You blend the cottage cheese completely smooth with the eggs, Greek yogurt, and melted butter before anything else. A blender...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, I took a cooking class in Koh Samui (Thailand) last November. My teacher was from Isan, but she'd learned paste-making from living in Northern Thailand — where khao soi (aka Thai curry noodle soup) comes from. She taught me two things I've never forgotten. Don't shake the coconut milk can! If you're surprised, I was too. But you basically scoop the thick cream off the top and use it to fry the paste (the same way ghee works in Indian cooking) and the fat splits in the heat and...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, Next time you’re at the store, buy an extra lemon and throw it in the freezer. Whole. Don’t cut it, don’t zest it, just freeze it. Then grate the entire thing — peel, pith, all of it — straight into hot butter - for the best lemon butter pasta of your life. What comes off the microplane is this fine, aromatic fluff that dissolves into the sauce immediately. It smells like someone turned the lemon volume up to eleven. Freezing ruptures the cells in the peel and releases the...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, Next Sunday, we're hosting what I'm calling a "birthday-slash-Easter brunch" because baby M is turning two and I refused to do two separate events (lol). So we're just doing one very chaotic, very delicious thing and calling it a celebration. If you're hosting Easter — or any spring brunch, because honestly, this menu works any Sunday in April — I put together every recipe worth making in one place. Think of this as a menu to pick from, not a to-do list. Take what you need, leave...
3 months ago • 2 min read
