A little while ago the Washington Post taste-tested various "fake bacon" products -- which I'm hereafter calling "facon" -- with some surprising results. They decided that supermarket-standard brand Morningstar Farms (see endnote) was actually pretty good, and worked as a reasonably convincing facsimile of fried bacon.

This was doubly surprising for me. Morningstar Farms first came out with a facon back in the 80s, just as my family had transitioned to keeping Kosher. We tried it immediately, and were treated to strips that tasted like we'd simply cut up the box and fried it instead.

So, I had to try this.

We bought a box of the Morningstar. The strips come in a tightly-packed stack, and uncooked have a texture like chewing gum strips. I was dubious, but I put several strips in a pan with some vegetable oil and fried them. They cooked much faster than the instructions suggested; I was taking them off the heat in less than 2 minutes per side. I'll try cooking them on lower heat next time.

Once they cooled enough to eat, my bacon-loving sweetie tried a bite.

"That's disturbing," she said.

"Bad?" I asked.

"No, these really taste like some kind of bacon. Super-thin sliced, burnt bacon. But bacon."

"Well, I did burn them a little."

My ability to judge was limited, simply because I haven't had fried bacon strips in over 20 years. They did, however, taste better than cardboard.

Note that Morningstar's facon is not vegan; it includes egg whites.

In summer, what does one do with fried bacon? Make a BLT, of course. Although since it's fake-bacon, I guess it's an FLT.

FLT

Per sandwich:

• 3-4 strips of Morningstar farms fake bacon
• 1 brioche bun, foccacia roll, or other soft sandwich roll, or slices of thick country bread
• 1 small-medium slicing tomato, or 2 slices from a big tomato
• 1 large or two small leaves of soft lettuce
• Mayonnaise or similar spread

Fry the facon according to the instructions on the box. Let cool and drain on paper towels.

Split your roll, and lightly toast it. Spread both sides with a thin coating of the mayo.

Arrange the facon slices overlapping to cover the bottom of the roll. Put the slices of tomato on top, followed by the lettuce, folding or tearing it to fit. Cover with the roll top.

Eat alongside some chips or tater tots.

Notes and variations:

FLTA: peel, pit, and slice 1/4 to 1/3 of an avocado. Put this on the bottom of the roll before adding the facon.

Spreads: mayonnaise is traditional (or vegannaise if you prefer), but I tend to prefer spreads with a little more flavor, such as dijionnaise, aioli, or (in the case of the FLT in the photo) a mild sweet onion mustard.

It's better to make your FLT when tomatoes are in season.

History Note: Morningstar Farms originated as the vegetarian foods venture of President Warren Harding's Seventh-Day Adventist, sanitarium-owning cousin Dr. George Harding in 1939, because he believed that a meatless diet helped calm psychotic and neurotic patients. This venture was so successful -- owing in part to WWII meat rationing -- that Harding was able to buy up most of his competitors. The Adventist Church still owns a large part of MorningStar. It is not determined whether President Warren Harding ever ate a soy steak.

Now that the raspberries are coming in, we need something to do with the excess -- particularly the ones that are a bit squished and won't keep in the fridge. One way to use those up is a fresh raspberry salad dressing (also works fine with thawed frozen raspberries).

We got this recipe 20 years ago from a retirement home chef who was doing cooking demos at the Sonoma-Marin County Fair (now, that's a retirement home I'd like). It's a wonderful alternative to lettuce salads, while still relying mostly on cheaper produce. The combination of super-crunchy veggies with the tart raspberry dressing makes it a great side for any kind of grilled or roasted meat or fish.

The one tricky thing is finding a small enough napa cabbage; most of the ones sold here on the West Coast are big enough for three salads! Aside from the cabbage, you'll want some other crunchy salad veggies, sliced thin. Optinonally, you can also include croutons.

napa cabbage salad

Dressing:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3-4 cloves roasted/toasted garlic
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 2 Tbs red wine or cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup mashed raspberries
• 1 tsp dried basil (or 1 Tbs minced fresh)

Salad:

• 1 small napa cabbage, around 1 lbs
• Fresh ground pepper
• Optional extra ingredients, any of:
  • 3/4 cup croutons
  • 2 carrots, peeled and sliced, around 2/3 cup
  • 1 cucumber, peeled and diced, around 1/2 cup
  • 1 bell pepper, sliced
  • Other crunchy veggies, such as radishes, celery, etc.

Equipment: large salad bowl, salad spinner, measuring cup, immersion blender

To make the dressing, first thaw the raspberries if frozen. Toast the garlic cloves (see below). Put all of the dressing ingredients together in the measuring cup, and then puree them with the immersion blender (you can use a regular blender instead if that's what you have). Set aside.

Separate the leaves of the cabbage. Slice any large leaves in half or thirds lengthwise. Slice them crosswise, 1/4" to 1/3" wide (around 1cm). Wash and dry. Put the napa cabbage in the salad bowl, together with any of the optional ingredients you're using.

Toss with the dressing and ground pepper to your taste. Serve within 1 hour of making it (after that, it gets soggy).

Toasting garlic cloves: if you don't have already-roasted garlic on hand, drop a few skin-on cloves of garlic in a small, dry, hot pan on the stove. Toast them on one side for a minute or two -- until the skin scortches -- and then flip them and toast on the other side. Then peel and use.

Substitutions: might work with iceberg lettuce. Would not really work with other varieties of cabbage; their taste is too strong. Could work with other berries, like marionberries, although most would need to be seeded.

Believe it or not, one of the things we do when we stay in a small town vacationing is visit the local library. And in exceptionally nice cases -- and the library in Eastsound is exceptionally nice -- the library offers "guest cards" for a fee that let visitors like me check out a few books. The Orcas Island library did, and we did. This is how I got my hands on a cookbook called For Cod and Country.

I'd been looking for a fish cookbook since it's salmon season in the San Juans and I was able to pick up some super-fresh salmon of several varieties. This book wasn't particular to West Coast seafood, but it had an advantage over the other fish cookbooks I looked at: it divides its recipes by season rather than by type of seafood, so I had a bunch of "summer" recipes all in one place. Most of them were for other fish, but I could adapt them to salmon, including this one. Even more importantly, many of he recipes were easy, one-pan meals. Including this one.

The salmon I cooked here is the so-called Ivory Salmon, which is King Salmon with a mutation so that it is white-fleshed rather than orange/red. This mutation only occurs in around 1 in 25 fish, and the Native Americans eat most of them, so you're probably not going to get your hands on any unless you're here in the Island Northwest. It's also milder-flavored than regular salmon, so you're actually looking for a fatty, mild salmon, or even another fish such as lingcod, barrimundi, rocfish, or even halibut. Because of the preparation, it needs to be a skin-on filet between 1/2 inch and 1 inch thick.

Also, the cherry tomatoes must be ripe summer fruit; the recipe will suck if you use those flavorless winter "grape" tomatoes. Once you've sourced your fish and your tomatoes, though, the rest is easy. It's so easy, in fact, that I've written it in Good First Recipe style, so if you're an experienced cook, you can skim the super-detailed directions.

Not that it doesn't require attention! Your total cooking time here is less than 20 minutes, but you should plan to spend that entire time in front of the oven, so that you don't burn anything.

one pan salmon with cherry tomatoes and garlic

• 1lbs to 1.5lbs mild salmon, lingcod, or similar fish (see above), skin-on filet pieces of uniform thickness
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3-4 large cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thick
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 10-13 oz cherry tomatoes, whole (see note)
• additional salt and pepper for fish and tomatoes
• 10.5" to 12" cast iron pan, or other broiler-proof pan
• apron and oven mitts

Place an oven rack to bring the top of your pan within 3" of the broiler flame/element. Heat the broiler while you prepare the ingredients. Put on an apron.

Cut the salmon into individual portions, and rub each portion with a little of the olive oil, just enough to coat, around 1-2 tsp of the oil. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper on both sides. Set aside. Wash, stem, and completely dry the cherry tomatoes.

Pour the rest of the olive oil in the pan. Scatter the garlic slices across the bottom of the pan. Put the pan under the broiler for 3-7 minutes, until the oil is hot and the garlic is starting to brown. You'll probably need to pull it out each minute starting at minute 3, since broilers vary a lot. If the garlic isn't starting to sizzle and brown by minute 5, see if you can turn up the broiler or move the pan closer.

Take the pan out of the oven, place on the stovetop or a trivet, and -- carefully standing back -- dump the cherry tomatoes into the pan. This may spatter a bit, so oven mits wouldn't be a bad idea. Lightly sprinkle with salt and ground pepper. Put the pan back under the broiler for another 2-4 minutes, checking every minute starting a minute 3 like you did with the garlic.

The tomatoes are done when some of them have burst and all of them look slightly blistered on top. Even a little charring is good. When they're done, pull out the pan again and place the salmon portions, skin side up, distributed evenly around the top of the tomatoes. Put the pan back under the broiler for another 5-10 minutes, depending on the thickness of your salmon and how hot it is. The salmon will be done when the skin is browned and starting to blister.

Pull the pan from the oven and put it back on your heatproof surface. Slide a large spatula under the tomatoes beneath a piece of salmon, and invert the whole thing onto a diner's plate, with salmon on the bottom and tomatoes (proably stuck to the salmon) on top. Add a few more tomatoes and spoon over some juice and oil. Do the same for the other diners, distributing any extra tomatoes and juice that are left.

Serve with a salad, or corn, and some bread to mop us extra tomato juice.

You want ripe, summer, small-medium round cherry tomatoes for this, such as sungolds or sweet 100s. You need enough tomatoes to loosely cover the bottom of the pan, so check this before you start cooking, and use more tomatoes or a different size pan.

This stupidly easy, yet tasty, soup is based on a recipe by Pati Jinich, who has become my new queen of Mexican cooking and should probably be yours as well. Her recipes are, in general, simple and easy yet delicious, and she teaches you Mexican home cooking that's not about tacos and fajitas.

This soup is basically an adobo sauce, into which you mix pureed beans and broth, showing the simple versitality of Mexican cooking as well as their dedication to sauces. I tinkered with the recipe slightly to use mostly canned ingredients. Accompany this with some quesadillas or cornbread and you have a terrific weeknight meal that can be on the table in 40 minutes. And, for quarantine-time, this recipe serves two (double it for a larger family).

If you don't have Mexican crema around, you can substitute regular sour cream or even heavy cream. For a vegan version, swap in coconut cream or vegan sour cream.

Pinto Bean Soup

1 dried ancho chile
1 14oz can diced or whole tomatoes
1 14oz can pinto beans
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 cup water
2 to 2 1/2 cups veggie or chicken stock
Salt
1/2 cup Mexican crema (or substitute)
1/2 avocado
A few fried tortilla strips (optional)

Remove the stem from the dried ancho, split it in half, and remove the seeds. Tear it into a few pieces and set in a small heatproof bowl. Boil 1 cup of water and pour it over the chile, making sure it is completely covered. Let sit for 10 minutes to rehydrate.

Put the chile pieces (reserving their soaking liquid) and the canned tomatoes and their juice into a blender or food processor. Puree.

Heat the oil in a medium soup pot. Pour the tomato/chile mixture into the pot and cook over medium heat, stirring regularly. In 5-6 minutes the mixture should darken somewhat.

While the pot is cooking, drain the beans. Puree them together with 1/4 cup chile soaking liquid and 1/2 cup stock.

Once the tomato/chile sauce is done, pour the bean puree into it. Add 1 1/2 cups stock, and bring to a bare simmer. Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 15 minutes; the soup should thicken slightly.

Taste the soup and see if you need to add salt. Also check the texture; if it's too thick, add the remaining 1/2 cup stock.

Dice the avocado half. Serve the soup in wide bowls, and add a swirl of crema or cream to each. Top with the diced avocado, and the tortilla strips (if using). Serve, with rolls or quesadillas on the side.

Serves two. Can be easily scaled up.

Thanks to Portland's large Slavic population, I've been able to readily buy sulguni cheese for the first time in my life. This has me wanting to make khachipuri, the famous "Georgian Pizza", frequently. However, while the cheese is readily available, dough is another thing entirely, until I found a shortcut for weeknight dinners.

Imeretian Khachipuri, which is a disk of dough, stuffed with cheese, with a small hole in the top, is my favorite kind, probably because that's the first type I had in Moscow. I have two dough recipes for it, one is a yeasted dough that takes 1.5 hours, and one is a yogurt-based dough that's faster, but finicky delicate and hard to work with. Neither was really suitable for a weeknight dinner of khachipuri and lobio, starting cooking at 7. And then, at Albertson's, I discovered this:

Thin-crust, prerolled pizza dough, like they sell in many parts of Europe. It's not a very good pizza dough, but it makes an excellent yeasted dough wrapper for empanadas, and for other things. Like khachipuri!

Since then, we've had more "weeknight khachipuri" than is really good for my chloresterol level.

Now, a note on the cheese: if you can get sulguni, do use it for this. Most folks can't, though, so a good substitute is 2-3 parts dry part-skim mozzarella (but not pre-shredded) to 1 part crumbled feta cheese. In the recipe below, that would be 3oz dry mozz, and 1-2 oz feta. In a pinch, just dry mozz or even Monterey Jack would work.

weeknight khachipuri

• 4-5oz sulguni cheese, or substitute
• 3 Tbs minced cilantro, parsley, or green onion
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander, unless using cilantro
• 1 egg
• 2-3 Tbs greek yogurt
• 1 thin-crust "European style" prerolled pizza dough

Place a baking stone, or inverted cookie sheet, into your oven and heat it to 475F.

Grate the cheese on the large holes of a grater. Mix with the egg, yogurt, minced herb, and coriander (if using).

Unwrap the pizza dough and unroll it, smoothing it out. Make a circular heap of the cheese mixture in the middle of the dough, and then press it into a compact disk. The cheese should only cover about the middle 1/2 of the dough.

Fold the dough over the cheese, turning it 1/8 with each fold, so eventually you have an octagon of folds. The edges should not quite meet in the center; you want to leave a hole that's 1-2" wide.

Trim the baking parchment the pizza dough comes on so that it's not a lot wider than the khachipuri. Slide the khachipuri onto the baking stone (or sheet). Switch the oven to convection (if you can). Cook for 11 to 15 minutes, until the dough is brown and the cheese is foaming and threatening to bubble out of the hole.

Take the khachipuri out of the oven and put it on a rack to cool for 5-10 minutes; you want it hot, but you don't want to destroy your mouth. Cut into 4-6 wedges and share.

Note: Pillsbury also sells "prerolled pizza dough" in a carboard cannister. This is not suitiable for this recipe, or much of anything else either; it has a texture like factory biscuits.

(Continued from part 1)

Since our first course was fairly substantial, we took a break followed by a palate-cleansing "pomegranate soup". This soup was truly amazing for something with so few ingredients and steps involved. I really recommend that you keep the recipe (at the bottom of this post) available during pomegrante season because it is so easy and yet so tasty. Really. Until you try making it, you won't believe that anything this simple can taste this good, but it does.

And then it was time for the manti. Manti are tiny dumpings popular throughout Central and near-Eastern Asia, including Turkey, Armenia, Uzbekistan. While exact fillings and shapes differ a little, they're always tiny and labor-intensive, and served with yogurt and tomato or pepper sauce. In Armenia, lamb manti are a traditional dish for Christmas eve, so I thought they would be perfect for this meal. I'm gonna show you how labor-intensive these are, which is why I'm giving you a recipe for the soup and not for the manti. Face it, you're not making these; I'm not making them again either.

Now, one of the reasons I wanted to try making these is that, while you can sometimes find lamb or beef filled manti frozen or in fancy Turkish or Armenian restaurants, you never ever see vegetarian manti in the US, despite chickpeas being a standard filling in Turkey. So I made a paste from cooked chickpeas, onions, and spices, and set out filling a bunch of tiny pastries. The dough is a white-flour pasta dough, you roll it thing and cut it into 1.5cm squares, and fold it into a little four-cornered hat. Then repeat 200 times, because you need 25-40 of these tiny dumplings for each diner.

Due to the Armenian influence, I didn't just boil the Manti. I first baked them until lightly browned. This both adds to texture and prevents them from splitting open when boiled or steamed, which was definitely a good thing because the seals on the little dumplings were none to great. I'm not sure I'd recommend that for the chickpea manti, though; it also made them pretty dry inside, which was not a good thing. The dish up to this point having taken three hours, I put them away for the night.

Right before the meal, I boiled them in vegetable broth, to make them extra-savory.

I then plated them and dotted them with garlic yogurt sauce, and a tomato sauce I also made the day before. This was the classic manti presentation, and they were good, and I'm happy to have finally had proper chickpea manti. But I don't think I'll make them again.

Dessert (of course we had dessert) was a terrific kataifi "bread pudding". My sweetie dried out the shredded phyllo, then soaked it in a cinnamon-seasoned custard, and baked it. It was delicious and a perfect end to the meal, if surprisingly reminiscent of noodle kugle.

pomegranate soup

based on a recipe by Ghillie Basan

• 1 liter boxed veggie stock or broth (I used Imagine brand)
• 1 cup pomegranate juice
• 1-2 Tbs juice from 1 lemon
• Seeds from 1 pomegranate (about 2/3 cup)
• Salt to taste
• Fresh mint leaves (as garnish)

Heat the veggie stock to a boil. Add the pomegranate and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Bring it back to a bare simmer. Turn off and stir in the pomegranate seeds.

Taste, and adjust with a little lemon juice and/or salt.

Dish out into 4-5 bowls, making sure to get some seeds into each bowl. Garnish each bowl with sprig of mint. Serve.

2021 or not, it's still winter, and we're still in quarantine, so it's time for another simple recipe. Whether you're a new cook, or just tired and want something easy to make, caldo verde is it.

This potato-and-kale stew is the unofficial national dish of Portugal. You can see why: it's simple, homey, adaptable, nutritious, tasty, and filling. I also realized this week that it was easy to modify to make it vegan, without losing any of the flavor that it's known for.

Making it vegan means using some vegan fake sausage, though. The classic sausages for caldo verde are chouriço or linguiça, both very firm-textured garlicky Portuguese dry sausages. Their texture isn't that different from many vegetarian sausages, though. For flavor, you want to find something that's garlicky, spicy, and maybe even smoked. My suggestions in preference order are: Field Roast Chipotle, Tofurky Andouille, Field Roast Garlic & Fennel, Tofurky Kielbasa, Beyond Sausage Hot Italian, or LightLife Italian. If you want this to be vegetarian and don't care about vegan, though, Lightlife has a fake Chorizo which would be perfect (do not use Soyrizo, which is soft and too spicy).

The second part of caldo verde is the kale. In Portugal, they use a particular kind of dark-green kale or cabbage similar to collards, but just a bit lighter. In the US, I'd recommend using either dino-kale (cavalo nero), or collard greens. Curly green kale would work OK, though.

Now that you've found those, you can get on with the recipe.

vegan caldo verde

• 4-6 Tbs olive oil
• 3-4 vegan sausages
• 1 large or 2 small onions, about 3/4 lbs
• 2-4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 to 1.5 tsp smoked paprika
• 3-4 lbs russet, Yukon, or other starchy potatoes
• 1-2 tsp salt
• 1 qt vegetarian broth or stock
• 2 medium bunches kale (around 8 cups when sliced)
• Equipment: a larger stew pot than you think you need, probably your largest. Large sharp knife, long-handled potato masher.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1/2" to 1" chunks. Dice the onion(s) small. Peel and mince the garlic. Wash the kale leaves and set them aside to dry. Peel off any casing from the sausages, and slice them into 1/2" thick rounds.

Heat 1-2 Tbs oil at the bottom of a large stew pot. When shimmering, place the rounds of veggie sausage on in the oil, lying flat. Fry for 1-2 minutes, until they are well-browned, then flip them and brown the other side. Remove them from the oil and set aside.

Add 1-3 more tablespoons of olive oil depending on whether the sausages gave off any fat of their own; you want a good 1/8" slick of oil on the bottom of the pan. Add the onions and garlic, and fry, stirring, until the onions become translucent.

How much paprika you add depends on whether your veggie sausages had peppers in them or not. If they did (like the Chipotle ones) then just add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon, depending on how peppery the oil is. If not, use 1.5 tsp. Add it, stir for only around 30s, and dump in the potato chunks. Stir them up to coat them, then add the veggie stock.

Finally, add 3 cups more water, plus the 1-2 tsp of salt (depending on how salty your stock is). Turn the heat down to low, and cover.

Simmer for 25-30 minutes, until the potatoes are easy mashed into paste with a spoon.

While the potatoes are cooking it's time to prepare the kale. A key element of caldo verde is the hair-thin ribbons of kale, so you're gonna get your knife work in. Remove the stems from the kale or collards, then stack bunches of leaves, and cut them crossways as thin as you can ... like 1/16" wouldn't be too thin here if you can manage it (usually I can't).

When the potatoes are done simmering, turn off the heat and mash them in the stock using the potato masher (or a large spoon if you don't have one). Smush them up until all of the chunks of potato are gone and you're left with a pot full of very soupy mashed potatoes.

Turn the stove back on to low, and stir in the thinly sliced kale, a handful at a time, until it's all in there. Let simmer for around 5 minutes more, then turn off the heat. Taste; see if it needs a little more salt. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Serve the soup in large bowls with several slices of the fried veggie sausage on top. This recipe makes about 6 meal-sized servings, and keeps in the fridge for up to a week.

Notes: for a little extra flavor, replace 1/2 to 1 tsp of the salt with smoked salt. You can use water and a couple bay leaves instead of veggie stock, if you don't have any.

Gazpacho is probably the ultimate hot-weather meal; a cold, chopped tomato soup, usually served with room temperature sides, it's great when your AC isn't keeping up, and really can't be eaten on a day that isn't hot. Besides, for your tomato gazpacho to be good, you need garden-fresh produce. Winter gazpachos are better made from almonds and garlic.

I don't make any claims to "authenticity" in this recipe; this is my mother's recipe, and she's from Wisconsin. But it's easy and tastes really good, which is more important, after all.

The quantities of the various vegetables below are rough guides, and should be read more as ratios between the ingredients than exact measurements. You have quite a bit of leeway, as long as you make sure there's more tomatoes and peppers than anything else. For the chopping, you really need to use a food processor, so that you can get the right fine-minced texture. Blenders and food grinders will create a puree, which simply won't be as enjoyable to eat.

The main recipe does use a little heat to temper the garlic and onions, but see the notes for how to make a heat-free version.

gazpacho Berkus

• 1/2 lbs sweet or red onion
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 2 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
• 2 Tbs high-quality olive oil, then 3 Tbs more
• 4-5 oz bread, crusts removed
• 1 lbs to 1.5 lbs ripe red sweet peppers (bells, Italian, etc.)
• 3 lbs ripe summer red tomatoes
• 1 lbs cucumber
• parsley, about 3/4 cup chopped and loosely packed
• 2-3 tsp sherry vinegar
• 1/2 to 1 tsp salt, plus more
• 1 ripe avocado

Peel and roughly chop or slice the onion. Peel and slice the garlic. Heat 2 Tbs of the olive oil in a small pan, and saute the garlic and onion until they soften (this is to take the "bite" out). Add the paprika, cook for around 20 seconds more, then take off heat and let cool.

Next you're going to be dicing a lot of vegetables before they go into the food processor. In order to get a nice even chop in the processor, you'll want everything to be about the same medium-small size, like a 1/2" cube of tomato or a 1/3" thick slice of cucumber.

Cube the bread. Core the peppers and cut them into large dice. Core and cut the tomatoes into large dice, making sure to capture the tomato juice running off the cutting board (pour it over the bread cubes). Peel and slice or dice the cucumber. Chop the parsley.

Put stuff in the food processor in this order: bread cubes, onion & garlic mixture, everything else. You'll probably have to do 2 or 3 batches, so divide things up accordingly. Add the remaining 3 Tbs olive oil, 2 tsp sherry vinegar, and salt. Pulse the food processor until the mixture is reduced to a very very fine mince, but stop short of pureeing it.

Taste to see if you want a little more sherry vinegar or salt. Let sit for 15 minutes for the flavors to blend.

Serve topped with a little diced avocado. Accompany with slices of bread topped with Manchego or other Spanish cheese. Serves 4 as a main course, or up to 8 as a first course.

Notes: To make a heat-free version, slice the onion, and soak it in cold water for at least 2 hours before making the recipe, or lightly salt the onion and the toss it with a little of the vinegar and leave it for 20 minutes. Only use 1/2 clove garlic, mashed, and 1 tsp paprika if you're not going to cook it.

You can use charred and peeled red peppers in this and that gives it a little extra flavor. The bread is just here to stabilize the soup and keep it from being too watery, so gluten-free bread should work fine.

Keeps in the fridge for up to a week as leftovers. Do not freeze, as the water will separate out.

You ready for the easiest recipe, the appetizer/side dish that will rock the rest or your summer, the thing you want to make next now that tomato season is here? Our Catalonian friends have a treat for us: pa amb tomàquet, or pan con tomate, or just "tomato bread", this is an irresistably delicious five-ingredient self-assembly dish. Have it for breakfast! Have it with cold vermut or rosé on the porch at 5pm! Have it with every meal!

Amazingly for such a simple recipe, many online recipe sources nevertheless screw this up, probably because they're trying to account for substandard ingredients. Don't do that! This is a dish for tomato season, when the tomatoes are ripe and juicy. Also grab some high-quality Spanish olive oil (it's OK, you'll use a tiny amount, it'll last a long time) and some good bread. The bread needs to be something that has large holes and is firm and chewy, like a baguette, cibatta, sourdough loaf, or pain de campagne. This is also a good recipe to bring out your fancy sea salt for, you'll actually taste it.

One of the things that makes pan con tomate so easy is that each diner assembles it for themselves. So this is not so much a recipe as a set of assembly instructions.

First, split or slice your bread, and grill or toast it lightly. You want it to be firm without browning.

Then, put out on the table:

• several pieces of the toasted bread
• several garden-fresh ripe tomatoes, cut in half
• a few large garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half
• one bottle of high quality Spanish olive oil
• some salt

Each diner then makes their own pan con tomate, using these steps:

1. grab a piece of bread
2. rub the cut top of the bread with the cut side of a garlic clove
3. rub the bread with half of a tomato (or a whole one if they're small) until all the tomato pulp is rubbed into the bread (this is why you need those large holes)
4. drizzle it with olive oil, maybe a teaspoon
5. sprinkle on some salt
6. eat!

That's all there is to it. If it sounds underwhelming, try it first -- if you like tomatoes at all, you'll be delighted. And if your sweetie is like mine, you'll be eating pan con tomate until summer ends.

Given how hot it is in so much of the Northern hemisphere right now, nobody wants to get out a pan to make a finishing sauce for dinner, particularly after cooking everything on the grill so that you don't heat up your house. But dinner needs a little something to elevate it from just food to cuisine.

Behold! This traditional Skandanavian sauce is one of the easiest, most useful things you will ever make. It's good on fish and vegetables, especially asparagus, which is still available here on the West coast, at least (traditionally, it's served with gravlax or herring). It comes together without any heat or power tools, uses inexpensive common ingredients, and will keep in the fridge for several months, so feel free to scale it up for the whole summer. While based on mustard, it's mild and balanced so that even non-mustard-lovers are good with it. It's also vegan.

Ready? This'll take just five minutes.

simple mustard-dill sauce

3 Tbs Dijon mustard
2 tsp dry yellow mustard
2 Tbs sugar (possibly more)
2 Tbs white wine vinegar (or rice or apple vinegar)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup minced fresh dill (or 1 Tbs dried)
equipment: medium bowl, whisk, measuring cup with pouring spout

Whisk together the mustard, dry mustard, sugar and vinegar in a bowl, until homogenous.

Pour the vegetable oil into the bowl in a stream, and whisk the mixture with your other hand; this will produce an emulsified sauce with a texture like mayonnaise. If you have trouble doing it two-handed like this, then just add 2 Tbs of oil at a time, whisk it in, and then add another 2 Tbs.

When all of the oil is incorporated, mix in the dill. Taste it; if it's too sharp for your taste, add a couple teaspoons more sugar. Let sit at least 1/2 hour for best flavor.

Makes about 1 cup, enough sauce for fish/vegetables for 4-6 people. Store leftovers in the fridge, keeps for up to 4 months.

While you can make this sauce with dried dill, get fresh if it's not too hard to find, it does make a difference.

Everyone should have a few recipes where you can always have the ingredients on hand, especially for dinners where your original plans didn't work out or you can't think of anything else. This recipe is one such, nutritious, tasty, and from pantry to table in 45 minutes or less.

I first got this very traditional recipe from a little cookbook my relatives brought back from Kapadokya in Turkey. The name of the soup has, in typical Turkish fashion, a tragic story attached to it which has two or three different versions. Tragic or not, the soup is really good and one of the easiest things you'll ever prepare, so I've marked it Good First Recipe.

I'm going to start with the version that's mostly ingredients that are simple to obtain in the US, and give you some notes on more Turkish ingredients.

daughter-in-law soup

4 tbs butter (or olive oil)
1 onion, chopped
3 tbs tomato paste
2 tsp paprika (but see below)
1 cup red lentils, rinsed
4 cups stock
2 tbs fine bulgur wheat (#1)
½ tsp salt, plus up to 1 tsp more to taste Mint, 2 tsp dried or 2 tbs chopped fresh
4qt or larger pot, with lid

Heat the butter (or oil) in the pot. Fry the onion until translucent, stirring, then add the paste and saute for 2-3 minutes, until it separates and turns oily. Add the paprika or other pepper and cook for 30 seconds more.

Add the lentils, ½ tsp salt, bulgur and stock. Bring to boil, cover and simmer over low heat for about ½ hour, or until the soup is creamy and the lentils are soft. It should be a porrigelike consistency, but add some hot water if you feel it's too thick. Taste and see if you need to add more salt. Add mint, simmer for 5 minutes more, then let cool enough to serve. (usually about 10 minutes).

Serve with bread and cheese. Makes 6 cups, enough for a first course for 4-6 people or a main course for 2-3. Keeps up to a week in the fridge, and freezes fairly well.

Notes:

For an even faster version which is almost as good, forget about frying the onions and just simmer everything together.

You must use red lentils for this. Other varieties of lentils take an hour to cook, and don't look nearly as pretty.

For stock, you can use canned or boxed stock, instant stock, bullion, or in a pinch salted water. If you have a choice, vegetable or beef stock is preferable to chicken.

Fine bulgur, also known as instant bulgur, is the same grind you'd use to make tabouleh, tiny grains the size of coarse salt. Either instant couscous or whole wheat bread crumbs would work as a substitute. Bob's Red Mill "bulgur", which is actually cracked wheat, will not work.

If you can get Turkish ingredients, use red pepper paste instead of tomato paste, and 1 tsp Aleppo or Urfa pepper instead of the paprika. Note that Aleppo and Urfa are hotter than paprika, so use some discretion in how much to add.

The city of Shanghai as a lot of distinctive dishes (perhaps most notably soup dumplings) but there are none which are so friendly to social isolation time -- or really any time you want to throw something together in 20 minutes and one pot for a meal -- as spring onion noodles. A quick throw-together of Asian sauces, flavored oil and noodles, they can be made entirely from pantry ingredients, modified based on what's on hand, or even easily made vegan or gluten-free.

I first had these while on a food tour of Shanghai with Lost Plate Tours, and decided I had to find out how to recreate them. I started with a recipe by Chinese Cooking Demystified and added some tweaks to make it simpler and faster.

Now, I'm going to give you the whole schmear of a recipe for how I make it at home using all the proper Chinese ingredients. However, almost every ingredient in the recipe can be substituted or omitted, so don't skip this because you don't think you can get something. Read the notes at the end on substitutions. And, because it's actually a very quick recipe, requires few measurements, and is honestly very hard to mess up in a way that's not still edible, I'm calling it a Good First Recipe and giving you very explicit instructions.

The first part of this is making the green onion oil. My recipe below makes a quart, because the oil actually keeps quite well for up to 5 months in a cool pantry, or probably longer in the fridge, and it's actually easier to make a large batch than a small one. Plus, once you taste the oil, you'll want to use it on other dishes like steamed fish.

green onion oil

• 1 quart vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
• 3-5 bunches scallions, 1/2 to 3/4 pound

Wash the scallions and dry them very well. Cut off the roots and any ragged ends, and then cut apart the green and white parts. Cut the green parts into 2" pieces. Split the white parts in half lengthwise, or in quarters if they're thick. Then cut those into 2" pieces.

Put all the onion pieces into the oil. Heat it until the onions start sizzling, and then leave it over medium heat until all the onion pieces turn brown and the sizzling decreases. Set aside to cool.

Pour oil and burnt onion pieces into a glass jar and store in a cool cupboard or the fridge for up to 5 months. If you are concerned about food safety, use the fridge.

Once you have your oil, you can make the noodles any time you like.

spring onion noodles

For two diners, scale up as needed. Note that almost every ingredient below can be substituted.

• 12oz Shanghai-style wheat noodles
• 2 Tbs tiny dried shrimp
• 2 Tbs Shaoxing Wine
• 2 Tbs light soy sauce
• 1 Tbs dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 4 Tbs scallion oil (recipe below)
• Fried onions from the scallion oil, about 2 Tbs
• Fresh green onions, sliced thin, about 1/2 cup
• Salt & Water
• Equipment: large (4qt+) pot, steamer of some kind that fits it

Fill the pot with water, salt it, and set it to boil. Prepare two small cups or bowls that will fit together in the steamer. In one, put the dried shrimp, Shaoxing wine, and 2 Tbs water. In the other put the light and dark soy sauce and sugar. Put the steamer over the pot, and steam for 10 minutes.

Remove the steamer from the pot (but keep it on heat). Strain the dried shrimp, letting the shrimpy wine liquid drain into the soy sauce mixture. Mix that, making sure no sugar granules remain. Mince up the dried shrimp and set them aside.

Boil the noodles until cooked, 2-4 minutes depending on variety. Quickly, drain the noodles, and then divide them between two large bowls. Drizzle 2 Tbs scallion oil on each. On top of the noodles, put half the fresh green onions, half the minced shrimp, and a small pile of fried green onions. Drizzle half the sauce (2-3 Tbs) on each bowl.

Hand each bowl to your two diners, allowing them to mix the noodles themselves.

substitutions

Noodles: Shanghai noodles are a white, round, wheat noodle slightly narrower than spaghetti. You can replace them in this recipe with almost any relatively thin, eggless Asian wheat noodle, such as the "dried udon" available at many markets (what I used in the photo at the top), or even Korean knife-cut noodles. You can even use angel hair pasta, although it won't absorb the sauce as well. For a gluten-free option, use glass (mung bean) noodles.

Dried Shrimp: if you can't get these from an Asian or Mexican market, or if you want to make this recipe vegan, just omit them. If not using them, then omit the 2 Tbs water from the sauce, and mix all sauce ingredients together in one bowl before steaming. In this version, you could also boil the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan instead of steaming.

Shaoxing Wine: in many/most places in the US, you either can't find this or can only find the salted "cooking" version (check the label for salt), which would make this recipe too salty. If you can't get the good stuff, use a medium or dry sherry instead.

Light Soy Sauce: any lighter variety of soy sauce would work, including Tamari. I use Pearl River Bridge Light Soy Sauce.

Dark Soy Sauce: a sweeter, darker soy sauce with a molasses flavor. If you can't get this, then replace all the soy sauce with a richer, darker regular soy sauce like Kikoman, and double the amount of sugar.

If you want to make this entirely from pantry ingredients, the fresh green onions are optional.

Since Passover is now done with, we can get back to simple recipes to sustain you through self-isolation time. We're back with more "hot pasta tossed with stuff" this week, with a decidedly springtime twist.

Now, our last "tossed hot pasta" recipe was hot pasta & eggs. But "hot pasta & cheese" is also a big thing, as I'll show you. Overall, I can't overemphasize how useful it is to master the basic tossed hot pasta technique for being able to turn out a variety of tasty meals, with minimal ingredients, in a really short time.

There are four tricks to good hot tossed pasta recipes:

1. Use a large, insulating bowl (ceramic, glass or wood) at room temperature;
2. Make sure non-pasta ingredients are at room temperature or slightly warm;
3. Reserve some pasta water and use it later;
4. Get the pasta from boiling water into the bowl of ingredients quickly and toss vigorously.

This particular recipe has only six ingredients, including salt. That does mean, though, that you have to pay some attention to the ingredients.

First, like for other simple pasta recipes, buying somewhat better dried pasta pays off here. Even major supermarkets carry "bronze die" or other higher end pastas these days, and it's worth the extra $1 to $3 to get those for one of these simple recipes. For this one, we want a short, stubby pasta. I used strozzapreti (literally "priest stranglers"), but penne, fusilli, gemelli, or any short, straight, and not too big pasta shape will work here.

Second, the cheese I used is taleggio, which is a very soft and gooey, but pungent Italian cheese. There are a number of cheeses you could substitute, including robiola, cresenza, and teleme, or fancy gooey American cheeses like Red Hawk or Harbison. The key is that the cheese needs to be very soft, very moist, and yet have a pungent flavor, becuase there's not a lot of other seasoning in the recipe. Despite the similarity of texture, though, brie and camembert will not work -- they're too "chalky".

As a variant on this recipe, though, you could use chevre instead of the gooey cheese. I've done that before and it was also very tasty. It just required a bit more pasta water for texture.

Either way, this is a better "tossed hot pasta & cheese" recipe to start with than, say, cacio e pepe, which is a lot more sensitive to timing and temperature. Both taleggio and chevre are pretty forgiving if you maybe take too long or get things too hot.

Asparagus & Taleggio Pasta

1 lbs skinny asparagus
Salt
1 lbs short pasta, like penne rigate or strozzapreti
1 lbs taleggio, or substitute (see above)
Fresh oregano, basil, thyme or parsley, about 3 tbs minced, or 2 tsp dried oregano and/or basil
Fresh ground black pepper
Equipment: 4qt pot, large wide bowl, knife & cutting board, cheese wire

Set a 3-4qt pot of heavily salted water (2 tsp per quart) to boil on the stove. Stem the asparagus (i.e. cut off the bottom 2-3") and cut it into 1" lengths. Cook it in the boiling water for 2-3 minutes, depending on how skinny it is. Strain it out and set it aside. If you can do this without dumping out the water, using a spider or similar, you can immediately reuse that water for the pasta. Put the asparagus in a large, wide bowl.

Remove the rind from the cheese (losing 2-3 oz in the process). Using a wire or very thin knife and a lot of swearing, cut it into 1/4" cubes. If you don't have the tools for this, just pinch small blobs off with your fingers. Drop the cubes or blobs on top of the asparagus, together with the minced herbs, and some fresh-ground pepper. Try to spread these out evenly across the bottom of the bowl.

Put the pasta in the boiling water (either the water you used for the asparagus, or if you had to dump that, new salty water you just boiled). Cook until "al dente" which pretty much just means "done but not mushy", usually the time given on the package.

Strain the pasta, somehow reserving 1 cup of the pasta cooking water. Very quickly, before the pasta can cool at all, dump it into the bowl and start tossing it with the asparagus, herbs, and cheese. The cheese should melt and form a gooey sauce on the pasta; if it seems a bit dry, add the pasta water, 2-3 Tbs at a time, until it's creamy but not wet.

Serve right away, with a salad and wine. Makes 4-5 portions.

If, like me, you live on the West Coast (or in the Southwest), then you've been making a fair number of quesadillas and/or frozen tamales for your self-isolation menu. They help fill in on the days/nights when you just don't want to cook anymore (and they are kid-friendly).

But, let's face it, quesadillas aren't terribly nutritious. You need a side to go with them that provides lots of vitamins, but that takes no more effort than heading up a frozen tamale. Enter mexi-cal slaw, an quick and less spicy version of the curtido that accompanies every pupusa order you get from a Salvadorian food cart.

speedy mexi-cal slaw

• 1 lbs pre-shredded cole slaw mix, about 5 cups
• 2-3 Tbs juice from one lime
• 1-2 Tbs apple cider vinegar, enough to round out the lime juice to 1/4 cup total
• 3 Tbs neutral vegetable oil, such as corn or canola
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 to 1 tsp ground chili peppers, such as Ancho or Poblano, or substitute chili powder mix (salt free)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt

Put the slaw mix in a large, non-reactive bowl (ceramic, glass, or steel). Put the lime juice, cider vinegar, oil, cumin, chili pepper. and salt in a measuring cup or small bowl. Whisk together, then pour over the slaw mix. Toss the slaw mix until uniformly coated.

Let sit on the counter for 15-20 minutes, or until your quesadillas are all made. Serve on the side.

Makes 4-6 servings. Keeps for 3-5 days in the fridge, although it's best the day you make it.

If you don't have, or want to buy, premade slaw mix, the following is an even better mix to make your own:

• 4 cups shredded/thin sliced green cabbage, from 1/4 to 1/3 head of cabbage
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced into thin slivers
• 1 large carrot, grated (around 3/4 cup)
• 1/2 large red onion, sliced thin and layers separated, around 3/4 cup

The important part here is to slice everything very thin, like 2-3mm, so that it marinates quickly.

Here's a super-fast, tasty pasta recipe you may be able to make from ingredients you have in your pantry right now. Like other dishes I'm publishing for quarantine month, fresh ingredients in it are minimal. It's also a Good First Recipe.

The name of this dish comes from the mock-Latin aphorism "illegitimati non carborundum", which supposedly translates to "don't let the bastards grind you down" (this also appears in the Handmaid's Tale as "nolite te bastardes carborundorum"). It's an extra play on words, since the recipe started as a vegetarian variant of Pasta Carbonara that our family gradually modified to be more interesting. The sentiment is also perfect for the current world circumstances.

Like any of the many pasta dishes that depend on tossing hot pasta with eggs or dairy, the key to this dish is timing. You need to have the egg-and-cheese mixture beaten and waiting in a bowl, so that you can take the hot pasta directly from the boiling pot and drop it in the sauce, and then toss it immediately. Do not drain it in a colander in the sink. The elapsed time from the pasta being cooked to serving the dish should be less than two minutes.

If you master this, you can make dozens of easy pasta dishes, including Cacio e Pepe, alla Gricia, and Fettucine Alfredo. And, of course, traditional Spaghetti alla Carbonara. Since beaten-egg sauces are more forgiving than cheese, pork fat, or butter-and-cheese, I recommend starting with a recipe like this one.

So, some additional tips to help you in your mastery:

1. Grab a salad tossing set, two big serving forks, or salad or BBQ "hands" to toss the pasta. While TV chefs are fond of using metal tongs, I've found that it's extremely hard to toss pasta effectively using them.
2. You want a room-temperature, or slightly warm, bowl to toss the pasta with its sauce. If you toss it in the cooking pot, the sauce will overheat and become clumpy (this is the #1 cause of Cacio e Pepe failures). Ideally, this will be a large, heavy ceramic or glass bowl. To save dishes, this can/should be your serving bowl as well.
3. Each of the "tossed" pasta recipes has its own recommended pasta to use, and there's reasons for that that have to do with flexibility and heat retention. Substituting pastas may result in the sauce failing, so if you have it available you should try to use the recommended pasta. In the case of Pasta Non Carborundum, I strongly recommend linguine, because you want a thicker pasta than spaghetti to retain enough heat to cook the sauce ingredients.
4. Unless you have special equipment, these recipes scale up poorly. With too much pasta at once, the sauce will not emulsify. Instead of trying to make a quadruple batch for a crowd, set things up so that you can do multiple batches in a row.

pasta non carborundum

12oz linguine or similar
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup good olive oil
2-3 tbs lemon juice
1/2 cup finely grated pecorino romano, grana padano, or parmigiano cheese
2 oz sun-dried tomatoes, chopped or cut into slivers, around 3/4 cup
minced parsley, around 1/2 cup
salt "to taste" (see below)
fresh ground pepper, around 1/2 tsp

equipment: pasta pot, large heavy bowl, tossing forks, whisk, pasta strainer, tongs or fork

Heat up a 4qt or larger pot with well-salted water (1 tsp per liter of water), until it boils.

Beat the eggs with the olive oil and lemon juice in the large heavy bowl. Mix in the pepper, any salt, the cheese, and minced tomatoes and parsley. Set next to the stove.

In the boiling water, cook the pasta slightly past "al dente" according to the package instructions. For most linguine, this will be 10 to 11 minutes.

As soon as the pasta is done, grab it out of the pot and drop it in the bowl (or strain it, reserving some pasta water, and immediately dump it in before it cools). Toss the pasta with the sauce ingredients right away, scraping the bottom of the bowl to make sure that all ingredients are incorporated. If the pasta seems a little dry, add a little (1/4 to 1/2 cup) of pasta cooking water and toss again.

Serve immediately. Serves 2 as a main dish and 3-4 as a side dish. Do not save leftovers.

Notes on ingredients:

Dried Linguine is the ideal pasta for this dish, and it even works with whole wheat linguine. You can make it with spaghetti, but the thinner pasta requires faster, more determined tossing. It would probably work with fettucine or pappardelle too, but angel hair won't work, nor will short, "stubby" pastas like penne.

Cheese and Salt: if using pecorino romano, you'll want to add either no salt, or up to 1/4 tsp salt to the mix. If using parmigiano, you'll want a little more, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 tsp.

Parsley could be replaced with basil or cilantro, or even dried herbs (in which case use 2 tsp instead of the 1/2 cup).