Category: Cooking

What to Cook This Week

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Good morning. I’m Emily Weinstein, the Food and Cooking editor here at The New York Times, and I’ll be your host today. Are you having an excellent long weekend? Have you had pancakes yet? Are you already diving headlong into cookie-making with Gantt charts and custom holiday baking playlists?

I’ve got a week’s worth of cooking recommendations for you, but let’s not move on from Sunday too quickly. I love the look of Ali Slagle’s new recipe for refried white beans with chile-fried eggs (above), the sunshine yellow of the yolk set on that creamy cloud of crushed beans. Refried beans are typically made with pinto or black varieties, and cooked in lard. But white beans are a delicious and effective departure from tradition, and you can swap in olive oil for the lard.

Now, let’s talk about the week ahead …

Kay Chun’s sesame salmon bowls are as delicious as they are clever. Inspired by the Japanese dish chirashi, the salmon steams directly on top of the vinegar-seasoned rice, and the finished bowls are adorned with shredded cabbage and sliced ​​cucumbers for a juicy crunch.

Pierre Franey’s chicken breasts with lemon are timeless, an easy and elegant way to put dinner on the table. Franey recommends serving the chicken with mashed potatoes, but I’d go for a fresh pot of rice.

This new recipe comes from the brilliant mind of Yewande Komolafe, who mixes flavors and textures with confidence and flair. Here she roasts tofu, chickpeas and cherry tomatoes in a za’atar-spiced marinade for a great weeknight dinner.

A simple way to make a table full of people happy is to set down a big, saucy, bubbling baking dish in front of them. Here’s one option for how that could look, courtesy of Lidey Heuck.

You’ve reached the end of the week, and I can’t think of anything that’d be better than Vallery Lomas’s tangy pimento mac and cheese, a power coupling of classic Southern dishes.

There are thousands more recipes for you to scroll through on New York Times Cooking, and videos and inspiration on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. You’ll need to subscribe to access our recipes. And don’t forget that you can give a New York Times Cooking subscription as a gift!

You can reach me at [email protected]; the tip lines are open, so tell me what you’re cooking, baking and drinking right now. I love to hear from you, and I read every note. You can also sign up to receive my newsletter, Five Weeknight Dishes, which offers recipe ideas for busy people who still want something good to eat. If you encounter technical issues with our website or apps, write to [email protected], and someone will get back to you.

Until next time. And if you haven’t seen our YouTube series “Mystery Menu,” starring the chefs (and couple) Sohla and Ham El-Waylly, it’s fantastic. Highly recommended!

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Blake Shelton Details Holiday Cooking Tradition With Gwen Stefani

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Cooking for Christmas! Blake Shelton revealed some of his and Gwen Stefani‘s favorite holiday traditions — and the couple are big proponents of the culinary arts.

“Gwen and I, our cooking tradition has become during Christmas — and not just like your normal, typical [dishes],” the country singer, 46, explained in Us Weekly‘s exclusive clip from NBC’s Christmas in Rockefeller Center special. “But we always challenge ourselves and try to come up with a different, weird, complicated, difficult thing to cook every year. It started one year [when] she wanted to do a beef Wellington, which is not easy, by the way.”

The Oklahoma native explained that he and the No Doubt frontwoman, 53, try to do “something weird and new” every year. “Gwen’s family, there’s a lot of Italian blood in her family,” Shelton added. “And so there’s tons of pasta and there’s a reason that I have a chin like a stork the last five years. It’s because I’m hanging out with the Stefanis now.”

Blake Shelton Details Christmas Cooking Traditions With Gwen Stefani- 'We Always Challenge Ourselves' 317 NYWICI's Matrix Awards, Arrivals, New York, USA - Oct 26 2022

Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton.

 Photo Image Press/Shutterstock

Although the couple — who tied the knot in July 2021 — collaborated on several duets, the “God’s Country” singer revealed that cooking with his wife is much easier than making music together. “Singing with Gwen is way harder than cooking with her,” he explained. “Cooking is easy for us because neither one of us really knows what we’re doing, and all we do is laugh the whole time. With music, we actually take [it] serious.”

Fans can catch the duo’s latest collaboration on Christmas in Rockefeller Centerwhich airs on NBC Wednesday, November 30. The twosome are scheduled to perform alongside musicians including Jimmie Allen, Katharine McPheeDan + Shay, Mickey Guyton, Alicia Keys and more. The two-hour special — co-hosted by Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Craig Melvin and Mario López — will also include a performance by the Radio City Rockettes and a bit by Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph.

In between the musical numbers, the performers will share some of their favorite holiday traditions and explain what Christmas means to them. Stefani, for her part, asked her husband what Christmas felt like to him, and he had an adorable response: “You.”

The “Hollaback Girl” singer revealed that she and Shelton “bonded over” Christmas music earlier in their romance. “You make it feel like Christmas,” the Voices the judge joked, referencing their duet “You Make It Feel Like Christmas.” He quipped: “It’s not even Christmas tonight, but you make it feel like it is. … How cheesy is this bit?”

Christmas in Rockefeller Center airs on NBC Wednesday, November 30, at 8 p.m. ET.

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Woman sues Kraft claiming Velveeta Shells & Cheese took too long to make

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A South Florida woman is suing Kraft Heinz claiming the food manufacturer hoodwinked her and other consumers by saying its Velveeta Shells and Cheese product only takes 3 1/2 minutes to be ready to eat.

The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Miami, concerns Kraft’s microwavable single serve cups of macaroni and cheese.

The packaging claims the dish is “ready in 3 ½ minutes.” But Amanda Ramirez, the lead plaintiff, called the statement “false and misleading” and argued that the total prep time was longer.

Package directions indicate there are four steps to prepare the product. They include removing the cup’s lid and opening the cheese sauce pouch, adding water to the cup and stirring it, microwaving the cup and finally stirring the contents of the cheese pouch.


The company that makes Sriracha warns of shortage

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Ramirez points out that the 3 ½ minutes advertised on the product only accounts for one of multiple steps. “Consumers seeing ‘ready in 3 ½ minutes’ will believe it represents the total amount of time it takes to prepare the product, meaning from the moment it is unopened to the moment it is ready for consumption,” the complaint reads.

The claim would be accurate if it indicated that it takes 3 ½ minutes to cook the cheesy pasta shells in the microwave, the lawsuit states.

The suit, filed this month by William Wright of the Wright Law Office in West Palm Beach and Spencer Sheehan of Sheehan & Associates in Great Neck, New York, sought more than $5 million in damages.

Ramirez is one of many consumers who “looks to bold statements of value when quickly selecting groceries” in order “to stretch their money as far as possible when buying groceries,” the complaint reads.

The Shells & Cheese cups sell for about $10.99 for eight 2.39-ounce cups, which is more than consumers would be willing to pay if they were accurately advertised, the lawsuit claims.

Kraft Heinz dismissed the suit as meritless.

“We are aware of this frivolous lawsuit and will strongly defend against the allegations in the complaint,” Kraft Heinz said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.

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