Bring On Summer: Strawberry, Chicken, and Pecan Salad

Is it summer yet? June  in the Pacific Northwest is sending mixed messages—sunny and warm one day, pouring rain the next. I know it’s not officially summer until June 20 (here in the northern hemisphere, that is), but after the dismal weather of winter and most of spring here, I’m itching for summertime, which is one of the reasons I turned to a summer salad for dinner.

The strawberries are what make this salad suitable for summer. We don’t have a strawberry patch, and good strawberries can be hard to find at our local grocery. I looked at several of the plastic containers, trying to find one that didn’t contain more than one bruised or suspicious-looking (read: going to rot soon) berry. The reason is, I think, that these berries are shipped up from California, and I should probably go to a farmer’s market instead. Sigh. I probably should do a lot of things, but this time I settled on a decent plastic box of strawberries and headed home.

Another draw was the pecans, which admittedly are more of a winter thing. But how could I resist when they were toasted in a pan with butter, and sprinkled with salt and pepper? On their own, these pecans make a great snack, or you could serve them as an appetizer. In the salad, they add a crunchy texture and sweet-salty taste. Pecans are adaptable; they play nice with strawberries, chicken, spinach—all the elements of this salad. I stowed away a little supply for myself and sprinkled them on my lunch salads throughout the week. I highly recommend doing this.

The dressing is a combination of balsamic vinegar (always a good choice, when it comes to strawberries), olive oil, and orange juice. I was a bit skeptical of the orange juice, at first. Would it be too strong a flavor? Would it clash with the feta cheese I decided to use in place of the Swiss recommended by the original recipe (Swiss cheese is one of the few cheeses I don’t like)? But I went ahead anyways, and was happy to find that the orange flavor is at the perfect level, subtle rather than overwhelming. As usual, I omitted the sugar from the dressing, and didn’t miss it. Some online commenters on the original recipe found the dressing too oily, but that never came up for me. The balsamic is what I noticed, and loved, the most.

Summer may still be coming in fits and starts here, but that’s no reason to hold off on summer cooking. So I encourage you to make this salad and serve it with something summery, like corn on the cob—even if you end up eating inside.

Strawberry, Chicken, and Pecan Salad
Adapted from Taste of Home

About 1.5 pounds chicken breast, cubed
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 heaping cup pecan halves
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for cooking the chicken
1 tablespoon orange juice
5 ounces spinach
1 pound strawberries, hulled and sliced
6 ounces crumbled feta cheese

1. Heat a little olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add cubed chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until cooked through.
2. In a separate skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the pecan halves, stirring to coat in the butter. Let the pecans toast for about 2 minutes (watch carefully, as they can burn quickly). Stir in the salt and 1/8 teaspoon ground pepper. Transfer pecans to a bowl to cool.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the balsamic vinegar, olive oil, orange juice, and 1/8 teaspoon ground pepper.
4. In a large bowl, combine the spinach, chicken, strawberries, and feta. Pour the dressing over and toss to coat. Serve the salad with pecans sprinkled on each serving (or toss them in the salad bowl as well).

Go Your Own Way: Huevos Rancheros (Crispy Tortillas with Eggs, Beans, and Salsa)

Part of being a cook is knowing where you draw the line. When you make a cake, will you make frosting from scratch too, or reach for a can? When you make pizza, will the dough be homemade or packaged? There’s nothing wrong with any of these options, by the way. Also, the line can be adjusted and crossed at any time, according to time and energy. But I have found that sometimes these lines are just a sneaky way of making myself feel bad.

You see, I sometimes get guilty over not doing  enough. When I saw this recipe for huevos rancheros, a dish I love, I balked at the suggestion of making ranchero sauce from scratch. It looked delicious, but also added time when I’m always in need of more quick weeknight meals. I didn’t want my huevos rancheros to be a project. Instead, I thought of using salsa, specifically a pico de gallo from our local grocery that I’m currently obsessed with. Nothing wrong with an easy substitution with something I love, right?

Except then a little voice spoke up, and it got bolder as I thought longer. Maybe you’ve heard this voice too—it’s the one that tells you you’re doing it all wrong, you aren’t trying hard enough, etc. This voice, in its insidious way, pops up all over my life, and while I think as I’ve gotten older I am better at calling it out and surmounting it, it still makes unwelcome appearances. In this iteration, it told me these huevos rancheros wouldn’t be good enough, authentic enough, or worth it if I wasn’t going to make sauce from scratch. I know this is ridiculous, but we all know that, and just because we’re rational beings doesn’t mean rationality can protect us always.

Luckily for all involved, I realized this thought pattern wasn’t helpful and, worst of all, it was preventing me from getting to what’s most important—in this case, a plate of one of my favorite foods. So I bought the pico de gallo. Back at home, I fried eggs, not caring a bit that some turned out lopsided because appearance doesn’t matter, just that the yolk is that perfect blend of runny and solid. I decided not to fry the tortillas one at a time in a pan and instead baked them together on a baking sheet, increasing the efficiency while still getting crispy tortillas. As you probably expected, the huevos rancheros turned out excellently, and they’re perfect for weeknights and summer time, too.

All this to say, if you want to make ranchero sauce from scratch, there is nothing wrong with that either. The important thing is that when the naysayer voice comes up, don’t let it get the power. Just go and do what you want to do.

Huevos Rancheros
Adapted from Breakfast & Brunch

Olive oil
12 eggs
1 30-ounce can refried beans
12 corn tortillas
6 ounces crumbled feta cheese
Salsa of your choice (I like pico de gallo)
2 avocados, peeled and sliced

1. Heat oven broiler. Heat a little olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Crack as many eggs into the skillet as its size will allow. Cook eggs to desired doneness, flipping to cook the yolk a little (or a lot), then transfer to a plate.
2. Scoop the refried beans into a medium-sized saucepan. Warm up the beans over low heat, stirring occasionally.
3. Spread the tortillas on baking sheets (they should not overlap) and brush the top of each with a little olive oil. Broil the tortillas, one sheet at a time, for 2 minutes per sheet. Turn the tortillas over and broil, one sheet at a time, 1 minute per sheet.
4. Spread the heated refried beans evenly among the broiled tortillas. Follow with a sprinkle of feta. Top each with a fried egg. Garnish with salsa and avocado slices.

Accessible, Adaptable, Delicious: Yam, Chicken, and Spinach Salad

A lot of salads fall into the trap of being boring. We’re encouraged to eat more salads, and yet a pile of greens can be less than inspiring (and not very filling, to be honest). But there is hope! There are substantial salads out there, kinds that can make full meals, taste delicious, and are still healthy.

Maybe you’re way ahead on this and already have a shortlist of your favorite meal salads. I certainly have my own, but I feel it’s worth bringing up routinely that salad doesn’t have to be a maligned side, or a pile of kale with the most conservative sprinkling of grated parmesan. Part of the push to get people to eat healthier should involve ways to make healthy eating accessible. That’s what I think of for this salad: It involves ingredients, like chicken and yams and cheese, that are readily available. Plus, like all good meals, it’s adaptable, all ingredients swappable with what you have on hand.

It started out as a boring salad, though. The original called for yams, red onion, and chicken on spinach. All good things, but even good things together aren’t complete if other good things are missing. Even two tablespoons of lime juice didn’t provide enough pizzazz. Plus, I was still getting over a bad run-in with some red onions from a recent crostini recipe. But when a dish fails, or just isn’t very interesting, there’s an opportunity to assess its potential for another try. With this salad, I saw that with a few more additions, it could surpass being “meh.”

Naturally, one of these additions was cheese—feta, to be precise. Its sharp flavor and crumbly texture add a lot of good to most any dish. Next came sundried tomatoes, another favorite that goes so well with chicken, and, I discovered, roasted yams. Suddenly, the salad had much more going for it in the flavor department. I omitted the lime juice, but the additions brought enough that it wasn’t missed. (I also subtracted the red onions.) For a bigger spread, this salad would do well as a side. The yams make me think it would fit in at Thanksgiving—take note.

My theory with salads—really, home-cooked food in general—is that you shouldn’t have to sacrifice health, flavor, or accessibility. You should end up with something far from boring.

Yam, Chicken, and Spinach Salad
Adapted from Real Simple

2 yams (about 1 pound total), peeled and cubed
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ pounds chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces
5 ounces spinach leaves
6 ounces crumbled feta cheese
6.5 ounces sundried tomatoes, halved if large

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place the yam cubes on a baking sheet and toss them with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tender.
2. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a medium-sized skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken pieces and cook until cooked through, stirring occasionally.
3. Place the spinach in a large bowl. Add the cooked yams and chicken, tossing to combine. Add the feta cheese and sundried tomatoes, and toss again to fully combine.

Revising the Recipe: Swiss Chard, Black Bean, and Feta Tostadas

Lately, in search of food inspiration, I’ve turned to my college recipe notebooks, and as you can imagine, it’s not only produced some good meals, but also brought back a lot of memories. There are the cookies I made late one night after hours of writing papers. There are the calzones Thomas and I made, just one year into our relationship, before we saw the new Indiana Jones movie (the movie was terrible, but we’re still making the calzones, nearly eight years later).

But there are also meals I don’t recall making at all. I know I did, because only recipes I tried made it into my notebooks. These tostadas are one of those meals that draws a blank: when, where, and most importantly, did I like them? I wrote down every recipe I made, and except for a select truly awful few, I didn’t make any notes (or warnings) for my future self. So  all I knew about these tostadas was that they weren’t so horrible that they deserved a negative note. Well, it’s something!

I adopted a method from my other, more recent tostadas recipe, and broiled the corn tortillas before flipping them over, putting on the toppings, and broiling for a minute more. I streamlined the steps to increase efficiency, something I’m always looking out for on weeknights especially (my college self cooked large meals on the weekends, froze them, and chipped off portions to take to campus during the week. Cooking something nearly every night didn’t come until post-graduation). I ended up with an even better recipe than the original, as if my older self had stepped in as editor and recipe tester.

The combination of chard and feta, the bitter greens and sharp cheese, makes me savor every bite. It’s not something I think most people would immediately think of as a tostada topping, but it works. Although it doesn’t shrink as much as spinach when added to a hot pan, chard does cook down, so don’t remove any or scale it back, even if it looks like it will overflow from the skillet. Just keep stirring, and it will wilt down. You could use spinach instead, but you’ll need to increase the amount, and you could use the same amount of kale. Use beet greens if you have them. Just use the greens you like.

Looking through those notebooks, that time feels like another life—or at least, another, very different stage of life. At 28, I’m already turning to Thomas and saying “Remember when?” although, predictably, those questions usually involve food (“Remember our chili nights? Remember that awesome pizza we made?”) and it’s likely that as the years go by, that’s something that won’t change.

Swiss Chard, Black Bean, and Feta Tostadas

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon cumin
1 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 bunch Swiss chard, ribs discarded, leaves torn into smaller pieces
8 corn tortillas
6 ounces crumbled feta cheese

1. Heat oven broiler. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat. Sauté onion and garlic for 5 minutes, stirring often. Stir in the paprika and cumin. Add the black beans, and cook for 3 minutes.
2. Stir in the chard, adding in batches if it won’t initially all fit in your skillet. As it wilts, add more of the chard until it’s all in the pan. When the chard is all wilted, reduce the heat to low to keep warm.
3. Arrange 4 tortillas each on 2 baking sheets. Spread a little of the remaining olive oil on each tortilla. When the broiler is ready, put one of the baking sheets in the oven and broil the tortillas for 2 minutes. Repeat with second sheet of tortillas.
4. Turn the tortillas over and top each one with the chard mixture, followed by a sprinkling of feta. Broil one sheet of tortillas at a time for 1 minute each (2 minutes for extra-crisp edges).

Back to Basic: Beet, Feta, and Walnut Salad

As I wrapped each small beet in foil, I wondered if this was really going to work. I’d never cooked beets this way before. There are times in cooking when you just have to hope it will work out for the best. “Godspeed, little beets,” I thought as I placed them in the oven.

The beets cooked in the oven for an hour, and during that time they filled the kitchen with an earthy, sweet smell, hinting at the deliciousness to come. When I unwrapped the foil around each beet, it was lined with little puddles of purple juice, and peeling the beets turned my fingers pink. Beet juice used to unnerve me, with its brightness threatening to stain clothing and furniture, but I’ve come to see it as the most beautiful shade of purple-pink, even when it’s all over my hands (that being said, this is why you should always wear clothes you don’t care about getting stained, or at the very least an apron, when preparing beets).

I combined the chopped beets with spinach, feta, chives, and grapefruit and orange sections, and tossed it with a dressing of grapefruit and orange zest, balsamic vinegar, mustard, and honey. There’s no better way to say what I thought when I ate that salad: it was terrible. The citrus was the problem. Normally I love winter citrus and the brightness it brings, but in this salad, it was just too much. Paired with a dressing containing citrus zest, the salad lost all the other good flavors—including the sweetness of the beets and the sharpness of the feta—and succumbed to citrus overload.

So, what if I took out the citrus entirely? The second time I made the salad, I didn’t add any grapefruit or orange sections and omitted grated orange and grapefruit peel from the dressing (I must admit I was happy to not have to grate all that zest). I added chopped walnuts, because beets, walnuts, and feta belong together. I don’t care if it’s been done a million times, because it’s delicious. The dressing, now unencumbered by the citrus peels, presented bold flavors, especially in the balsamic. The salad, pared down to essential goodness, left me happily enjoying the contrast of sweet beets and salty feta, accentuated with crunchy walnuts.

This salad also makes exceptional leftovers, and keeps in the fridge for a few days. I served it with my go-to side, buttermilk biscuits, for a satisfying dinner that had improved with restraint. Call it simplification. Call it the next meal you need to make.

Beet, Feta, and Walnut Salad
Adapted from Bon Appetit

6 small beets (top greens removed and discarded, if they came with greens), rinsed and patted dry
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil
5 ounces spinach leaves
6 ounces crumbled feta cheese
0.6 ounces chives, diced
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place beets in a large bowl and toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil until each beet is coated in oil. Wrap each individual beet in foil. Place wrapped beets directly on the oven rack. Roast for 1 hour.
2. Remove the beets from the oven. Carefully transfer the beets to a plate and unwrap the foil. Let the beets cool for 30 minutes. When the beets are cooled, use a small knife to peel away the skins. Slice each beet into small wedges.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the balsamic vinegar, mustard, and honey. Stir in 1/3 cup olive oil, a little bit at a time, whisking after each addition. All the ingredients should be well combined.
4. In a large bowl, toss together the spinach, beet wedges, feta, chives, and walnuts. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss to coat.

Mediterranean comfort: Turkey meatballs with spaghetti

Don’t you love solutions that lead to more deliciousness? These meatballs started as a burger recipe that was so good, I knew we had to make it again right away. But I didn’t want to just repeat the same meal. Hence, meatballs!

Anyone expecting the usual meatballs should look elsewhere. For one, these are turkey meatballs. For another, they’re packed with feta and red onion, giving them a Mediterranean rather than meat-and-potatoes vibe.  That being said, you can still be traditional: We served them with spaghetti and red sauce (because I’m only going to push the boundaries of tradition so far, at least in a single dish).

I kind of winged the cooking part, relying on memories of my mother cooking meatballs in a large skillet on the stove. I heated a little olive oil in a skillet, added the meatballs, and covered them. After three minutes, I carefully turned the meatballs and cooked them for another 2 minutes. “Carefully” is an important distinction here; first you must gently loosen the meatballs from the bottom of the pan, then do your best to flip them so the uncooked side is now touching the pan.

If they are sticking, why not just put down more olive oil? Well, I don’t know about you, but I am a fan of those slightly crisp bits, the flavorful browned part of the meat. I like it so much, I’m willing to do some tricky maneuvers at the stove just to preserve that crisp goodness. If you feel differently, or doubt your skill with the spatula, you could put down more olive oil, and not let them cook as long on each side. But I say go for it—and know that not all of them will be perfect, but they will all be cooked in the end.

When you get to eating, you will be rewarded, because these meatballs are absolutely delicious. Like everyone else, I have something to say about “the new comfort food”, and I’m declaring that it’s Mediterranean spaghetti and meatballs—at least, it is in this kitchen.

Turkey Meatballs with Spaghetti
Adapted from Bon Appetit

6 ½ ounces uncooked spaghetti (about half of a 13 ½-ounce package)
1 pound ground turkey
2/3 cup diced red or white onion
1/3 cup crumbled feta, plus more for sprinkling on top
1 ½ teaspoons olive oil, plus more for cooking
1 clove of garlic, minced
½ teaspoon dried rosemary
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 jar of your favorite tomato sauce

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the spaghetti and reduce heat to medium. Let simmer until desired doneness is reached. Drain, and keep pasta warm in the pot over low heat.
2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine the turkey, diced onion, 1/3 cup feta, 1 ½ teaspoons olive oil, garlic, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Take a small handful of the turkey mixture and roll it into a ball about 1 inch across. Place on a plate. Repeat until all the turkey mixture is used up.
3. Spread a bit of olive oil in a large skillet, and heat over medium-low heat. Place meatballs in the skillet, making sure to leave enough space between each for flipping. (Not all of the meatballs will fit in one skillet.) Cover, and let cook for 3 minutes. Uncover and flip each meatball, and let cook for an additional 2 minutes. The meatballs should be cooked through at this point, but check one to be sure. If not, let them cook for another minute and check again. Repeat this process with remaining meatballs (I had to do two batches; how many you do depends on the size of your skillet).
4. While the meatballs cook, pour the tomato sauce into a pot and warm it on the stove. When the meatballs are done, stir them into the warmed sauce.
5. Stir the meatballs and sauce with the pasta. Serve with extra feta for sprinkling on top.

Fall’s pasta dish: Spaghetti with butternut squash

In fall, when most people are putting pumpkins on their doorsteps (or hauling them away), I’m buying butternut squash and enlisting Thomas in the peeling, chopping, and roasting of our favorite gourd. This recipe was inspired by other pasta primavera dishes I’ve made that expressed the season so well: asparagus in the spring, fresh tomatoes in the summer. It seems only logical that fall’s pasta dish would include squash.

This recipe is basically ultra-upgraded spaghetti and red sauce. Yes, you will have to peel and chop a squash, but believe me, roasted squash is heavenly, especially when it’s tossed in olive oil and lightly browned on the edges…wait, what were we talking about? Right, so you’ll have to do some prep work, but it will be well worth your while to master the art of roasting squash (and if you’re really pressed for time, you can use defrosted frozen pre-baked and chopped squash. I won’t tell anyone).

Next, you cook spaghetti and heat the tomato sauce, and sauté a few yummy vegetables (I used bell pepper, shallot, and green onions, but anything from kale to leeks to caramelized onions works here). Stir in feta (or another cheese, like mozzarella) and chopped artichoke hearts, and you have yourself a fall pasta primavera. The leftovers keep well, meaning you’ll have something delicious to eat after fall walks spent swishing your boots through piles of leaves.

As I stirred the pasta and its accompaniments, the squash started to break up. Apparently, cooked butternut squash is more delicate that I thought. But this ended up being a good thing: the squash that breaks apart blends with the tomato sauce, imbuing it with roasted squash flavor and adding a pleasant texture. As all butternut squash obsessives know, a dish with squash in every bite is a dream of fall perfection realized.

Fall perfection will be winter perfection soon enough, because butternut squash is around for a while, and you’ll want something to make on the cold winter nights ahead.  No need to overthink it: spaghetti and squash is all you need to bring the bright colors outside into your kitchen.

Spaghetti with Butternut Squash

1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeds removed, and chopped into cubes
1 ½  tablespoons olive oil
6.5 ounces whole-grain spaghetti (half of a 13.25 ounce package)
1 23.5-ounce jar tomato sauce
1 shallot, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 bunch green onions, chopped
6 ounces crumbled feta
1 10-ounce jar artichoke hearts, each artichoke halved

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place squash cubes on a baking sheet; toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Bake for 15 minutes, or until soft. Remove from oven and place squash in a large bowl.
2. While the squash bakes, bring a pot of water to boil. Add spaghetti and reduce heat to medium. Cook until just softened. Drain pasta and place in the bowl with the squash, stirring to combine.
3. Pour the tomato sauce into a small saucepan and warm over medium-low heat.
4. Heat ½ tablespoon olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add shallot, and sauté for 1 minute. Add bell pepper, and sauté for 3 minutes. Add green onions, and sauté for 1 minute. Add bell pepper mixture to the spaghetti and squash, stirring well. Don’t worry if the squash breaks apart—your meal will still be delicious.
5. Stir in feta, artichoke hearts, and tomato sauce.

Party food, for dinner too: Pita pizzas

What if I told you I found the perfect lunch, dinner, and party food? Something using ingredients you probably already have, or can easily buy? And it’s delicious? What if I told you I’m not joking? Pita pizzas are all of those things, easily pulled together for a weeknight dinner or right before a dinner party. You can customize them according to your taste (or that of your guests), and like regular pizza, the variations are endless.

This meal began as a Mediterranean-themed dinner platter: triangles of pita bread surrounding hummus, feta, kalamata olives, and sundried tomatoes. But, always wanting to take it just one step further, I decided not to make the assembly part of serving dinner, but something completed beforehand. And wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, if the pitas were toasted? Toasted pitas hold up better when topped with more than just hummus, and while not required, this makes them easier to eat. Toasting also makes them excellent party fare, because you don’t have to worry about cleaning up stray olives that rolled off a piece of floppy pita.

The hummus helps too, acting as the pizza “sauce” that holds on the cheese and other toppings. Like tomato sauce, you can spread it as thinly or thickly as you want, and any of the many types of hummus are up for grabs (we used plain hummus on the pitas shown here, but I’d like to try a garlicky one next). Kalamata olives, feta, and sundried tomatoes are often served together for a reason (a delicious, dreamy reason), but you don’t have to stick to the Mediterranean theme. Try bell peppers and pepper jack cheese, chicken and blue cheese, or finely diced greens with a dusting of parmesan.

If you’re making these for a party, be sure to toast and assemble the pitas as close as possible to serving time. Like any toasted bread, these don’t stay crisp for very long. But if you’re making pita pizzas for dinner, or for lunch the next day, they are still good untoasted, just like leftover pizza makes an excellent breakfast. If you have access to a stove and a bit of time, these pizzas are easy enough to assemble for those afternoons when you want a tasty lunch, but don’t feel like cooking much. Or you can make a large batch and just keep snacking on the leftovers, as we did, taking pita pizzas for lunch and after-work noshing.

The combination of pita bread, hummus, olives, feta, and tomatoes is hardly revolutionary. But a delicious, easy-to-make dish with endless variations? That’s something worth celebrating—and you already have the perfect appetizer.

Pita Pizzas

5 pita bread rounds
14 ounces hummus
6 ounces feta cheese
5 ounces jarred sundried tomatoes, drained and halved
9.5 ounces sliced kalamata olives

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place pita rounds directly on the oven racks. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until rounds are lightly browned on the bottom. Remove from oven and let sit on a plate until cool enough to handle.
2. Cut pitas into quarters (making a total of 20 triangles).  Spread hummus on a pita triangle. Top with toppings of your choice (usually the cheese by itself or cheese with one other topping works best—you don’t want to overload the slices, or they will be difficult to eat). Repeat with remaining triangles, arranging them on a serving platter or plate as you go. Serve pita pizzas as soon as possible so they don’t lose their crispness.

A dream dish: Shakshuka (eggs poached in tomato sauce)

Some dishes I dream of making, and dream of for a long time. They’re always in the back of my mind, but another recipe—or the chaos of life in general—pulls me away. Shakshuka, eggs poached in a spiced tomato sauce, is one of those dishes. The recipe kept popping up—in food writing, in my many cooking magazines. And then, one day, when we had a surplus of eggs, I decided it was time for shakshuka. And good thing, because this dish is nothing short of amazing.

I can’t explain the delay, except for what I wrote above (see: chaos), and okay, maybe I was a bit hesitant about poaching eggs. I like eggs just a little runny; firm on the outside, so when you slice one open with your fork, you release the golden, runny yolk within. The original recipe would result in eggs too undercooked for my taste, so I’ve added a few more minutes to the baking time. If you like your eggs extra-runny, reduce the cooking time—and I’ll post that warning you always see on menus, about how eating undercooked food is hazardous to your health (and I assume no liability).

Shakshuka is incredibly easy to make: sauté onions and garlic, add chickpeas and spices, stir in diced tomatoes and cheese, and crack eggs over it all. Do your best to keep the eggs from mixing with each other (there will probably be two that can’t be parted). After 10 minutes in the oven, you get eggs with perfect yolks: they’ll appear cooked on the outside, but with a puddle of yolk inside. And while I keep going on about the eggs, the rest of the dish shines too, in an I-must-make-this-again-soon kind of way.

Because of the eggs, you might be inclined to serve this for breakfast (indeed, why wait until nighttime for this meal?). But it’s just as good for lunch or dinner. It’s often served with crusty bread to sop up the sauce; we ate it with pita. This would be a good potluck meal, since it’s easy to make and serves a crowd. But we found that two people can share it—and the leftovers—just fine.

So that’s one recipe off my “dreaming of” list (a million more to go!). Don’t make the same mistake—work shakshuka into your meal plans. But I don’t have regrets. While it took me a while to finally make this dish, I still have one task ahead of me: making up for lost time.

Shakshuka
Adapted from Bon Appetit

¼ cup olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
8 eggs
Cilantro, for garnish (optional)
Bread, for serving

1. Select a skillet that can go in the oven (cast iron or metal; no plastic bits). Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; let cook, stirring every now and then, about 8 minutes or until the onion is softened. Add chickpeas, paprika, and cumin to onion mixture. Cook for 2 minutes.
2. Add tomatoes and their liquid to the onion/chickpea mixture. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes. Stir in feta.
3. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Crack one egg into a small bowl, and check for eggshells. Once it passes the test, gently slide the egg onto the tomato mixture. Repeat with remaining eggs. Try to keep them as evenly spaced as possible.
4. Carefully transfer skillet to oven. Bake 8-10 minutes for runny eggs, and 12-15 minutes for firm on the outside, soft on the inside eggs. Remove from oven and garnish with cilantro, if using. Serve with bread.