Why Haven’t I Made That?: One Year Later

December 12, 2023 by akc

It’s officially been a year since I started Why Haven’t I Made That?, which was a project to make one Smitten Kitchen recipe every week. I tried to focus mostly on recipes that were new to me, but I didn’t want to set a bunch of rules and then feel like someone else was in charge of my kitchen. So how did it go?

In reality, I didn’t cook a Smitten Kitchen recipe every week. But I still managed to make 65 of Deb’s dishes as part of this project. In the early summer I was working ahead for a while to try and make sure I had posts to put up while I was out of town for almost half of June, so there was a stretch of weeks where I was making a point of doing two a week.

They weren’t all new-to-me recipes, in part because I wanted to share some of our favorites. And in part because there were some weeks where I just didn’t feel like making something new (or at least, I didn’t feel like it on the day we did meal planning and groceries).

For the most part I haven’t repeated anything yet, but there are several recipes from this project that I know I’ll make again:

Slow-Simmered Lentils with Kale and Goat Cheese: A great veggie option that can take any kind of soft cheese. I think ricotta would work well, and Deb also has a similar dish with burrata on the blog.
Baby Wedge Salad with Avocado and Pickled Onions: We really liked this, and leftovers held up surprisingly well.
Ginger Garlic Chicken Noodle Soup: I enjoyed this a lot.
Buffalo Chicken Cobb Salad: This is a great entree salad option, and the buffalo sauce is perfect.
Chicken with Rice, Chorizo, and Tomatoes: The chicken and rice dishes are great, but this felt special with the chorizo. Made me think of paella.
Green Angel Hair with Garlic Butter: This was delicious, the roasted garlic really makes it.
Spaghetti Pangrattato with a Crispy Egg: This seems to be my go-to single-serving pasta now.
Toasted Ricotta Gnocchi with Pistachio Pesto: This was incredible and not that hard to make.
Corn, Bacon, and Parmesan Pasta: A very tasty summer pasta.
Essential Raised Waffles: I think this will become our Christmas Day breakfast tradition.
Marbled Banana Bread: I think about this all the time and need to make it again.
Crispy Chili Garlic Butter Shrimp: We like shrimp and this gives a similar vibe to gambas al ajillo, which is one of my favorite tapas dishes.

I’m sure there are others I’ll end up making again, but these are the ones that jump out at me when I review the list. Interestingly enough, I still haven’t made the Pizza Beans or the I Want Chocolate Cake Cake, the two things that were on my mind when I dreamed up this project. I might have to throw a dinner party to rectify that.

I feel like I should wrap this post up by sharing some learnings, but I didn’t really go into this project with learning as a focus. It was interesting to notice that there are some very similar dishes on the blog and in the cookbooks, though. So if you hear about something in one of Deb’s cookbooks, poke around on the blog a bit. You might be able to turn up something similar.

I suppose the main thing I’ve learned is that if I want to cook out of a particular source, I need to make a point of doing it, not just see what happens. While I don’t see myself doing another yearlong project, I can see where I might pick a cookbook and make something from it every week for a month. And I will definitely continue sharing things here.

Everything Drop Biscuits with Cream Cheese

April 19, 2023May 4, 2023 by akc

Much like Deb I am not an authority on biscuits, but I do enjoy them. I wanted to have some thing special but easy on hand for breakfast on our anniversary, and decided to make the Everything Drop Biscuits with Cream Cheese from Smitten Kitchen Every Day.

We have a jar of Everything Spice Mix from Zucker’s Bagels in NYC, so I used that instead of assembling my own mix. The biscuits came together very quickly, but it was messy to form them and get them coated in the everything mix. I was also unsure how big to make them to get 12, as there wasn’t any guidance. I ended up with 6 big ones and 6 small-to-tiny ones.

Given the different sizes I ended up pulling the tiny ones out at 10 minutes, the small at 13, and the large ones went for 20 minutes. They didn’t really turn golden, but the ones in the picture didn’t look particularly golden either.

We let them cool briefly before digging in. They’re tasty plain, but I also enjoyed mine with a bit of spicy honey.

I’d initially planned to bake half and freeze half following her suggestion, but decided to just bake them all off at once. They were best on day one, but I didn’t notice any big drop in quality on day two. (I let them cool all day and then put them into a container that I left on the counter.)

Two biscuits sit on a white plate with a red and black edging. The biscuits are oddly shaped, with nooks and crannies throughout. They're coated in sesame seeds, poppy seeds, toasted onion, and toasted garlic. — Everything Drop Biscuits with Cream Cheese from *Smitten Kitchen Every Day.*

(Bucatini) Pangrattato with Crispy Eggs

April 15, 2023April 6, 2023 by akc ♥ 1 Comment

Often when my husband is out for the evening, I make myself some kind of simple pasta dish, usually relying on things we already have on hand. I’ve done Deb’s Simplest Spaghetti al Limone and her Foolproof Cacio e Pepe, but I wanted to try a new one. The Spaghetti Pangrattato with Crispy Eggs from Smitten Kitchen Every Day looked delicious and I had everything except the spaghetti. I used bucatini, despite Deb’s low opinion of it.

Pangrattato is an Italian topping that is essentially bread crumbs sautéed in olive oil with whatever herbs and seasonings sound good to you. Having had another pangrattato via Bon Appétit’s Winter Squash and Kale Pasta with Pecan Breadcrumbs I knew it would be delightful. (And yes, you should make that Bon App recipe, but don’t use noodles, use a rigatoni or something else you can more easily stab onto a fork next to a chunk of squash.)

This is pretty simple. While the water came up to a boil I made the pangrattato, using panko for extra crunch, and omitting the lemon zest because all our lemons had seen better days. I did eventually nudge the heat on the pangrattato up a notch because it’d been going for probably three minutes and I didn’t see any change in color. Once I turned up to medium low, it finished up pretty quickly. At that point the pasta went into the pot and I started on the egg.

I was a little nervous about the crispy egg but I’ve read about making these and watched videos so I decided to just trust the process. (Here’s two minutes of Kenji López-Alt being extremely opinionated about fried eggs while demonstrating the technique.)

I let the oil get just to where I saw it shimmering, got it mostly onto one side of the pan, and cracked the egg in. (In retrospect I should have cracked the egg into a little bowl and then poured it into the oil. I didn’t get any shell into it but there is no way you’re fishing that out when you’re making a crispy egg.) The egg puffed up pretty quickly and started browning at the edges almost right away. I spooned some oil over a few times and tried to keep an eye on the bottom. When it looked good to me I took it out and I actually just let it sit on a clean spot on the cutting board. I did have a hard time getting the egg out — it kept flipping over — but we got there.

I realized too late that I didn’t save any pasta water, so I combined the oil you use to finish the pasta with a little splash of white vermouth. I also tossed in some of the pangrattato to get a bit of it incorporated into the dish. And yes I did add parmesean to the pangrattato.

This was a very tasty and simple meal. I liked the addition of the egg and enjoyed how savory and crunchy it was.

Some bucatini is tangled up in a shallow white bowl, topped with golden brown pieces of panko. A crispy fried egg sits on top. The whites are bubbled and the edges are golden brown. — Spaghetti Pangratta t o with a Crispy Egg from Smitten Kitchen Every Day.

Romesco, Chickpea, and Smashed Egg Bowl

April 11, 2023April 5, 2023 by akc

Based on the stickie note flag on the page, the Romesco, Chickpea, and Smashed Egg Bowl caught my interest when I first got my copy of Smitten Kitchen Every Day. Which was immediately upon publication in 2017, so it’s an example of why I’m doing this project.

I did make some substitutions and changes for this recipe, somewhat treating it like a template. Here’s the rundown:

I did not roast my own red peppers. My husband makes a romesco with jarred roasted red peppers and it’s delicious, so I decided to save myself some time. I got a jar of whole roasted red peppers and was able to get two of them out without much difficulty.
I used fresh tomatoes (the “on the vine” kind from the grocery store) and did not peel them.
I made some quinoa because it felt like it’d go really well, and indeed it did.
I used greek yogurt because that’s what I keep on hand. Sometimes I’ll thin it out but I didn’t bother this time.
I used fresh baby arugula because we already had some we needed to use.

This came out really well, and there’s a lot here that you can prep ahead of time. While it did make a lot of dishes, you can get it down to one skillet/frypan instead of two, just by wiping it out a bit after the first use. And if you make the eggs or the romesco ahead of time, that’ll cut down on the pile of dishes as well.

We had this for dinner and it was quite good. We particularly liked the combination of romesco and yogurt, and I was glad I made the quinoa, I liked the greens & grains vibe. The soft-boiled eggs work nicely here, but you could do whatever your preferred egg is.

I did find that the raw garlic here is a little overpowering. I used one large clove; next time I think I’ll try one small clove. I might also throw it in the pan with the tomato for a minute to mellow it out a bit. When serving I’ll also chop up the charred scallion, as they were difficult to cut once they were in the bowl, and I wanted it to be a little more distributed.

I did get the marcona almonds for this, but they are pricey (moreso than I thought, apparently I wasn’t paying quite close enough attention when I did the grocery order). While they’re a nice touch I think you’ll do perfectly fine with regular regular roasted almonds.

The front of the image is dominated by a slightly chunky red romesco sauce. It's been poured on top of some tricolor quinoa and a wilted & browned scallion. On top there are some chopped marcona almonds and parsley. Towards the back of the bowl there's some arugula peeking out from under a small blap of yogurt. Next to that, a soft boiled egg has been broken open and rests on top of some chickpeas. — The Romesco, Chickpea, and Smashed Egg Bowl from *Smitten Kitchen Every Day*.

Sizzling Beef Bulgogi Taco (Salad)

April 7, 2023March 28, 2023 by akc

I think I might have served the Sizzling Beef Bulgogi Tacos from Smitten Kitchen Every Day as tacos the first time, but I decided right away that I like it better as a salad, so that’s how I serve it. I’ve tried this with turkey and with Impossible grounds and both were fine, but since this is one of two beef dishes we make, and we don’t even have beef monthly, it’s not really worth the substitute.

As with many of Deb’s recipes this comes together in a flash. And, you can prep everything and just wait until a few minutes before you want to eat to cook the beef. Easy!

We typically get three servings out of this, although the third is sometimes on the small side.