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.

Kale Salad with Cherries and Pecans

October 6, 2023October 4, 2023 by akc

I made the Kale Salad with Cherries and Pecans from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook as a side dish one night, but ended up eating just about all of it for lunches instead.

I used a combination of pecans and hazlenuts, since I didn’t have enough of the former and thought the latter would go well. I also only put on about half of the dressing to start, and massaged it in. It looked like too much to me, and I’d rather have to add dressing to an underdressed salad.

In terms of prep, I did what I usually do which is to chop the kale and then clean and dry it in my salad spinner, which works great. I have double-sided cutting boards, so I just flip it over after that and quickly wash the knife. (I do the same thing with romaine lettuce, which I find also helps remove the bitter taste you get sometimes).

This is a tasty kale salad, and it’s very easy to make. As with all kale salads it’s got some chew, which I like. But I do think you need to balance that with some crunch, and the radishes help a lot with that. If you want to skip them, I’d recommend adding more toasted nuts or some other crisp, crunchy element.

A white bowl holds a pile of dark green pieces of kale, mixed with red and white slices of radish. A couple of round, beige hazelnuts are visible on top, as well as some dark red dried chefries and blobs of goat cheese. — The Kale Salad with Cherries and Pecans from the *Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.*

Spaghetti Squash and Black Bean Tacos

March 11, 2023February 27, 2023 by akc

Usually I treat spaghetti squash as a marinara sauce delivery platform, but I was looking for something a little different. Since I only had one small squash, the Spaghetti Squash and Black Bean Tacos from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook fit the bill.

Deb gives instructions to microwave or roast the spaghetti squash, but I did mine in my Instant Pot. The prep here is super simple — while the squash cooks, you make a sauce for it and prep your other toppings. I had plenty of time to take care of everything, but you could easily prep the toppings ahead of time if needed.

We enjoyed these. The squash itself is pretty mild, but the other toppings add lots of flavor. When we have taco night I serve everything separate so we can build our tacos however we like. So, I didn’t measure things out per taco as per the instructions. My squash was maybe half the size called for, and we had enough for two of us to have several tacos for dinner, with a little bit left over. I would definitely make these again.

A taco in a white corn tortilla (that immediately fell apart) is held upright on a white plate by a white hand. The taco has spaghetti squash, black beans, white crumbles of queso fresco, diced tomatoes, thinly sliced raw red onion, and dots of hot sauce. — Spaghetti Squash and Black Bean Tacos from *The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.*

Whole Wheat Raspberry Ricotta Scones

January 11, 2023January 10, 2023 by akc

These Whole Wheat Raspberry Ricotta Scones were one of the first Deb recipes my husband made for me when things started getting serious. As it’s the 10th anniversary of our first date this month (how?!) he made them again. They are delightful — light and just barely sweetened. The raspberries melt into the scone.

The first time he made them, he copied the recipe out of my copy of The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook while I was otherwise occupied. “This was early enough that it still felt like sneaking around.” He made the dough at his place and brought them to mine to bake them off, where they came out “woefully undercooked. But they’re OK this time because I put them back in for a few more minutes.”

These come together very quickly. He made them and popped them into the oven, and had just enough time to clean up the kitchen and make eggs before they came out and cooled for a couple of minutes.

I asked what he likes about the recipe, and he pointed to a formatting choice Deb made. He didn’t have a pastry blender (we still don’t) and she includes instructions to make these with and without one. She also makes it easy to see in the recipe by breaking out the step that uses the pastry blender into separate “with and without” paragraphs. Knowing exactly what to do made him confident that he could make them.

While I can’t promise that making these scones for someone will lead to marriage, I can promise that you’ll have a lovely morning if you do.

A partially eaten scone on a white plate, with some crumbs in the background. The scone is square, lightly golden brown, and has spots of pink here and there. — The Whole Wheat Raspberry Ricotta Scones from *The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.*

Why haven’t I made that?

December 7, 2022December 7, 2022 by akc

I recently saw Deb Perelman speak as part of the tour for her new cookbook, Smitten Kitchen Keepers: New Classics for Your Forever Files. It was a delightful evening full of good vibes. My favorite part was the low susurration every time she mentioned a recipe from Keepers, as folks flipped through their new copy to dog-ear the page.

I have all three of her cookbooks, have followed her blog for quite a while, and cook from her recipes regularly enough that when my husband asks, “where’s this recipe from?” I just say “it’s one of Deb’s” if it’s one of Deb’s. But her hearing her speak left me inspired to try and cook her recipes more deliberately. Truly, why haven’t I made the Pizza Beans or the I Want Chocolate Cake Cake? When have I ever not wanted pizza or chocolate cake? (Never, that’s when.)

I’ve never been particularly attracted to the idea of cooking every recipe in a book. But Deb has three cookbooks and a long-running blog, surely I could commit to making one Smitten Kitchen recipe every week in 2023? Then I thought about something I heard somewhere — why wait to start something new until an arbitrary future date? Just get started now!

And that’s when I realized that I had actually already started this project when I made the Apple Cider Old-Fashioned last week, and planned the Soy-Glazed Tofu with Crisped Rice for this week. Both are from Keepers, so it’s like it was meant to be.

So, welcome to Why haven’t I made that? in which I will make one Smitten Kitchen recipe every week. That’s it, that’s the plan.

I expect most of them will be for dinner, and I’ll lean into making things I haven’t tried before, but I’m not going to box myself in with rules. The plan is to cook Deb’s food and share it here with (all five of) you, in hopes of inspiring you to make that thing you haven’t made yet, whether or not it’s one of Deb’s.

I’ll link to recipes when Deb’s posted them somewhere, but I’m not going to provide the recipes here or link to other blogs where folks appear to have transcribed them. While recipes themselves are not protected by copyright law, Deb has put a lot of work into developing her recipes and I want to honor that. If you want to try a recipe from one of her books, see if you can get a copy from your local library or borrow a copy from a friend or neighbor.