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.