Hi and welcome to a very special episode of Five Weeknight Dishes: This is my last newsletter before I go on parental leave with my second child. (Surprise!)
But you will be in the best of hands, far better than mine. Julia Moskin, one of my colleagues in the Food department, will be writing to you every week, with her remarkable smarts and deliciously sharp prose. Julia is a home-cooking North Star of mine, thanks to her impeccable taste and low-fuss ways — and did you know she won a Pulitzer Prize for her #MeToo reporting? She did. A hero.
The five recipes below are dishes I expect I’ll have on repeat while I’m out. I’ll be back in the spring, hopefully having cracked a new code on weeknight cooking. Until then, I’ll miss writing to you every time I try a new recipe and think, with a jolt, that I’ve got to tell you about it. And, as always, I’m at dearemily@nytimes.com.
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Here are five dishes for the week:
1. Sheet-Pan Chicken and Potatoes With Feta, Lemon and Dill
This is ideal January food: The singular comfort of chicken and potatoes, brightened with lemon, dill and feta, which I’ve been stocking at home. (Put feta in salad, throw it on roasted vegetables, use it to garnish vegetable stew or bean stew, or feed it to a little kid — mine calls it “spicy cheese.”) It’s nice to marinate the chicken, but you really don’t have to if you’re pressed for time. Just season it with salt and pepper to roast, then go a little heavier on the lemon and herbs to serve.
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2. Spicy Slow-Roasted Salmon With Cucumbers and Feta
More feta! But that’s not why I chose this recipe: I picked it because I’ve become enamored with cooking salmon in a fair amount of oil, and a little lower and slower, meaning 25 minutes in the oven versus the typical 15 or so. (This is a particularly good method if you are using leaner wild salmon.) I think you could get away with less oil — play around with it — but then you’d have less at the end for drizzling over potatoes or grains. A squeeze of lemon would be a nice touch.
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3. Red Curry Lentils With Sweet Potatoes and Spinach
Inspired by dal, this recipe zooms off in a different direction, incorporating Thai red curry paste, spinach and sweet potatoes. A can of coconut milk makes the red lentils creamy and plush. A commenter on the recipe called it “spectacular,” and I believe it.
4. Vietnamese-Style Pork Meatballs
I know, you’re bored of me telling you about meatballs. (It’s a good thing I’m going on leave, right?) But Kay Chun’s brilliant meatball recipes have fueled my family for the entire year. I can just about always muster the energy to make them for the week, even when it’s late and the kitchen is already clean from that night’s dinner. They’re fun, versatile and easy to double or triple, and now I promise we don’t have to talk about them again. Serve these with rice and a pile of herbs.
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5. Baked Artichoke Pasta With Creamy Goat Cheese
This recipe might not be so much “I’m putting it on repeat” as “I made it once, and we all died from happiness.” Still, those are good results. It takes a little longer to put together than other weeknight pastas, but you can do a lot of prep work while the pasta water comes to a boil, and your reward is actual bliss. No skimping on the dill and parsley, please, and you’ll want something green on the side.
Bye, ciao, au revoir! And thanks so much for reading. I’ll be on Instagram while I’m gone, and you can follow NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for a continuous stream of pretty outrageous food photos and ideas. Previous newsletters are archived here, and if you have any problems with your account, be sure to email cookingcare@nytimes.com. Lastly, if you love NYT Cooking and the work we do, please subscribe.
