The counter is stacked with blocks of softening butter, there’s three different kinds of sugar in the pantry and every kitchen surface is covered in a dusting of flour. All of which can only mean: Cookie Week is here!
If you’re subscribed to our Cookie Week newsletter, you know that the batch of seven new cookie recipes from our New York Times Cooking contributors this year is a real winner. Think matcha latte cookies, gingerbread blondies and rainbow rave cookies (which are just as colorful and festive as you’re imagining). Vaughn Vreeland — he of eggnog snickerdoodle renown — guides us through each cookie in his Cookie Week newsletter, but if you were the sort of kid who couldn’t help peeking at your presents, you can find our full Cookie Week 2023 lineup at the link below.
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2023 Cookie Week Cookies
Because you can’t get through December on cookies alone (we’ve tried), how about some falling-off-the-bone braised chicken with tomato and potatoes? This new recipe from David Tanis, with its salsa brava flavors punched up by ancho chile, only gets better as it sits. Make it on a Sunday morning to serve for that night’s supper.
If you want some pasta with your chicken — it is comfort cooking season, after all — here’s Millie Peartree’s Rasta pasta with jerk chicken. Pasta — any shape works here, just watch those cooking times — is tossed with sautéed bell peppers, onions, garlic and just enough cream to balance the kick from the optional Scotch bonnet pepper; jerk-spiced chicken breasts roasted quickly at high heat add extra spicy oomph.
For a big, brawny salad, there’s Ali Slagle’s kale and squash salad with almond butter vinaigrette, a who’s who of seasonal produce all-stars: Tuscan kale, Honeycrisp apples, delicata squash. And this walnut picadillo from Jocelyn Ramirez is similarly hearty and filling. In this plant-based version of a dish that spans Latin American and Filipino food cultures, walnuts replace ground meat and are simmered with tomato, onion, garlic, olives and capers. Serve with rice, corn tortillas and plenty of lime wedges.
Finally: Yes, we have so many cookies, but there’s always room for one more treat, especially if that treat is Thai tea tres leches cake. If you’ve been to Golden Diner, in Manhattan’s Chinatown, you’ll recognize this as its marquee dessert; Ligaya Mishan has adapted the recipe from Sam Yoo, Golden Diner’s chef and owner. The longer the cake soaks in its Thai tea milk mixture, the better it is, Ligaya notes: “Keep the cake in the refrigerator until the last moment, so it’s as cold as possible and melts in the mouth, almost like ice cream.”
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