Good morning. The great cook and recipe wunderkind Yewande Komolafe returns to NYT Cooking this week with an amazing new recipe, for baked tofu with peanut sauce and coconut-lime rice (above). I think that ought to be your dinner tonight, and for at least a month or two of Mondays beyond it.
It’s amazing: roasted cubes of tofu marinated in a spicy, fragrant peanut sauce that’s a cousin to the groundnut stews you see across West Africa, the flavors thrumming with red miso and fish sauce and just a little honey. Add a lime-scented bowl of coconut rice, some pickled peppers and sliced scallions, and you have an outstanding weeknight dinner, the kind you can knock out fast.
Another amazement: Grilled cheese with apples and apple butter, a recipe brought to us by the delightful cook and stylist Susan Spungen. That’d be a nice meal this evening, if peppery peanut stew is not your bag.
Here’s yet another one, from the reporting notebook and test kitchen of our Margaux Laskey, and appropriate for anyone who wants neither tofu nor a mixture of apples and cheese for dinner: a recipe for that great Italian-American dish chicken Vesuvio, which Margaux adapted from the one served at La Scarola in Chicago. (Toast her and toast Chicago with a Bitter Giuseppe while you cook.)
No? Not that either? Tejal Rao’s recipe for pickled mushroom salad, which she adapted from the one served by Patch Troffer at Marlow & Sons in Brooklyn, is not so new. It is no less awesome for that. Drizzle a little chile oil over the top of everything before serving.
And if none of those appeal? I’m not sure what to tell you, but I’m guessing this hasselback kielbasa may answer. It’s incredibly good.
There are thousands and thousands more recipes to cook tonight or this week waiting for you on NYT Cooking. You can buy a subscription to our site and apps — or send someone a gift subscription — to access them all. (One-pot chicken thighs with black beans, rice and chiles! Spicy lamb burgers!)
Come visit us for free, though, if you need more convincing. We’re on Instagram and Twitter, as well as on Facebook and YouTube. You don’t even need a stamp to write us: cookingcare@nytimes.com. We will get back to you. (You can reach me directly, if you like, at foodeditor@nytimes.com. I’m not so good on technical matters, but I welcome your gripes or praise.)
Now, it doesn’t have anything to do with cooking, but you should read Stacey D’Erasmo on Liz Phair’s memoir, in The Times.
Sneaker heads with a taste for religious studies may appreciate this pious Nike drop.
I missed it in June, but I’m very happy to have caught up with Christian Wallace’s story about Myrtis Dightman, the Jackie Robinson of rodeo, in Texas Monthly.
Time magazine checked in with my boss, A.G. Sulzberger, to talk about the future of The Times.
Finally, the poet Ciaran Carson died last week at 70, in his native Belfast. Here is his poem, “Campaign,” a small portrait of a horrible time. Cook today to make things better for those around you, for yourself. And I’ll be back on Wednesday.
