Good morning. I don’t know if you’re going to have time to make pastelón (above) tonight, but it sure would be nice to eat, a Puerto Rican lasagna of plantains, cheese and picadillo, dotted with raisins and, in some homes, drizzled with pique, a fermented hot sauce common to the island’s tables. It’s a dish to dream about, and to make as soon as you can.
Pressed for time at the top of the week, though, you might take a look at our roster of recipes for chicken breasts you can make in an instant, and consider Julia Moskin’s instructions for a fast chicken French, a taste of Rochester, N.Y., as comforting and nice as these vintage ice storm photographs in the Democrat and Chronicle.
Or maybe you could make a quick dinner of linguine with crisp chickpeas and rosemary. Or a tomato and Parmesan soup (with grilled cheese!). Rhode Island-style clam chowder, clear as the ocean water below the Swift house on Watch Hill? That’s an excellent dinner, if you can score the clams, and quickly made.
For later on this week, I like the looks of Sarah DiGregorio’s new recipe for a honey-soy braised pork, which she points out can easily be made in a slow cooker. Also, this potato tart with goat cheese and thyme. And this old-school recipe for smothered chicken, the culinary equivalent of a weighted blanket and a nap on the couch: safe and homey.
A few bangers and a platter of boxty, the Irish potato pancakes? A stir-fry of shredded tofu and shiitakes? Salmon burgers? Pork chops in cherry-pepper sauce? We will feed you somehow this week, and how.
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Now, it’s nothing to do with making stock or gnocchi, but I like this portrait of “The Biebers” in Sam McKinniss’s show of paintings, “Jonathan Taylor Thomas,” at the JTT Gallery in New York. (Scroll down to see it.)
