Carla's Cooking Show

Big feasting season coming up! Here are my recipes for Pan-Roasted Carrots with Chorizo Nubbins and Sautéed Brussel Sprouts with Sesame. Keep the oven free and get these done on the stovetop.

In this humble pasta dish, an extended sauna in olive oil and garlic transforms cauliflower from crisp and peppery to soft and sweet. Plenty of Spin Its are built into this recipe so you can make it your own.

If you make these for a cookie swap: YOU WILL WIN. These celebration cookies, referred to as “PPCs,” belong to my husband’s family. His late maternal grandmother, the famous Grandma Margaret, was an exceptional baker, and Pink Party Cookies were one of her most coveted treats—an impossibly short, blond cookie sandwiching a pastel-pink cream filling.

Don't tell all the sweet old Italian ladies, but you don't have to stand stirring over a pot of polenta for it to be gorgeous and creamy—just stick the whole pot in the oven and go about your business. And don't tell the raw food fanatics, but long-cooked broccoli is a lot more enjoyable than chomping on an uncooked floret.

For Feast of Seven Fishes, you can knock out three fishes with this one dish! Unlike tomato-y options like bouillabaisse, cioppino or even fra diavolo, this light and bright seafood stew is flavored with jalapeno, cilantro, garlic, and fennel. The flavorful broth comes together quickly thanks to shrimp shells (because we know no one is out there making fish stock on the regular).

Two birds is better than one (everyone knows that). There are a million roast chicken recipes out there, but what most of them don’t tell you is that one chicken isn’t enough. A sole bird will feed three, maybe four people, and it is therefore always worth it to roast two at a time. With a hot oven and a basic seasoning mix, you will have juicy, burnished chickens in an hour. You don’t need any special equipment, it doesn’t take more time, and having leftover chicken is a gift.

I'm not saying this recipe is BETTER than the classic cacio e pepe, I just believe that two things can be good at the same time. Anyway, the cheese won't get all clumpy on you in this version ~~just saying~~

Are you S.A.D.? Short ribs turn that frown upside down :)

Whatever you think of when someone says fat noodles is what you should use for this delicious weeknight pasta with mushrooms. This method of cooking mushrooms—by pan-roasting them, then finishing with browned butter—is incredibly effective, whether you’re adding them to long, wide pasta ribbons or not. In the second step, the butter and aromatics wash a ton of flavor over the mushrooms, glossing them up.

Stock with a light, clean flavor is versatile enough to fortify braises, sauces, and soups without overwhelming the other ingredients in the dish. This one is rich and robust from deeply roasted poultry bones and caramelized garlic. It’s an end point in and of itself, not a bit player in some other main event. Once you have it on hand, a soulful dinner (or breakfast!) is not far behind. There are 3 dishes demonstrated here: Poached Egg on Toast in Soup; Wilted Collards with Hot Sauce; and Chewy Grains with Stock and Chiles.

In this recipe for sheet pan chicken, chicken legs are roasted on top of a jammy canned tomato and chickpea mixture. The spices on the chicken baste the other ingredients as it cooks. The entire dinner is hands-off and is generous enough to serve a crowd.

This is a pretty claaaaaasic version of split pea soup—with a ham hock that vegetarians can simply omit. What makes it special is a well-made soffritto that gives the soup deep flavor and structure. At the end, a spoonful of spices that have been bloomed in hot oil until sizzling get spooned over the top and add an amazing layer of aroma and sass.

Who doesn't love a Caesar Salad!?! No one! Who doesn't love celery!??!! Uhhhh, lots of people maybe!!!!! But not me! The actual title of this recipe in my book is Sorry, I Like Celery. Because I do, and half my family does not. Sorry not sorry. I want you to love it. I DARE YOU to love it. And if you really don't, the dressing is awesome on regular old romaine. xxxxxs and ooooooos Carla

One thing I’ve learned about beans is that some types fall apart when they’re cooked no matter what you do. It’s not your fault! Some beans have very thin, delicate skins and a fine texture. On the other side of the spectrum are chubby white beans, like gigante, Tarbais, and baby limas. They are naturally predisposed to stay intact on the outside and get super creamy inside, and that’s desirable here. As they cook, they’ll absorb the flavor of the basil in the cooking liquid. But listen—if your beans fall apart, it won’t ruin the dish. The broth might be a little thicker—no big deal!

A truly excellent boneless skinless chicken breast! Despite their enduring popularity, boneless, skinless chicken breasts can be very disappointing. People love that they're lean, but that’s exactly what makes them so bland and dry. But when they’re good, they are powerful change agents. Cooking them almost all the way through on one side will result in a chewy crust and superlative browning, and prevents the chicken from overcooking. If you go a tiny bit over, the bright and juicy tomato pan sauce will camouflage your mistakes.

Heads up to all you raisin haters (I know you’re out there): This dish has secret raisins for sweetness. But that's besides the point: More broccoli content! A hardworking grain salad can be a veg, a side, and a starch all in one. This one combines chewy farro with crunchy bits of raw broccoli and a sassy herb dressing, brightened by fresh ginger juice. Recipes for the grain salad and my method for perfectly-cooked grains are in my book, That Sounds So Good!

Hey baby, it's grilling season!! These meaty ribs get coated with a three-ingredient spice rub before making their way to a medium-heat grill. There, they gradually and gloriously take on color, render their fat, absorb delicious smoky aromas from the coals, and build up a fantastic crust. This is one of my favorite recipes from the "I Love to Grill" chapter of That Sounds So Good. Cosmo drops by for a critical taste test—do you think he will approve?? Come hang out with me in my backyard and get all juiced up for a summer of outdoor cooking.

The only thing better than rice is crispy rice, as anyone who has chomped into the socarrat on paella, the tahdig on Persian rice, or the crust on the outside of a yaki onigiri can tell you. I was inspired by all of those rice preparations when I started working on this alfresco side dish. Getting a crackly burnished layer of rice is extremely simple when you start from already-cooked rice. Once you’ve got your skillet on the grill, all you need to do is sauté some mushrooms, add the rice, press it into the pan, and let it ride. Doing this over live fire should impart some smoky aromas, but you can also make this on a stovetop over medium heat.

We love a flatbread pizza party! You can totally improvise with the toppings—anything you'd grill or roast can be used, and even leftover cooked veggies can be revived with some lemon juice and olive oil to throw on top. Instead of grilling the flatbreads, cook them one at a time in a lightly greased cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, turning them once halfway through.

When it's too hot to cook, chomp into a crunchy, juicy, sweet, spicy, tangy, sour, cold, refreshing, EASY cucumber and watermelon salad. This is amazing on its own but also super fantastic alongside smoky fatty meats, like pork chops, skirt steak, chicken wings, and grilled fish like snapper or striped bass.

Is it still a Caprese if you add avocados and spicy chiles? Considering that I kept the holy trinity of mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil intact, I think it’s allowed. And while not strictly classic, the extra few dashes of vinegar added right before serving round out the rich fats and sweet summer fruits at play in this dish.

I'm not saying I'm a zucchini hater, but this is the one and only zucchini recipe I've ever devoted myself to, and I did in the name of fritters. That said, trying to love zucchini is like forcing yourself to finish a very long, boring book that everyone is raving about . . . so you keep plodding away, even though you aren’t into it. My feelings about zucchini are on public record: They’re basically water in vegetable form. Ironically, I love love LOVE zucchini fritters, but in order for them to get crunchy, you need to coax out as much liquid from them as possible. That happens in stages here: first by salting and squeezing; then by cooking over moderately high heat to force evaporation; and finally by drying out the fritters in the oven after they’re fried. If you want to love zucchini, you have to put in the time.

There are many examples of this dish (arroz con pollo, notably), which is seductive because of its promise: perfectly cooked rice and chicken, harmoniously together in one pot. The truth is, though, that sometimes the rice is mushy and the chicken is dry, and sometimes the rice is crunchy and the chicken is . . . still dry. The ratio of rice to water is as important as the heat level and vessel you use; nail those variables and you’re on your way to a brag-worthy dish. My take is infused with ginger and cilantro and topped with a dead-simple avocado sauce that you can throw together while the chicken is cooking. I cook everything in a 6-quart Dutch oven because it can hold the chicken snugly in a single layer.

You can make this in a standard lasagna pan OR a 10-inch cast iron skillet.

Ginger and spice and everything nice! No it's not a spiced pumpkin latte, it's a nourishing, warming, and delicious-smelling soup that will heal you if you're sick and fortify you for ongoing health regardless. The chicken poaches in the broth, which then becomes the base for the finished soup. It's silky with coconut milk and golden from turmeric, and you want it in your life. This soup is flavored in part by star anise and black pepper and served with rice noodles, all of which are commonly found in Vietnamese pho recipes, along with coconut milk and turmeric, which are not. If you want to play around with the aromatic base, try browning the shallot, garlic, ginger, turmeric, dried chiles, star anise, and lemongrass in a little bit of vegetable or coconut oil before adding water to the stockpo. This will lend the broth a sweeter, deeper taste and dark golden color.

A little bit of sugar mixed into the salt helps these chops brown during their relatively short cook time, and while they rest, make the wilted greens (which are actually red) in the pork drippings. It’s a dead-simple combination that adds up: salty, savory, meaty, sweet, and a touch bitter. If you wanted to scale this up to make enough for four, there are a couple ways to do it: You could bust out a second skillet and cook your chops in two pans simultaneously, then go down to one when it’s time to wilt the radicchio. Or you can wipe out the pan, add another 3 tablespoons oil, and cook the second batch of chops in the same skillet before moving on to the greens.

Helllllooooooo Holidaze! This recipe is freakin' fast as all heck, and I love it for a vegetarian feast, but it is also an INCREDIBLE and easy side dish to ... sayyyyyyyy ... TURKEY????? The grounding nature of butternut squash and sturdy greens, along with the crunch of the seeds and belly-warming spices in this dish, never gets old. How in the world does the squash roast in one quarter of an hour, you ask?? Placing the baking sheet at the bottom of the oven puts it closest to the heat source, which makes the magic happen.

Beans are good luck for the New Year! Eat up, make a wish, do your best, kiss your people.

Mexican pozole is one of my all-time most beloved things to eat and the kind of multi-hour cooking I can really get into. This stew might have pozole, the dish, as muse (and it also contains pozole, the ingredient, aka hominy), but stops short in many respects and is about as pared-down as I could make it. It’s a good idea to soak the hominy overnight, but aside from some active time spent browning the pork, the self-sufficient and flavor-building simmering all happens in the oven.

Deep-frying can be intimidating—as a method, it’s simple enough, but it’s a lot of hot oil to cool down and deal with afterward. For this fritto-misto-meets-tempura-ish fried mushroom recipe, I experimented with a shallow fry, which I was pretty sure wouldn’t turn out well. Shock and surprise: It worked. The batter crisps and the mushrooms cook through perfectly even though they’re not totally submerged.

Here's a homemade pasta recipe that requires no double zero flour, no pasta machine, no pasta accessories, no stand mixer, and no special skills. While some homemade shapes require a practiced knack, rolling the dough into long snakes is literally child's play. I made it this way because I want as many people as possible to make this! But if making it from scratch is not your jam, just use 8 ounces of dried spaghetti, perciatelli, or linguine instead. The sauce is easy AF, a lemony-browned butter sitch that's giving big piccata energy, with lemony alfredo vibes pulling up alongside. Date night is coming! This is your plan.

When I set out to develop this recipe, I assumed that roasting the cabbage leaves at high heat would be the best way to get dark, crispy cabbage chips in a short amount of time. In fact, it’s how you get burnt and bitter cabbage chips that are also somehow floppy. After some research, I tried again at a lower oven temp, which was key to slowly driving off the moisture in the leaves while gradually caramelizing them. When cabbage is cooked this way—low and slow—it becomes really mellow and sweet. That provides the ideal flavor canvas for salty cheese and tingly black pepper, and the texture of the chips is super light and very crisp. Into it!

There are lots of ways to make tuna salad, and I’m sure you already have yours. Is it the way your grandmother did it, or your favorite deli or most treasured diner? Whatever that way is for you, I’m certain it’s the best way. I understand. But I don’t care. Tuna salad is ordinary, it’s affordable, it’s a pantry staple, and it can be deeply personal. This is how I make mine, and how I turn it into a very adventurous MELT.

Typically, eggs in purgatory are eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce. The method, which resembles shakshuka, will work with any pan sauce you feel like throwing together, as long as there’s enough liquid to make sure things get steamy. For a weeknight dinner, a can of beans adds protein, fiber, and creaminess, and the parsley salad is not only a resourceful way to use up herbs, but also adds some nice cold/hot, fresh/saucy contrast to the dish. If substituting harissa for the tomato paste, omit the crushed red pepper.

Kimchi and butter complement each other like hot sauce and sour cream. The push-pull of spice, tang, and sweet richness is the foundation of this abundantly umami-ish, saucy, bouncy, and extremely easy 20-minute dinner. Tteok (Korean rice cakes) deliver firm chewiness that (I think) makes this super fun to eat.

Searing broccoli lets you straddle the line between raw and cooked in this crunchy salad. I like rich, buttery Marcona almonds against the rustic broccoli, but regular almonds will work, too. Because the broccoli is so sturdy, this dish holds well, and the dates will continue to soften and absorb flavor as time goes on. It’s a good one to make ahead for dinner, or take to a friend’s place. Lots of Spin Its in the recipe itself (cauliflower for broccoli, manchego instead of cheddar, etc).

This is a mash-up of a spring pea salad and an Italian chopped salad—with a hat tip to the distinctly American invention of the three-bean salad—and is bedecked with lots of chewy, crunchy, creamy, salty, and juicy things to bite into. If you can get a variety of beans and peas, terrific. If you can only find one or two, that’s fine—aim for a total weight of 2 pounds and it will all work out.

You could give me this bowl of snappy vegetables topped with slabs of feta for dinner every night of the week, and I’d be happy. Half the point of this salad is that it contains a simple technique to make crispy ingredients the crispiest they’ve ever been. The trick is a cold plunge in a bowl of salted ice water. It will enhance already-crisp veggies and revive lackadaisical ones. Even a 5-minute soak is enough to stiffen and season the types of vegetables I call for in the recipe: radishes, cucumbers, fennel. That list could just as easily include celery, carrots, asparagus, snow peas, and red cabbage.

Friday night is pasta with vongole since forever, and we have come up with lots of variations as the years have gone by. This combination, with chewy pieces of pancetta and some greens, might be the family favorite, but by no means is this canon. Throw some cherry tomatoes in with the garlic and omit the greens, or use both. Leave out the pork product if you want. You can double or triple the recipe as long as you divide the pasta between two big pots. The only real rule is to make sure the table is set and everyone is within earshot when the clams start to open; hot pasta waits for no one.

This is a self-imposed Spin It of the Spaghetti with Melted Cauliflower Sauce in That Sounds So Good. Essentially what’s going on here is “grandma-style vegetables” or “cooked to death vegetables”—wherein the vegetable of your choice is lured into submission by a low, slow, oily, and garlic-infused cooking process. The reason it works so brilliantly with zucchini is because all of the excess liquid is gradually driven off by the heat, and at the end you’re left with caramelized zucchini essence. I hope this becomes your new high-summer staple.

Unlike many other bean recipes I've developed in the past, there is no need to soak the black beans; the fact that they take a while to go from dried to creamy is part of their impact. The flavor the beans contribute as they simmer is a major element of the soup, and while they cook, you’ll have time to pull together the “topper whoppers”—chips, avocado, sour cream, and other finishers.

If you love margaritas in the summer and negronis in the fall, you will fully freak out for The Hola Ciao. It’s essentially a mezcal-Campari margarita.The mezcal makes it smoky, the Campari gives it backbone, and fresh lime juice keeps it bright and zesty. A dash of Cointreau lends some sweetness and a slightly bitter note, which bridges the citrus juice and Campari perfectly. The side dishes in this video have been adapted from That Sounds So Good: Roasted Red Peppers with Garlic Chips, and Marinated Tomato Bruschetta. What I love about both dishes is that: they showcase nightshades, which peak in summer; the colors are incredible; the ingredients are very few; they can be made hours if not days ahead; they can be enjoyed as is, or reconfigured into sauces or condiments; they are perfect to bring to a friend’s, if you’re not the one hosting; and they can both be made with or without a grill.

About today's recipe! Here's the link to the pdf and full text version, on my Substack https://open.substack.com/pub/carlala... This is not a true Bolognese—but it has a combination of the attributes we love to find in a good meat sauce: tender crumbled pieces of sausage suspended in a silky but cohesive sauce with the meaty flavor of long-cooked mushrooms. The twist is that it goes from raw to ready in under an hour. As for why I came up with this in the middle of May? No clue. But there are lots of folks in the south pole who are in winter when we summer, and isn’t it about time we started thinking about them??? 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided 3 sweet and/or hot sausage links (12 ounces), casings removed 1 ½ pounds oyster mushrooms, trimmed Kosher salt; freshly ground pepper 2 shallots 4 garlic cloves 1 tablespoon tomato paste, preferably double concentrate ½ cup dry white wine 1 pound spaghetti ½ cup (1 ounce) grated Parmigiano, plus more for serving 1 lemon, cut i