It's a mini newsletter for April, folks. I've been trying to be good about doing these newsletters monthly, something I consider a fairly minimal commitment, but it's been a crazy time. I changed jobs, got my first vaccine (which knocked me out for a day) and am currently gearing up to get my second vaccine. I may have also focused all my creative energy and downtime toward knitting a cardigan. I've been really adamant about not treating this newsletter as work or a side hustle (making it clear that I am not on the Substack bandwagon for the money or the fame), so I’m taking it easy. I did actually try cooking a few different things over the past few weeks — more than I have in a while, but I also didn’t do much to reinvent the wheel on my end. So I’m simply highlighting a range of recipes below (vegetarian and non-vegetarian friendly), in case you’re hunting for something new to make. Some musings on the future of newslettering and some pop culture highlights are also even further below:
RECIPE Recommendations
Pictured: Cinnamon rolls, vegetable istoo, spicy miso pasta.
For the vegetarians/vegans:
I’ve raved about Meera Sodha’s cookbooks in previous newsletters. While in the midst of a staycation earlier this month, I decided to indulge in cooking her recipes for tamarind rice and Kerala-style vegetable istoo from Fresh India. Now I can’t just hand the book over to you, but I found a slightly different version of the istoo recipe (which uses tamarind shallots) via her Guardian column — perhaps it’s something that will interest you?
For bacon lovers:
Remember last year when Chrissy Teigen’s Spicy Miso Pasta was making the rounds? I made it once then and made it once again recently to use up some surplus bacon in our fridge. The recipe at the link is pretty great (though because a couple of the measurements seem a little “off,” I tend to just eyeball the Parmesan and use whatever amount of bacon feels “right” to me. This time I went ahead and threw in the white portions of scallions in the final few minutes of cooking too). It’s not a very time consuming recipe at all, so it’s one easily made on a weeknight!
For something sweet:
As someone who normally sticks to baking cakes and cookies, I haven’t done a whole lot of baking with yeast (minus some oddly shaped chocolate croissants and the milk bread I tried out a couple of months ago). But as someone who also decided to buy a bunch of yeast packets back when we were all panic buying last year, I thought I should use some of what’s lying in my cabinets. And then I thought… why not cinnamon rolls? This Sally’s Baking Addiction recipe came to the rescue. Warning: We planned to freeze a handful. It did not work out that way. All signs of cinnamon rolls were gone within five days. Plan accordingly.
Food for Thought… and a Question
I’ll be honest, thanks to the hectic few weeks I’ve had, I wasn’t sure if I’d get around to this edition of Rad Dishes. Given that I started it as a food blog that I eventually phased out, this may not surprise you (even though some of that was due to issues that were not entirely in my control). Reviving the blog as a newsletter has been a really nice way to stay connected with people during this pandemic. But as we inch back toward “normal,” I wonder what my bandwidth for continuing it will be, and whether it’s OK to take on a more casual “I send it when I want” approach. Would this be annoying for you as a reader? Leave a comment if you have thoughts!
Bites of Culture
In “I finally got with the times” news, I got around to reading Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, and it is as wonderful as everyone says it is. Highly recommend. I’m keeping up the streak of playing catchup by reading Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, a book I’ve had since high school for a project that got nixed, but never actually read. I find that I need to be in the right mood to read this one, but every now and then I encounter an incredibly written phrase or paragraph that makes me glad that I decided to take this one on.
Meanwhile, we’re loving Mare of Easttown and lamenting waiting for each episode every week… and on a much lighter note, started watching The Great Pottery Throw Down. It is as delightful as people say it is and I love that there is a judge that is often moved to tears because of the beauty of someone’s work.
Thanks for reading this edition of Rad Dishes! You can follow me on my occasionally updated Instagram account and my extremely irregularly updated Twitter. A streamlined version of Rad Dishes (the original food blog) is here.