MELISSA CLARK IS ONE OF US. The prolific cookbook author and “The New York Times” food columnist has a homegrown Dahlia (her young daughter); knows a rutabaga from a turnip (so many people don’t!), and is intrepid in harvesting year-round farm-and-garden gleanings—if not in her own backyard, then in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza Farmers’ Market, where she has been a year-round customer for years, come hell or ice age. With her latest, “Cook This Now,” the hard part will be figuring out which of 120 recipes to start with. Win one of two copies I’ve bought to share—and get her recipe for Carroty Mac and Cheese right now.
As was the case with “In the Kitchen With a Good Appetite,” published last fall, I can be happy just reading a Melissa Clark cookbook, both for flavor ideas and for the charming anecdotes she always layers in—the provenance and food memories associated with each recipe. This one follows the year of outings to her local farmers market, where what’s available dictates what her family will eat each week.
Clark is just so practical—she’s highly expert, of course, but it’s the sensible, can-do voice that I get inspired by. Her recent Thanksgiving countdown column in “The New York Times” is a good example; so are the tips under a heading “What Else” that follow each recipe in the new book—like how to turn her Shaved Zucchini and Avocado Salad With Green Goddess Dressing into a dip, for instance (swap sour cream for the buttermilk). There are so many more tips:
Like how she quarters, instead of slices, the apples in her Baked Apples with Fig and Cardamom Crumble to get around the too-mushy applesauce-like glop that’s often beneath the topping of a typical apple crumble. Or how she makes split pea soup seem fresh—which even I, a split pea soup lover, will admit can get a little overly familiar tasting by midwinter. Clark’s suggestion: add ginger and coriander to the ingredient mix.
Or how she—in her role as Dahlia’s mother, seeking to add vegetables to the menu—made delicious room for shaved carrots in a crusty casserole of mac and cheese, which I share here from “Cook This Now.”
Carroty Mac and Cheese
Makes 6 servings
2 cups whole wheat macaroni
2 1/2 cups coarsely grated carrot (about 8 small)
3 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon mustard powder
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup finely grated parmesan cheese1. Preheat oven to 400°F and grease an 8-inch square baking pan. Arrange a rack in the top third of the oven.
2. Cook macaroni according to package instructions in a large pot of salted boiling water; add carrot 3 minutes before pasta is finished cooking; drain well.
2. While pasta is hot, stir in all but 1/2 cup of the cheddar and the butter. In a bowl, whisk together the sour cream, milk, eggs, salt, mustard powder, and pepper. Fold mixture into the pasta.
3. Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining cheddar and the parmesan over the top. Bake until the casserole is firm to the touch and golden brown, about 30 minutes.What Else?
- If you’re grating your cheddar cheese in the food processor, you don’t have to wash out the machine before grating the carrots. Or vice versa.
- This is one of those macaroni and cheeses with an eggy custard base that puffs as it cooks, and is cut into squares to serve, like a casserole, as opposed to that gooey, creamy, stove-top béchamel sauce version. I know that some people have strong opinions about proper mac and cheese (I’m an equal opportunist myself), but thought I’d let you know what you’re getting.
- Feed this dish to the kids as is; grown-ups should indulge with a squirt of fiery Sriracha or other hot sauce all over the top.
- You can vary the cheese to give this rather plain (if tasty) dish more personality. Gruyère, aged Cheddar, pecorino, and aged Gouda will all add a sophisticated allure that will raise it above mere kids’ food.
(From “Cook This Now” by Melissa Clark. Copyright © 2010, Melissa Clark, Inc. Published by Hyperion. Available wherever books are sold. All rights reserved.)
More Melissa Clark
- Melissa Clark in “The New York Times“
- Melissa Clark’s own blog
- Buy “Cook This Now” now
How to Win a Copy of ‘Cook This Now’
IBOUGHT TWO EXTRA COPIES of Melissa Clark’s “Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can’t Wait to Make” to share with you. To enter, just comment below by answering the question:
Which is the seasonal produce that you look forward to most–and miss when it’s out of season? I don’t eat asparagus, for instance, except when it’s locally available (mostly from my own garden, April to June), so that would be right up there with flavors I get really excited about when another crop rolls around.
Feeling shy, or just don’t have an answer? Simply comment with “Count me in,” or “I’d like to win” or some such, and you entry will be registered. I’m not too tough to please!
I’ll draw two winners at random after entries close at midnight Wednesday, November 23, using the tool on random [dot] org. (Disclaimer: Books purchased from Amazon links earn me a small commission, which I use to buy books for future giveaways.)
I total miss strawberries and watermelon……
Chard– it’s hardy to 15 F, so I still have some, thank goodness, but temps could drop at any moment.
Tomatoes. So great when fresh and so horrible when not. Hope I win!
Living in the tropics, everything is very very seasonal! Mango is what I miss most when its not in season.
Asparagus, Arugula, Spinach, Strawberries, Blackberries…..I guess everything lol.
Cherries!!! I am a fiend for a great cherry!
This looks like a great cookbook for comfort foods – perfect for the coming winter.
So many. Apples in particular because I love apple pie, apple butter, apple crumble…and that crumble you mentioned with fig and cardamom sounds just perfect.
The small, red strawberries and apricots from NY State that are so fresh and juicy.
I love love love romano beans. They are hard to come by but when they are around I could eat a pound at a time!
Tomatoes, without a doubt. I’m not even tempted to eat them, other than dried or canned off-season.
In total agreement about the tomatoes…not the same in the winter
Definitely tomatoes. I was also sad when the cucumbers faded this year.
Really can’t pick, but please count me in!
It’s hard to choose, but I’d have to say I miss sweet corn the most, followed by tomatoes and our wonderful local peaches. Thanks for the mac & cheese recipe — I will make it this weekend.
Count me in!!!!!
I have to say avocadoes which grow in the family’s front yard, never do they taste the same tho I buy them in the off season. That big old tree survived two big hurricanes and even though it went barren after one of them and did not bare fruit for a year it’s such an amazing giver. The mango tree did finally go but I enjoy the ones we get at the farmer’s market locally grown. Any book you offer I want, and when I don’t win, they move from list to bedside table at the speed of lightning. Thank you Margaret. D. Marshall.
tomatoes, peaches!
Celeriac! I would never think to buy it but when available at my CSA I have learned of it’s many glories. Ugly but makes Beautiful, creamy soup.
Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!!! There’s nothing like it, to pluck it off the vine and take a big bite out of it, with juice running down your arm!
Red, ripe, juicy tomatoes. My two favorite activities are cooking and gardening. I really want to win the cookbook.
Count me in please
Rutabagas!
i would have to agree with others;nothing tastes as sweet as a sun-ripened tomato. I saw Melissa on the Martha Stewart show and liked what ahe had to say.
Count me in.
Cathy
Morel mushrooms. Every spring my husband and I traipse through the countryside to find them. They are so delicious, and it so peaceful in the woods when you are looking for them.
my heirloom tomatoes and basil
I love to walk outside and pick them whenever I want!
Asparagus. We just planted 4 plants and can’t wait for our first harvest.
Corn and Tomatoes!!
Just picked white peaches.
I miss fresh lettuce from my P-patch garden. Count me in!
Asparagus, snow peas, peaches, radishes…….
Fresh peas from the garden, oddly enough not because I eat them that much but my kids consume them like crazy and its one of the few times when they come and linger in my garden.
Home grown tomatoes!
basil
I remember when I was a little girl sitting at the kitchen table, alone, in the dark…waiting for the clock to chime 8, so I could go to bed…I refused to eat my brussels! Now, I look forward to the winter season, so I can eat the first brussels that arrive on such beautiful stalks my husband and I plant in our organic garden. As a present, he planted twenty…knowing I just can’t get enough… What a wonderful man! Roast them, shred them for slaw, let them sit for hours in naughty amounts of butter….Sautee with pecans and dried cranberries, a few drips of honey- Makes me forget all about the freezing weather!
figs and artichokes-so hard to get good ones where I live
I love, love, love fresh Italian Prune Plums. Alas… just went out of season. 10 months to go. Thank goodness I made jam.
My boys love strawberries, but I make them wait until summer. We are growing our own, but not enough to keep them happy! :)
The item missed most on our table during the winter months is tomatoes! During
the season, we eat tomatoes every-which-way and even have a dish on the
countertop so we can grap some grape tomatoes and eat them like candy. We
have learned to give color to winter salads with shredded carrots, beets or hard-
boiled eggs. We head to the nursery the first of May to choose our tomato varieties
and pamper them until the ground warms and they can be tucked in their slots
and coddled until harvest.
Asparagus and tomatoes!! In season…amazing. And very much missed when
not in season.
watermelon and berries…..
And I wish to add….Thank you for including the links to Melissa’s blog and her
New York Times articles! Great stuff! Added to my my Bookmarks.
Well it would have to be tangelos and mandarin oranges!
Pawpaws! Delicious, banana custard-y, seemingly exotic but incredibly native (a favorite desert of Jefferson and Washington), pawpaws. I either get them from the farmer’s market or in the wild, I have yet to see them in any sort of grocery store.
Must be apricots, Meyer lemons, and of course, first in my head, real Cherokee Purple tomatoes!
How could I have forgotten tangerines from the front yard? First into our Christmas stockings in Southern California. My father-in-law visiting from New England kept calling them clementines. Call them what you will, we miss that tree every Christmas. My dad was dying in hospital in January and we brought him tangerines from the tree he gave us, every couple days, until they were gone. My dear sister bough a box of ‘clementines’ from the grocery store, and they sat at his bedside, uneaten. Praise to the delicious tangerine, fresh from the front yard!
The homegrown tomatoes most definitely!
Basil!! I will fill my car with the very first seedlings (way too early to plant) just to sniff them for the rest of the day. I also live around the corner from an asparagus farm and spend weeks in early spring just gazing at the rows looking for sprouts. Once it’s harvested, I eat it raw on the way home because I can’t wait to steam, roast or grill it. Rats! It’s only November and I’m craving it already.
Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes!!!
Thank you, Margaret, for spreading the word about such a delicious-sounding book.
It is always painful for me to realize that the chanterelles or boletus I picked on my last wild mushroom foraging outing were the last ones of this year’s crop:-(.