What to Cook This Weekend

Good morning. I chased the super bloom east of Los Angeles, to Lake Elsinore, where the hills were orange with poppies in full, magnificent bloom and the skies were freckled with millions of painted lady butterflies on their way from the Mojave and Colorado Deserts up to the Pacific Northwest.

The colors were really something. The precise, sunshine-yellow of a freshly baked sheet cake (above), before it’s frosted. The luxurious, neon orange of warm, running queso. The layered green and golds of spanakopita.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day this weekend, and if you’re not holed up somewhere drinking ice-cold stouts, you could make Sam’s excellent Guinness pie at home (or this even meatier venison and trotter pie). The Guinness reduces as the beef cooks, to form a delicious gravy, which gets even better after it’s bubbled for a while underneath the buttery pie dough. It’s worth the time that goes into it, to anchor a big, Sunday lunch.

On the side, you could serve a dish of roasted radishes with anchovies, or a lentil salad full of roasted vegetables. And here are a whole bunch of ideas for dessert — you’ve got to have dessert — including Nigella Lawson’s chocolate-Guinness cake.

There are many more thousands of recipes on NYT Cooking, and yes you’ll need to be a subscriber to access them all. We’re on social too — Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. And if you run into an issue, please email us at [email protected], and someone on the team will get back to you.

I loved this story for Taste, written by Daniela Galarza, on one of my all-time favorite sweets — the spectacular burnt-in-a-good-way cheesecake served at La Viña in San Sebastián, Spain (which comes together with just five ingredients!).

And Michael Snyder wrote a deep dive for Eater about aguachile, a dish that’s emblematic of Mexico’s Sinaloan cooking.

Earlier this week, I told y’all that Mamadi Doumbouya interviewed Regina Hall, but Mamadi was in fact the photographer on that story, and David Marchese was the interviewer! Sorry about that.

What else? Sam’s back from his trip to Australia, and this is my last dispatch! If you want to stay in touch, please do. I’m on Instagram and Twitter, and you’re more than welcome to send me tips about delicious stuff in California. Thanks so much for having me. It’s been fun!

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