Swash’s Top Recipes So Far This Year (No Sourdough This Time)

When quarantine first began, everything was new and novel. Working from home! Cooking every meal! Zoom happy hour! It may not have been a welcome disruption to everyday life, but it was a disruption nonetheless, and as a society we decided to make the best of it. Enter: fancy WFH desk set-ups, endless sourdough recipes (we were doing sourdough before it was cool anyway), and silly Zoom backgrounds.

But as the pandemic continued, the novelty wore off. In particular, we are so sick of cooking. Forget sourdough — we’re just struggling to think of a new way to make chicken interesting. So in order to stoke the flames of culinary inspiration, we’re sharing our very favorite recipes with each other and the greater Swash community. We’ve actually made and consumed these meals and treats, so you can trust that they are worth the effort. Take a look, and please — if you have any amazing go-to recipes, let us know. Please. We’re desperate.

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Faith

Sriracha Roasted Cauliflower and Chickpeas (via Eating Bird Food)

I don’t eat very much meat, which inevitably means I eat a lot of chickpeas (the go-to meat “replacement” for many veggie meals). This recipe really takes it to the next level, though. It’s super easy, and the sauce is AMAZING. Seriously, don’t skimp on the sauce if you’re missing anything. Get all of the sauce ingredients (although IMO it’s fine to sub soy sauce for coconut aminos). It’s so flavorful, and actually very spicy, unlike many “spicy” recipes I’ve tried from Pinterest. I follow the recipe exactly, and eat it in a big bowl over rice with a green veggie — and a huge glass of water because my mouth is on fire.

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Jess

Nanny’s Mac ‘n’ Cheese with Roasted Hatch Chiles

Nanny’s mac is a nostalgic recipe for me. It is 100% comfort food – my favorite food group. Recently we tried roasting/freezing a giant box of hatch chiles from the store. Heading into the long Labor Day weekend and feeling a little inspired, I decided to try adding the chiles to the old standard... Et voilà! A modern mac-y masterpiece was born.

This dish is cheesy, creamy, and the hatches we used gave a nice, slow heat that makes it really hard to stop eating it. Try adding some buttered breadcrumbs to the top for a little extra crunch. But DEFINITELY FOR SURE make sure you bake until the cheesy edges get nice and crispy.  And serve it alongside a fresh green salad with vinaigrette, just like Nanny would.

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Stephanie

Homemade Kaiser Rolls

Adapted from My Kitchen in the Rockies and inspired by this perfect breakfast sandwich article. 

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water 

• 2 tablespoons  unsalted butter, room temperature

• 1 egg, lightly beaten

• 3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

• ¼ cup  sugar (less or no sugar if you want)

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) active dry yeast

• egg wash for glaze

• poppy seeds or everything bagel seasoning

Instructions

1. Mix two tablespoons of the sugar with the warm water and add the yeast. Mix well. Let sit for 10 minutes.

2. In the meantime in a stand mixer  bowl combine the flour, remaining sugar, and salt.

3. Pop that bowl onto the stand mixer, get that dough hook in there and add butter, yeast mixture, and the egg to the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated.

4. Let that dough hook do its job for 7-10 minutes, or until the dough springs back when poked. 

5. Place the dough into a greased bowl, cover, and let rise in a warmer spot until the volume has doubled. (About one hour.)

6. Empty the dough bowl onto a floured surface and divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. Shape the dough pieces to your liking. Bless YouTube for dough twist lessons and for the crazy fact that there is a dough cutter in the world that will stamp out the spirally kaiser roll shape. Just do the twists – you don’t need a just-for-kaiser-roll-cutter unless you plan on making over 50 rolls. 

7. Place the rolls on a baking sheet, cover, and let them rise in a warmer spot until doubled in volume. (About 30-40 minutes.)

8. Heat your oven to 375 °F.

9. Glaze the rolls with egg wash (y’all its egg and water mixed, and if you don’t have a pastry brush, drizzle it on with a spoon or use your fingers) and sprinkle with poppy seeds/everything bagel seasoning.

10. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. 

11. Cool rolls on a wire rack.

These keep for 3-5 days if you pop them in a  ziplock or a tupperware and they freeze moderately well.

I highly recommend using them for breakfast sandwiches. The one pictured is a bacon, egg, and cheese sammie. Butter the roll, assemble the sandwich and then wrap that bad boy in foil and heat it for like 6 minutes.

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Andi

Mini Garden Turkey Loaves (via Budget Bytes)

This is my forever-bookmarked Budget Bytes page. It’s a hide-the-veggies recipe that actually works. I have made it many times and love the leftovers for sandwiches. The prep is a little involved, but you can do your veggie chopping ahead of time as a mind trick.

Added note: Jess also tried this recipe and also loved it.

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Nico

Banana Cake

This is a delicious family recipe. A delicious and secret family recipe.

Ingredients:

• One [REDACTED] of [REDACTED]

• Two [REDACTED]

• [REDACTED]

• [REDACTED] [REDACTED]

• Bananas

• [REDACTED]

Directions:

1. Mix ingredients

2. Bake on [REDACTED] for [REDACTED]

3. Then [REDACTED]