Last-Hurrah Quesadillas & 9 Other Recipes We're Cooking This Week

Hey there! If we haven’t met: Hi, hello, I’m Emma. I’m a writer and recipe developer here at Food52.

For the past couple months, our test kitchen has been working hard on late fall and early winter recipes. While the temperature has been hovering near 100°F, we’ve been roasting turkeys, simmering chili, and opening a ton of cans of pumpkin puree (did you know you can find these in the supermarket all year round? You can!).

But outside of work, we’ve been doing just the opposite.

In this new weekly letter, What We’re Cooking This Week, I’m going to be sharing all the recipes our editorial team is making—and thinking about, and talking about—off-duty. Come dig in.

---

T-Minus 14 Days Until Fall...

The weather is cooling off soon (thank goodness), which means I’m taking advantage of every moment that I can get with my grill. Cue: EmilyC’s Grilled Potato & Green Bean Salad. It’s on deck for my dinner tonight, backed up by a few soft-boiled eggs. My husband will be taking a video of me cooking (I should probably tell him this at some point), so come hang out with me on Instagram (@emmalaperruque), and BYO beans.

...Which Means Corn Is Still a Thing

These corn quesadillas from our contributor Grant Melton just jumped to the top of my wishlist. They’re inspired by Mexican street corn, spiced with jalapeño and chile powder, gooey thanks to two types of cheese, and served with a limey crema. Beer, not optional.

Possible Burger

Every time I open Pocket, turn on NPR, or walk from Penn Station to our office (shoutout to the combination Dunkin Donuts–Baskin Robbins on 7th Ave.), I stumble upon another advertisement for a meatless yet “meaty” food. I’m all about eating less meat, but I’m just as interested in plant-based substitutes as I am in—wait for it—actual vegetables. These (cheese-stuffed! panko-breaded! deep-fried!) ’Shroom Burgers from Shake Shack are better than ground beef. And if you want less meat but still some meat, I give you: half-veggie burgers.

If Anchovies Were Vegetarian

As we head toward Roasted Vegetable Season, there’s one sauce I can’t wait to slather on broccoli, cauliflower, squash, carrots, parsnips, potatoes...you get the idea: Diana Henry’s Walnut-Miso Sauce. She summarizes it as “rather like a vegetarian version of the Piedmontese anchovy sauce, bagna cauda (though it’s even more umami-packed).” Another vegetable whisperer: this sauce with mustard, maple, and tahini.

Amanda Hesser’s Kids Know Best

What took me so long to make this pasta? I'm embarrassed. It was first published in The Zuni Café Cookbook (as good as a cookbook gets) in 2002—and has been on Food52 since 2014. The dish starts with oil-packed canned tuna, then things get wild with fennel seeds, garlic, capers, preserved lemon, and pine nuts that you can 100% swap out for something cheaper, like walnuts. It’s so easy that your kids could make it. No, seriously:

Not That Chicken Sandwich

If you haven’t tried the Popeye’s fried chicken sandwich, then you’ve at least heard about it. This Nashville-inspired recipe is not that. But it is a craggy, crispy, juicy fried chicken sandwich—with squishy bread and lots of mayonnaise and sweet pickles—that you don’t have to wait in line for. “Best breading ever,” community member Karin says. Wow!

We’re 10!

Don’t worry, we aren’t turning into a moody pre-teen. To celebrate the big one-oh, my coworker Ella Quittner gathered our 10 most popular recipes of all time. I’ll know I really have my life together when I always have a batch of these soy sauce eggs from Momofuku in the fridge. They’re ripe for an afternoon snack (smear with mayo and sprinkle with furikake if you love yourself), happy to hop into a bowl of soup (especially this one from Joanne Chang, just skip the egg drop at the end), and begging to be sandwiched between two pieces of buttered toast and called dinner while you watch Bachelor in Paradise.

My kitchen scissors haven’t been the same since I used them on peel-and-stick wallpaper. As a replacement, I’m eyeing up these shears that cookbook author Andrea Nguyen swears by. Other recs? LMK.

What did Lebron James ever do for tacos? And what did tacos ever do to Lebron James?

The only music our social media coordinator Max McDonough and I are listening to is Lana Del Rey’s latest album. Buttery avocado toast for your ears.

I’ll be back next Monday with more recipes. In the meantime, I want to know what you're cooking this week. Share what you’ve got lined up in the comments below.

Talk soon,
Emma