Recipes By Dawn Perry
19 recipes found
Creamy Cucumber Salad
Use any mix of cucumbers you like for this tangy salad. If using slicing cucumbers — the slightly thicker ones you’ll find with seeds and sometimes waxier-seeming skins — you might want to peel them first and remove the seeds, which can dilute the dressing. To seed, simply halve the cucumbers lengthwise and use a teaspoon to gently scrape out the seeds. Feel free to play around with shapes, too. Slicing the cucumbers into rounds is easy enough, but half moons or other bite-size pieces are also welcome.
Four-Cheese French Bread Pizza
Each cheese plays a special role in this French bread pizza: A combination of Parmesan and pecorino makes it especially nutty and salty; mozzarella melts evenly and a sharper deli-style provolone bridges the gap between them. Once you learn how to make the classic white sauce (technically a Mornay, which is a béchamel with cheese added), you’ll find dozens of ways to use it beyond pizza: Swap in an equal amount of grated Cheddar and toss it with pasta for an easy stovetop mac and cheese, or use Gruyère, slather the sauce over ham on toast, and broil until bubbly and browned. The sauce can be made up to 3 days ahead of time; store tightly covered in the refrigerator until ready to use.
Pepperoni Lover’s French Bread Pizza
An easy no-cook sauce works as a tangy base for pizzas of all kinds. Draining the tomatoes before seasoning ensures the sauce won’t create any soggy bottoms, no matter what type of crust you build your pizza on. Use an equal amount of crushed or whole peeled tomatoes instead of diced if that’s what you have on hand. Just use your hands to break whole tomatoes up a bit (and drain off any additional liquid). The sauce will keep, tightly covered in the refrigerator, for about 5 days. But feel free to use your favorite jarred marinara in its place. Leftover pizza reheats beautifully in a 350-degree oven until warmed through.
Pesto and Mozzarella French Bread Pizza
Basil is the classic choice for this alternative to red sauce, but blend in any tender, flavorful herbs or greens like parsley, spinach, or arugula depending on what you have around. This pesto recipe doubles easily and freezes well, too: Transfer the finished pesto to an ice cube tray and freeze until firm. Pop the frozen pesto into a resealable bag, and keep it in the freezer for up to three months. Defrost whenever a pasta or pizza craving calls, though you can certainly use store-bought pesto to make things even easier. Fresh mozzarella creates excellent cheese pulls, but feel free to play around with other soft cheeses: A crumbling of feta or goat cheese would make delicious variations.
Crispy Frico Chicken Breasts With Mushrooms and Thyme
The Italian word “frico” describes cheese that is cooked until toasted and crisp — but what results is something like the greatest cheese wafer you’ve ever had. That technique is applied here to boneless, skinless chicken breasts to give them a boost in flavor and texture. Like any properly cooked protein, the frico exterior will release easily from the skillet when it’s ready, so wait for it. Umami-heavy mushrooms are a great accompaniment, but any quick-cooking vegetable will work. Try chopped zucchini or whole cherry tomatoes in the summer, slow-wilting greens like curly kale or mustard greens in fall, or go all in with a ton of onions.
Spicy, Lemony Chicken Breasts With Croutons and Greens
A post-marinade is exactly what it sounds like: a flavorful mixture you sink meat or fish into after it cooks. Often used with grilled meats, the technique works great with seared proteins as well, especially boneless, skinless chicken breasts, which don’t have a lot of flavor on their own. These breasts are cooked using a combination sear-steam method that builds flavor and keeps lean breasts juicy. Finish with a tangy-spicy combination of lemon, garlic and red-pepper flakes and you’ll reap all the benefits of a traditional marinade without having to plan ahead. If you have thinner breasts or cutlets, this is a particularly wonderful use for them, since they don’t have a lot of time to pick up color and flavor before they cook through.
Soy-Glazed Chicken Breasts With Pickled Cucumbers
The pan-steam method used here ensures boneless, skinless chicken breasts cook quickly while staying moist. The technique works with water, but a flavorful mixture of soy sauce, honey, garlic and coriander infuses the chicken with even more flavor. Depending on the size of the skillet you use, the sauce may reduce a little slower or faster than the time indicated. When you swipe a rubber spatula across the bottom of the skillet, the sauce should hold a spatula-wide trail that fills in with liquid pretty quickly. If you happen to reduce too much, whisk in water one tablespoon at a time until you’re back to a shiny sauce that can be drizzled. Rice is an obvious side, but the sliced chicken and pickled cucumbers are really good tucked inside flour tortillas, too.
Blistered Broccoli Pasta With Walnuts, Pecorino and Mint
The trick to creating deeply browned, pan-seared broccoli involves two things: high heat and no touching. Allowing your florets and stems to sear in an even layer, undisturbed, gives them time to blister without cooking all the way through, so they retain some crunch. While many pasta sauces are finished with starchy pasta water, this one isn’t, since the hot water would strip the broccoli of that color and crunch you worked so hard to achieve. Instead, toss the cooked pasta in the skillet with the broccoli, walnuts and cheese. A drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon will provide any additional moisture you need.
Pasta With Garlicky Spinach and Buttered Pistachios
If you want to get the timing just right on this one — no wasted time! — start the sauce a few minutes after you’ve dropped the pasta into the boiling water. Your spinach should be wilted right around the time the pasta is al dente. If that feels too stressful, or the spinach wilts before the pasta is ready, simply turn the heat under the skillet all the way down to low and keep it warm while the pasta finishes. Don’t count this recipe out if you’re not fond of capers. They add a hint of salty brininess without being in-your-face caper-y. A pound of pasta is a lot to toss around, especially with 2 bunches of spinach in the mix, so save that extra quarter-box for your next pot of pasta e fagioli.
Coleslaw With Miso Dressing
Red cabbage is especially pretty in this dish, but green cabbage, napa or savoy would work just as well, so use whatever you like. This recipe makes a generous amount of dressing so that you can dress the slaw to your liking. Start by tossing the cabbage with half the miso mixture, then add more until it's dressed to your idea of perfection. Whatever you don’t use can be tossed with other salad greens, drizzled over rice, or used as a dip for crunchy cucumbers, snap peas or carrots.
Easy Spaghetti With Meat Sauce
The secret ingredient in this ultrafast sauce based on long-cooking Bolognese is Worcestershire sauce. The vinegar, molasses and anchovies in the condiment season the ground beef mixture with salt, acid, sweetness and funk in one shot. Once the sauce has simmered, use tongs to transfer the pasta directly from the pot to the skillet, then toss in some of the starchy pasta cooking liquid for a glossy, saucy finish.
Peanut Butter Blackberry Bars
The love child of a juicy summer fruit pie and a classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich, these family-friendly bars are perfect for a backyard picnic or an after-school snack. They’re super fast to make with an electric mixer, but you can also make the dough by hand: Just be sure the butter is very soft before you start, and mix with a sturdy wooden spoon or rubber spatula. To make easy work of pressing the dough into the baking dish, use lightly floured hands or the bottom of a flat measuring cup.
Sour Cream and Fruit Scones
The benefit of using frozen fruit in these tangy scones is in how it keeps the butter cold. Cold butter melts slowly in the oven, creating steam and tender pockets in the scones. The frozen fruit also doesn’t get smashed the way fresh fruit does. You can freeze the scones before baking for up to a month, just add a few minutes to the baking time. They are delicious on their own or with a bit of butter, but, for extra credit, split and toast the scones, then mix a spoonful of sour cream with some freshly whipped cream and sandwich inside.
Strawberry Cream Pie With Chocolate Cookie Crust
A chocolate cookie crust makes this strawberries-and-cream pie taste a bit like Neapolitan ice cream, but other crumbly cookies or sweet crackers work too. The best strawberries have a heady scent — they should smell like candy — and likely won’t need sweetening. But strawberry sweetness varies greatly, so taste one and toss them all with a little sugar as needed.
Pasta With Chorizo, Chickpeas and Kale
Packed with the intense flavors of garlic, paprika and salt, dried chorizo sets the flavor profile of this pasta. First, the chorizo sears in a skillet to render some of its fat and flavor, then chickpeas, scallions and kale soak up its spices. Salty Manchego cheese maintains the Spanish vibes, but Parmesan or pecorino work equally well. While eight ounces of pasta might not seem like a lot, meaty chickpeas and hearty kale complete the dish.
Milk and Honey Pie With Cereal Crust
This pie’s crunchy toasted cornflake crust and honey-sweetened pudding may inspire new pie-centric breakfast routines, especially when topped with juicy plums. Feel free to play around with nectarines or peaches, too. Because cornflakes (and other not-too-sweet cereals) don’t have as much fat and sugar as packaged cookies and crackers, they need more sugar and butter to bind them into a sturdy crust. The extra butter here can sometimes cause the crust to puff or shrink while it bakes. If that happens, don’t worry: gently press the crust back into place while still warm with a flat bottomed measuring cup and proceed.
Brussels Sprouts Pasta With Bacon and Vinegar
This recipe is endlessly adaptable: You can use pancetta or even sliced salami in place of the bacon, and chopped cabbage or torn escarole work well if you don't have sprouts. No shallots? A small red onion will do. Keep in mind different types of bacon (or other cured pork) will render different amounts of fat. When you add the brussels sprouts, if the skillet starts to look a little dry, add a tablespoon of oil to keep things moving. To achieve a nice mix of crisp leaves and tender cores, tear off some of the loose outer leaves from your brussels sprouts; they will wilt and blister while the more tightly bundled cores will soften and steam. This recipe is designed for a half pound of pasta; though you may be tempted to add extra pasta, the dish will be plenty filling with a whole pound of brussels sprouts.
Berry Buttermilk Cake
Buttermilk makes this stir-together cake super tender, but you can use any milk you have in its place. Same goes for the fruit: Use your favorite frozen berries, or a combination, but frozen cherries, mango or peaches work as well. Just cut any big fruit pieces into bite-size pieces before folding into the batter. And if you do happen to have fresh summer fruit around, that’ll work, too.
Blackberry Frozen Yogurt Pie With Cracker Crust
Tangy from yogurt and rippled with blackberries, this frozen pie will make a pretty addition to barbecues and backyard cookouts. The salty cracker crust against the sweet tart filling is a match made in summer heaven. Raspberries work in place of the blackberries, too. Want to know what to do with leftover sweetened condensed milk? Stir into iced coffee or Thai iced tea, or drizzle over sliced fresh fruit.