make ahead – zezoo cooks

Wontons with Sesame Sauce

appetizer, asian, chicken, chinese, chinese new year, convenience, dairy free, dinner, fall, freezer friendly, lunch, main, make ahead, meal prep, savory, sides, weeknight, winter

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Few times a year I spend the better part of a Saturday assembling wontons. I try to go seasonal with the fillings, but if not, I fall back on the classic fillings: usually a combination of ground chicken, ground pork, diced shrimp, fresh ginger and scallions, and finely chopped water chestnuts. Ever since I took the “Wonders of Wontons” class at the Civic Kitchen in San Francisco, I’ve felt super empowered to experiment with wontons and potstickers. They are easy to assemble (time consuming, sure, but oh so rewarding), easy to freeze, and if you fold them a certain way, can double as boiled wontons as well as potstickers.

This year I tried adapted a recipe from Bon Appetit Magazine, which suggests adding sesame oil as well as vegetable oil to the filling and whisking (almost beating) it till the fat is fully incorporated in the filling. When cooked, it makes for a really lush wonton. I switched the pork for chicken so maybe mine weren’t as fatty as the ones from the original recipe, but still very comforting and delicious!

I usually drop my wontons in a quick chicken broth, but I really loved the Sesame Sauce here – a quick little sesame paste condiment that takes less than a minute to assemble, and I imagine will be delicious with a great number of things. You can always substitute tahini or even peanut butter if you don’t have sesame paste on hand.

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Smashed Potato and Corn Bites

american, appetizer, california, dinner, gluten free, grain free, lunch, make ahead, sides, snack, super bowl, vegetarian, weeknight

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I’d been eyeing Smashed Potatoes on Instagram forever, and I will never understand why I was waiting until now to put them together with a cheesy corn and pepper topping (reminiscent of “corn chili cheese toast” we used to have growing up in India).

These smashed potatoes (baby potatoes that are first boiled, then smashed, and then baked till crispy, almost frittered) are excellent by themselves, dipped into a nice garlicky aioli, or under a soft boiled egg (you know I try to put an egg on everything!). I imagine they would make a wonderful base for a “chaat” (savory Indian street food), topped with spiced yogurt, tamarind chutney and chaat masala (you’ll see that soon enough on the blog). A great side with meat or fish, too, although I have yet to try it.

Make just the potatoes, or top with anything that strikes your fancy, and enjoy the salty, fatty goodness of it all!

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Infinitely Adaptable Instant Pot “end of the week” Soup

american, california, chicken, convenience, dairy free, dinner, eggs, fall, gluten free, grain free, greens, healthy eating, italian, legumes, lentils and pulses, lunch, main, make ahead, meal prep, mexican, recipe card, seasonal, soup, vegan, vegetarian, weeknight, whole grain, winter

This is a template to employ some good ol’ chop therapy, clear out your fridge, and make some soup while you are at it. I call this a template because the base recipe can be adapted to any ingredients you have on hand that you want to use up, that have nowhere else to go. Random sausage links, throw them in. 2 ugly carrots, sure. Stale baguette that’s too dry to do anything with, absolutely! Old can of black beans with no future, use it up!

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Gingerbread Cake

american, baking, cake, christmas, dairy free, dessert, european, fall, freezer friendly, german, make ahead, sweet, winter

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Gingerbread is one of them Christmastime/December rituals, something you make when you are invited to a holiday party, or throw one. It’s a purely seasonal event – both it’s making and consumption. And usually if someone asks me to make Gingerbread in any of the remaining 11 months of the year, I politely decline and make something else instead. I’m very much like Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper that way; he has a clear rule about these type of things, in that he only drinks Hot Cocoa in months that have “R” in them. Take a minute to see that it makes total sense.

Gingerbread is only for December, only when it’s cold out, and you are enjoying it with a hot cup of coffee or hot chocolate or mulled wine, doing absolutely nothing. The ultimate year end treat. Second only to Black Forest Cake, Gingerbread is one of the best things to come from Germany.

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[for young chefs] Nutella Chocolate Chunk Cookies (gluten-free)

american, baking, chocolate, christmas, cookies, dessert, freezer friendly, gluten free, grain free, kids, kids who bake, make ahead, snack, sweet, vegetarian

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This is going to be a rather short post, as I need to get back to eating my cookies. Also because they are ridiculously easy to make so there’s nothing much to say about the whole “recipe” aspect of it. They are a great recipe to make with kids, that is, if you can get them to stop eating the Nutella straight from the jar!

The proof is in the pudding..err, cookie, because I made these with some delightful kiddos over the holidays (virtually no less), and they loved them.

My family can best be described as Nutella fiends (among other notorious foodie descriptions) so I’m always trying to sneak Nutella into cakes, muffins and frostings; why should cookies be left behind?

Especially if the cookies in question happen to be one-bowl, gluten-free, spanning 6 ingredients, and ready to go into the oven faster than it takes for the oven to preheat.

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Garlic Whipped Parsnips

american, california, convenience, dairy free, dinner, fall, grain free, lunch, main, make ahead, savory, seasonal, sides, thanksgiving, vegan, vegetarian, weeknight, winter

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As someone who routinely dreams of sleeping on a pillow made of mashed potatoes, the carbs add up. I think they add up even if I’m innocently thinking about potatoes; one doesn’t even need consume them.

So one must look for alternatives that are lower in carbohydrates, still good with respect to fiber, and yet don’t taste like pressed sawdust. Parsnips happen to live in just that precise neighborhood, and in the winter months, are just begging to be enlisted to be whipped into perfection. Lower in calories, higher in fiber, a slightly sweet taste – if I wasn’t a potato-head I would switch to them permanently. Just kidding!

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