All hail the casserole dish! While I might push it aside when I’m reaching for a sheet pan, there are so many recipes that simply work better in a casserole dish. Lidey Heuck’s one-pan roasted fish with cherry tomatoes is an excellent example.
The high sides of the 9×13-inch pan keep all the liquid from evaporating, giving you moist white fish fillets (use any kind you like) and juicy, sweet cherry tomatoes and shallots, all seasoned with honey, sherry vinegar and lemon zest. It’s a delightful five-star recipe, and weeknight friendly, too.
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One-Pan Roasted Fish With Cherry Tomatoes
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If you’re itching to use your sheet pans (and I know how that feels!), Yewande Komolafe uses a pair of them for her breakfast burritos, which are just as good for dinner. While you use the sheet pans to melt cheese on multiple tortillas in the oven, you quickly scramble the eggs and slice up the avocado to put on top along with some cumin-y refried beans.
That’s two for your oven, but let’s not forget the top of your stove, because that’s where the pasta happens! Ever on my mind as summer slips away is Naz Deravian’s lovely, autumnal kale and walnut pasta. Naz uses toasted nuts instead of bread crumbs for a crunchy, chile-flecked topping over a soft cushion of olive oil-infused kale and pasta.
Using only one skillet (and one big salad bowl), Yewande’s ginger chicken with crisp napa salad combines cayenne- and cilantro-spiced chicken breasts with a very zippy cabbage, cucumber and mint salad perfect for absorbing all the meaty pan drippings. And for a one-skillet meal without the meat, there’s my coconut red curry with tofu, ideal for using up the last odds and ends of whatever vegetables you have in the fridge, all simmered together with jarred curry paste and coconut milk.
For dessert, let’s go back to the oven to bake up a batch of David Tanis’s buttery, cardamom-scented pecan shortbread (which could also be made with walnuts if you have any leftover from the pasta). Shortbread keeps exceptionally well, so you can snack on the leftovers all week long. I love to dunk it in my tea for breakfast.
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That’s all for now, see you on Wednesday.
