Recipes from Simple Fare: Spring and Summer

Simple Fare Spring/Summer Cookbook

Karen Mordechai of the acclaimed Brooklyn-based food community Sunday Suppers shares her meals for cooking at home and her studio. The recipes are designed to excite and inspire, each offering 3 to 5 alternate ingredients that can be used in the same preparation. A smoked beet panzanella with purple kale, radicchio and ricotta, for example, suggests a carrot, mizuna, watercress, and yogurt adaptation or tomato, arugula, purple basil, and burrata, allowing the reader flexibility depending on what is fresh at the market. The food is approachable but decidedly nuanced, balancing unexpected flavor profiles with beautiful presentations. With 68 recipes and 97 variations, Simple Fare is an oversize, distinctively designed kitchen essential of more than 165 seasonal recipes. This book is a valuable resource for avid cooks and beginners alike.

A white plate of skillet-charred broccolini.

Skillet Charred Broccolini

A simple side that comes together quickly, only messes up a single pan, and will earn you accolades from most (if maybe not all) the folks at your table.

Three plates filled with shredded beef tacos--braised beef brisket, Cotija cheese, napa cabbage, sour cream, red onions, and cilantro on charred corn tortillas

Shredded Beef Tacos

Not your typical tacos, these beauties comprise gently spiced braised brisket that’s smattered with cabbage, pickled red onion, Cotija cheese, lime, and cilantro. Not your typical tacos. And boy are we thankful for that.

A pile of charred greens--kale and spinach--on a white plate

Skillet Charred Greens

Skillet charred greens are exactly what they sound like—greens cooked in a skillet until pleasingly, smokily charred until the greens are crisp at the edges.

A skillet filled with black olives in an infusion of herbs and lemon and orange peel

Herb Infused Black Olives

Easy yet elegant. That’s what we want in a cocktail party nosh. These lovely olives are exactly that and are certain to earn you accolades.