Hello and welcome to the weekend. I’ve been feeling a bit off/low grade sick all week, but am starting to turn a corner I think. The intense humidity has not helped! We don’t have much planned for the weekend and I truly hope it stays that way. Everything has felt so busy lately!

I can’t believe all the pumpkin-y Halloween stuff I’m seeing in stores already. I’m in the thick of Fall planning for recipes on here and was scheduling Pins this week with all the soups, tray bakes, butternut squash etc. Summer is so fleeting, so I’m making extra effort to savor it in this last month or so. I just got my first big tomato from the garden this week!

All of our usual reads, links, and questions below. Take care :)

5 Things I’m Reading:

1. Pumping Iron Is Their Secret to Aging Well via NYT (gift link)
2. It’s bigger than Taylor Farms via Eating Patterns on Substack
3. Hanging with NYC’s tech-critical youth cultural front via n+1
4. Why are ultra-processed food firms panicking and suing? Because they know time is running out via The Guardian
5. Meta glasses are killing the vibe via Vox (click here for non-paywalled link)

5 Things I’m Enjoying:

1. Was honestly feeling a bit uninspired with our day-to-day cooking, so I treated myself to some new spices from Burlap & Barrel. I wish I had got a chef’s container of the Kebab spice blend. It is WILD how good it is on pretty much anything–savory, warm, a bit of spice, a little smoke, kinda tangy. Also don’t come for me, but I did get their Toasted Pepita Pumpkin Spice!! (delightful sprinkled on top of a frothy coffee)
2. On Seamoss Girlies: Have Influencers lost it? Yes.
3. Two faves: Chelsea Peretti on Funny You Ask with Ike Barinholtz
4. “AI stands for average individual”
5. There’s a lot of great cookbooks coming out in the coming months. I’m very lucky to be receiving review copies of some of them! I’m wondering: would you like to see previews/a sample recipe from each of these books in the newsletter that goes out on Saturday? This feels like a better delivery system than a fleeting Reel on Instagram that 5% of my followers will actually see. Let me know your thoughts if you can :)

5 Questions:

1. What albums and artists do you find yourself playing more, as the light gets golden and the mood gets magical?
   I made you a playlist!
2. A question I’ve been getting a lot lately on different recipes, so thought I’d answer it here! Can you freeze cashew cream based sauces?
   I find that creamy sauces with cashews generally split after freezing, thawing and reheating. They can be salvaged by re-blending though! As long as you’re okay with going through the blending step again, you can freeze sauces like my most recent caremelized onion and summer squash one, this rosé sauce, butternut squash pasta sauce, truffle mac sauce etc!
3. Do you have a protein pancake recipe?
   I have a protein pancake technique! I take whichever pancake recipe I’m making, I use my protein powder scoop to subtract 2 scoops of the flour in the recipe, and then add 2 scoops of protein powder to the dry mix. There’s probably a more efficient way to do this! It’s not exactly perfect every time, but it does get the job done. I find this method especially effective in a pancake recipe with mashed banana or apple sauce. Truthfully I am hesitant to work on and publish a protein pancake recipe here because I don’t want to get overly “nutritional” ya know? It’s not really in my wheelhouse!
4. What’s your current favorite way to use up a glut of garden tomatoes? Drowning in cherry tomatoes right now.
   I make cherry tomato sauce, like the one in this romano beans recipe quite often! It’s great on all sorts of vegetables, as the base of a stew, or with pasta! I also recommend trying out confit cherry tomatoes! The thing that I truly do most often though is roast a bunch of tomatoes (remove the core of the big ones) with olive oil (no seasoning!), let them cool, purée them in the food processor and then freeze that purée in Souper Cubes! Once the cubes are frozen, I pop them out and place them in a sealable bag. They keep for 6 months in the freezer. I use them like crushed canned tomatoes. I can make an Instagram Reel tutorial for this if folks are interested!
5. What’s something you’ve been putting off that you want to do before summer ends?
   I really need to clean out and organize the drawer that holds all my baking stuff. I can feel my jaw tightening when I go to grab something from it, which is a pretty good sign that I need to deal with it lol. Shall I post a before and after?

Pinned Recipes This Week:

1. Summer Peach & Tomato Panzanella
2. Vegan Thai Basil Noodles with Crunchy Kale
3. Fresh Green Beans & Baby Potatoes with Pesto
4. Moist Vegan Zucchini Bread with Chocolate & Walnuts
5. The Best Marinated and Grilled Tempeh