crispy cauliflower & white bean grain bowls

canned beans but make 'em sexy

In case you missed it: this newsletter got a book deal! Union Square & Co. will publish What To Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking: 100 Recipes For Busy People Who Love Good Food (*working title*) in August 2024.

I feel so energized and thrilled to be putting this concept into a physical hardback that will live in all of your kitchens, getting dog-eared and oil smudged and scribbled on with your favorite substitutions and riffs.

Your response has been so kind and loving — it feels like I have thousands of best friends out there cheering me on. Thank you, thank you, it means a lot. I can’t wait to hug you in person at book events.

To answer a few FAQs:

• I'm writing it right now. My manuscript is due at the end of June, we'll shoot the photos in August and September, and the book publishes in August 2024!

• The Substack version of WTC isn't going anywhere! I plan to continue writing WTC until I'm in the grave. I love creating these recipes and the community we've built here.

• The book is 100 complete meals, just like the newsletter. Ten of them will be the greatest hits from the newsletter (I'll have y'all help me decide what these 10 should be in June!).

• Every single recipe will have a photo. This is expensive as hell but worth it. Right? Tell me it's worth it.

• Are you interested in learning more about the cookbook deal/writing process? I don't want to burn you out but I’d love to share if people find it interesting!

I had lunch with my book editor, Amanda, in New York a couple of weeks ago. We went to Joseph Leonard, a West Village mainstay that I frequented in my 20s when I lived there. It’s cozy and charming and the food is perfect every time. In this digital world, it was so lovely to get to sit down and hang out face-to-face with this smart, awesome woman who I’ve spent so much time chatting with over the phone and email.

We ordered the cauliflower appetizer to start, and I knew immediately that I had to create a meal version of it. It’s a simple dish: perfectly roasted cauliflower florets tossed in a slightly tangy, slightly spicy tahini sauce and finished with a dusting of sesame seeds.

So I had to figure out how to turn it into a complete meal. I tossed around the idea of roasting chicken on the same sheet-pan, but I ultimately wanted the cauliflower to remain the star. But if you want meat, there are instructions for that in the notes section below!

I landed on adding beans and grains for protein, and greens for a fresh, crunchy note to make it a filling, gorgeous grain bowl. Everything is seasoned and cooked very simply to allow the tahini sauce to shine.

I actually wrote this recipe for the book, but it’s so delicious that I had to share it with you immediately. Both my tester and photographer noted how quick and easy this one is for how complex of a flavor it provides. Note: they both used frozen brown rice, which remains my favorite ingredient at this stage of my life. Frozen rice + protein + greens (raw or sautéed) + sauce = dinner at our house often these days.

If you use frozen rice, this is a one-pan meal! We’re even going to cut the cauliflower on the baking sheet and use scissors to cut our parsley so that we don’t dirty up a cutting board.

TAHINI! If you aren’t familiar with tahini, it’s essentially a delicious seed butter made from ground sesame seeds. Soom is my favorite brand.

You can order it through Thrive (my fave online market) here. As always, use this link to get 30% off your first Thrive order and a free $60 gift.

Use your leftover tahini to make seared tuna with sesame noodles, 30-minute shawarma lettuce wraps, and sheet-pan honey-roasted chicken, carrots, and brussels sprouts with tahini yogurt (click that last link for lots of other ideas too).

BUT if tahini’s the only thing you need from the store to cook this recipe, or if you can’t find it while shopping, you can absolutely swap in peanut butter, almond butter, or any other nut/seed butter that you have in the pantry.

We’re making extra sauce here like we did with the hella green pasta and 15-minute noods recipes. You can store it in the fridge in an airtight container for up to a month! Here’s what you can do with it, aside from making this recipe again:

• Use it instead of tahini-jang in 30-minute pork and kimchi CYOA bowls

• Use it as the sauce in 15-minute peanut noods

• Use it instead of the yogurt sauce in the sheet-pan sweet potato, chicken, and brussels sprouts meal

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crispy white bean & cauliflower tahini bowls

Serves 4