There is a time for involved, long-cooking, multi-dish recipes, and then there’s the time for a 30 minute main that can be made in two steps and served with any carby thing that makes you happy.
This is the second thing.
Whether you’re looking for something you can throw together on a weeknight or an easy special occasion meal for when dinner parties are a thing again, Baked Shrimp with Lemon & Garlic fits the bill. It’s light and refreshing, a snap to make and can be on your table in half an hour! Yesssss.
This is one of those dishes for which I almost always have the ingredients. My kitchen is always stocked with lemons, fresh garlic, onions, red pepper flakes, salt and olive oil, and I usually have parsley, too. Just add a couple of pounds of raw shrimp (I used frozen/thawed) and we’re ready to roll!
To make this bright and lemony main, begin by tossing the raw shrimp, minced garlic, thinly sliced onion, red pepper flakes, salt, olive oil, lemon zest and lemon juice in a casserole dish. Bake everything for 12-15 minutes at 375F, stirring every five minutes, until the shrimp are pink and opaque, and the thin strands of onion have lost their rigidity. Squeeze another lemon over the top, stir in a big handful of chopped fresh parsley and…um, well that’s it. Told you it was easy.
Serve Baked Shrimp with Lemon & Garlic over rice, orzo (or other pasta) or with crusty bread—anything to take advantage of all that lemony, garlicky oil! Oh, and a glass of something crisp and cold never hurt anything. Just saying.
Baked Shrimp with Lemon & Garlic
makes 4-6 servings
3 medium lemons, divided
2 pounds fresh or frozen (thawed) raw shrimp (I use 21-30 count)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small white or Spanish onion, very thinly sliced
1/2-1 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt, or to taste
1/4-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4-1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
For serving (optional):
sliced lemons
baguette or other crusty bread
cooked pasta
cooked rice
Preheat oven to 375F.
Zest and juice two lemons.
Combine lemon zest & juice, shrimp, garlic, onion, salt, red pepper flakes and olive oil in a casserole dish. Toss together until fully combined. Bake 12-15 minutes, gently stirring every 5 minutes, until all shrimp are pink and opaque.
Squeeze over remaining lemon and stir in parsley. Garnish with lemon slices, if desired. Serve with toasted baguette, pasta or rice.
Leftovers will keep covered in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours. Do not microwave leftovers, as it will drastically over cook the shrimp. Instead, reheat gently on the stove in a pan over medium-low heat.
In keeping with social distancing, baking with what I have, considering what you might have, thinking up swaps, and trying to make something Easter-appropriate, I present to you this Almond Poppy Seed Coffee Cake. It’s made with the last of a container of sour cream I found in my fridge, poppy seeds leftover from 
As far as Easter goes, this is not my norm. This cake is not 
The cake is just my usual 
I skipped the traditional coffee cake crumble here because I felt like it was competing with the poppy seeds—too much crunch, ya know? Instead, I’ve taken the easy way out and topped this sucker with sliced almonds, put it in the oven and called it a day.
As with every recipe I’m posting right now, Almond Poppy Seed Coffee Cake has plenty of room for substitutions and swaps.
Until a few weeks 
And while muffin/cupcake liners are the obvious solution to that problem, there was another to contend with: I was not terribly confident in my base muffin recipe. But then I went and tested the crap out of my 
You read that right: Brown Butter. Nutella Swirl. Muffins. Basically every good thing in the world in a handheld treat that is somehow suitable for consumption at breakfast.
The recipe for these muffins has a few adjustments from the Lemon Poppy Seed version, but not many. Besides the obvious flavor difference, there’s a little more flour and I swapped some of the milk for sour cream, making the batter a little thicker so the Nutella swirls don’t sink.
And speaking of Nutella swirls, they are applied in two phases. Basically, you add half the batter to the muffin cups, then swirl in some Nutella, then top with the remaining batter and swirl in remaining Nutella.
Y’all, these are so good. The interiors are feather soft and the Nutella swirls make every bite extra decadent, as all things with Nutella should be. Also, there’s a little variance in each bite—you could have a little Nutella or you could have a lot! The brown butter is subtle, as it is in my 
One of the great things about yeast doughs—aside from the fact that they’re way easier than they’re made out to be—is that they all seem to have multiple uses. My 
Love a multitasker ❤ ❤ ❤ 
If you’ve never heard of pull-aparts, they’re basically a loaf of bread made of individual pieces layered with a filling (sweet or savory) and baked so that the whole can be pulled apart with your fingers instead of sliced with a knife.
Achieving this is really simple. The process begins like you’re going to make cinnamon rolls. Make a dough, make a cinnamon-brown sugar filling. Roll that dough out and top it with the filling. Nothing you haven’t (probably) done before.
Then, though, things get a little wacky. Instead of rolling the filled dough into a cylinder, it’s sliced into 36 squares, which are then piled into six stacks of six and arranged in a line(-ish thing) down the center of a loaf pan. The assembled loaf is allowed to rise for about an hour and then baked for 40 minutes, until deeply browned on top and cooked through in the center.
Let your pull-aparts cool for 20 minutes or so before removing them from the pan. Put the loaf on a serving platter and then blow it a kiss goodbye because it’s going to be quite literally pulled apart in front of your eyes. And it will be glooooorious.
I mean, it’s basically the center of a cinnamon roll’s swirl cut into squares and baked into a loaf shape so that it’s soft and gooey on the inside and crisp and brown on the outside and how could that be anything but glooooorious?
When I was allowed to take the reins on planning Christmas dinner last month, I knew immediately what I wanted to make: Porchetta. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Porchetta is a slow-roasted Italian herbed pork dish that is traditionally made with whole pigs, but most home cooks use a center-cut pork loin wrapped in a sheet of pork belly.
I spent weeks planning this meal, going so far as to make a 1/4-sized tester in the days before Christmas. After that, I called 
Over the next several days, my mom, sister and I obtained the special-ordered pork and made a great fuss over preparing it…except that it wasn’t actually that much fuss. Once the herb mix was prepared, I butterflied the center-cut pork loin and scattered it over the top. Then I rolled it up jelly-roll-style, rolled that in the sheet of pork belly and tied it all up with trussing string. Afterward, I let it sit uncovered in the refrigerator (“dry brining”) until Christmas Day, on which it was brought to room temperature and then roasted until golden and crisp and pretty irresistible.
I was (am) very proud of myself and posted it to all my social media outlets, where I was promptly asked when I’d be posting a recipe. This was something I hadn’t even considered because while the Porchetta I made for Christmas is not particularly difficult to put together, but it *is* pricey.
The meat had to be special-ordered for quantity and quality—a 5 pound sheet of skin-on pork belly is not an easy find—and came out to about $60. That’s $60 in Texas, so I’d guess it’s more like $80-$100 in New York, and that’s before the herbs. I love y’all, but not quite enough to spend hundreds testing one lone recipe.
But. But! I had it in my head that I could give my beloved 
Yes, it still has to sit in your fridge for a day or two, but it is made from just one piece of meat (a boneless pork butt AKA pork shoulder), is mostly hands-off, and won’t cost you an obscene-ish amount of money.
Let’s start with the meat. This pork butt? It weighed in at 4.5 pounds and cost a cool $14–pretty reasonable compared to $60+! You’ll want it to have a layer of skin or a good, thick fat cap (pictured here) for both flavor and texture. If you can’t find a pork butt that fits either of those descriptions, you can purchase a piece of pork belly or pork skin and tie it onto the butt with trussing string. You want that fatty lid so it can keep the meat moist during roasting and then get crispy at the end. Cracklings are life, am I right?!
Your pork butt is unlikely to be in one seamless piece due to its heavy marbling and having had a bone cut out of it. This spot (or cavity or whatever you want to call it)? This is where the herb mixture will go. I used my knife to extend that opening down the length of the roast, while making sure to keep one edge intact.
Another thing you want? Kosher salt—about 1/2 teaspoon per pound. Don’t be tempted to skimp, or all the days of dry brining and the herbs and the money you spent will be for nothing. Salt is critical for both flavor and texture (it draws out moisture), and if used in proper amounts, will not leave your meat particularly salty, just flavorful. You’ll blitz most of it with toasted fennel seeds, sage, rosemary, thyme, garlic, lemon zest and crushed red pepper flakes to make the herb mixture. The rest will be rubbed into the crosshatched skin/fat cap.
You will have to truss your pork butt, which is really no trouble. Just tie it at short intervals and then anywhere else it isn’t holding together as one cohesive unit. You want all those good herbs to stay put! Then stick the whole thing in a dish and put in the refrigerator and forget about it for 24-48 hours until it’s dry to the touch and the color has changed.
And then roast it looooow and slooooow before crisping up that fat cap, and slicing and serving it on rolls or crusty bread that you’ve given the slightest dip in the rendered fat. You can also serve it alongside garlicky greens or roasted vegetables. Really, you can’t go wrong.
I feel like this Pared-Down Porchetta would be a wonderful main for Super Bowl Sunday, Oscar Night, Easter, or any old night. I mean, you could certainly hold onto this recipe until next Christmas, but that seems like an awfully long time from now, don’t you think?
e2 bakes brooklyn 