For Your Sleeve

I bought a mango to share with Lilli, but decided to use the second head of iceberg lettuce and make these summer rolls instead. Please don’t tell.

This week was better than last week, but not by much. I can report that AAA does make special efforts to get to you and your car if they know there’s a small child involved (she wasn’t locked in the car). That being said, the best thing about the week was the three-hour nap Lilli took on Veteran’s Day. That let me prep every night’s dinner in advance, so we ate well all week.

I’m going to hold off on sharing my new favorite potluck salad until next week because there’s a chance I can actually get a photo of it, and because I’ve been meaning to tell you about the Ultimate Nachos cookbook, from which I have enjoyed some fabulous horchata (I meant to get that up in time for Day of the Dead, but there was an election to lose that week), the vegan white bean queso I brought to this year’s Annual Guac Off, and the sage brown butter artichoke nachos Rich and I devoured earlier this autumn. (I actually photographed those, but then I felt embarrassed that I had poured brown butter on top of tortilla chips and called it dinner — as if last week’s salad wasn’t embarrassing enough.) I’ve had my eye on the autumnal nachos with butternut squash and all sorts of cozy spices, but with gruyere at $12/lb., they have yet to be made. Gruyere cheese is a Trader Joe’s-only purchase in this house.

At some point I’ll get an actual nachos recipe up from the cookbook, but for now, I found myself emailing Sylvie this recipe for pickled onions on Thursday, so I thought you might want these up your sleeve as well. These particular onions are part of a larger recipe – Chilaquiles Verdes with Pepitas and Pickled Red Onion and Japapeṅos – which happens to be my all-time favorite breakfast food, although I haven’t yet found the time to make the dish in its entirety.

I’ve found myself tossing these onto salads for a little something extra; they’d also be great in sandwiches, tacos and eggs.

Pickled Onions from Ultimate Nachos by Lee Frank and Rachel Anderson. This recipe, however, was contributed by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, Chief Creative Officer at Serious Eats.

½ cup sugar

2 teaspoons salt

½ cup water

½ cup distilled white vinegar

1 small medium red onion, thinly sliced (about 1 cup)

Directions

Combine the sugar, salt, water and vinegar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, whisking frequently until the sugar and salt are dissolved.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and add the onion, pressing them down into the liquid. Cover tightly and let stand for 2 minutes, then stir to redistribute. Let stand 10 minutes more.