Celery & Fennel Salad, Cantaloupe & Arugula Salad, and a Baked Potato Bar by Alison Roman

“IT’S THE FI-NAL SAL-LAAAAADS!” (And some baked potatoes!) 

The ones I waited longest to enjoy. Eating these two salads revealed two new discoveries: 1) Hard blue cheese actually isn’t so bad. 2) Black olives are the most inferior kind of olive. Those two ingredients are the sole reasons I waited so long to make these salads. They also confirmed one fact that I already knew by heart: 1) olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper are all you need to dress a fantastic salad. 

I just spent the last few days celebrating a dear college friend who’s getting married soon. A small group of us drove or flew to Sawyer, Michigan where several inches of snow and a cozy cabin by Lake Michigan awaited. Weekends like these remind me just how blessed by community I am. I’ve been gifted friendships with some of the most authentic, kind, goofy, thoughtful women. Perhaps what’s most impressive about them is that they are the same kind of people in friendship as they are in the world every day, towards friends and strangers alike. We don’t see one another more than maybe once a year, which makes our time together all the richer. 

Those who flew, came in through Chicago airports, so they needed a ride to the cabin and back. We had some time to spend before their flights home, so I decided to involve them in making three of my final six recipes for a fancier-than-usual lunch. 

We gathered around my kitchen island and assumed our positions…

Megan: She owns Dining In, and thus has cooked a good number of Alison’s recipes herself. So she took charge of making Alison’s Skillet Chicken with Crushed Olives and Sumac. We’ve both made this several times in the last year because it’s that good. (It’s also the recipe used for the cover of the book). 

Molly: Standing at the corner of the counter, she expertly sliced and seeded a cantaloupe into half-inch thick rounds, then removed the outer skin. Alison says nothing about removing the rind, but we figured it’d be easier to eat that way (duh). Molly also took charge of thinly slicing the celery stalks — like a boss. 

Anne: Standing in the middle, Anne eagerly volunteered to stab the russet potatoes all over with a fork to prep them for the oven. Post-oil, she sprinkled them with salt and pepper. She helped Molly remove the cantaloupe rinds. She coarsely chopped the walnuts and pistachios. She tossed the cantaloupe and arugula together and squeezed a whole lemon all over it. She topped the bowl with the chopped black olives and a handful of chopped chives. 

Caroline: God bless her. At the far end of the counter, she oiled the potatoes by hand. After, she expertly sliced a fennel bulb into thin strips and a shallot into thin rings. She tossed the celery, fennel, lemon juice, shallot, toasted nuts, salt, pepper, and olive oil together. She crumbled the hard blue cheese on top and sprinkled the bowl with celery leaves. Anne and Molly helped with the celery leaves too. She finely chopped the black olives (I used a tiny can of pitted ones from Whole Foods.) 

Yours truly: I played quarterback -- giving each teammate instructions at regular intervals. My few tasks included toasting the nuts in a skillet (I didn’t have enough walnuts to fill half a cup so I added pistachio meats into the mix— a great call), testing each dish and adding salt and pepper to taste, and setting out the baked potato toppings - sour cream, Greek yogurt, butter, flaky salt, pepper, and chopped chives. 

This meal obviously consisted of dishes chosen by necessity. I didn’t consider a cantaloupe and black olive salad to be the first choice pairing for a baked potato bar. But much to my surprise, all four dishes felt surprisingly cohesive as a meal, with the celery and fennel salad as the strongest outlier.

Someone recently asked me what my favorite part has been about this project. My answer? The people I enjoyed the meals with. Every dish created an opportunity to invite people into my home, or bring the food to them, and commune together. Share an experience, talk about what we’re eating, the flavors we’re tasting. A chance to encourage and nourish the people I love. Yes, that is what brings me the most joy. 

221, 222, and 223 recipes cooked, 2 to go.

Yogurt-Marinated Leg of Lamb with Spicy Fennel and Sumac By Alison Roman

This past Monday I cooked a whole leg of lamb for 8 people. I’d been nervously anticipating this meal for months. From my first spin through Nothing Fancy, the sight of this recipe — Yogurt-Marinated Leg of Lamb, totally intimidated me. I knew I’d have to save it for last, figuring I’d need at least a year’s worth of cooking practice before I could safely attempt to deal with the entire leg of a large animal...

I was right and I was wrong.

I was wrong because even with a year of intentional cooking under my belt, I still messed up. Alison gives two sets of instructions in the recipe for roasting and braising. I went the braising route because she says it’s less scary and more foolproof. I covered the lamb and its baking dish with aluminum foil and stuck it in the oven at 300 degrees for the minimum time listed: 3 hours. But I don’t think the foil stayed tightly wrapped the whole time, and thus, too much steam escaped, allowing the meat to dry out some.

I should have checked it part way through, as an insurance policy. But part of me felt like checking on meat before it’s supposed to be done was “the old Annie.” The old Annie who doubted herself and the process. In her many meat recipes, Alison routinely says things like “resist the temptation to peak” or “don’t even bother peaking until the timer goes off - it won’t be ready before then, I promise”. I tried to actually followed her advice for once. (I’m not blaming her for the fail, but you get the point.) To be clear, the lamb wasn’t ruined — the flavor rocked, and the meat was still tender. But did it fall apart at the touch the way Alison describes? Definitely not.

I was also right that this recipe should be saved for the end because after a year’s worth of intentional cooking, I’ve seen great improvement in my ability to get something wrong and not feel ashamed about it.

A year ago, I would have been mortified the moment I cut into the lamb and realized what had happened. I can just picture the way my cheeks would have reddened and my heart started to pound. And to be sure, that was a temptation for me last Monday. But only for a moment. Instead, I paused and thought, “That’s what this whole process is about, right? Learning — getting it wrong so you can eventually get it right. Your friends are here to join you in that project, not to consume something perfect.”

As my friends sat around the table, I stood to give an introduction to the meal. At the end, I explained that the lamb didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. It wasn’t tough, but it was dry. But then I said, mostly for myself, that I was grateful that they agreed to participate in my project — a project that emphasized learning over perfection. And I sat down, unashamed.

If you know me personally, you know that this kind of moment is a huge marker of growth. 

The lamb is served atop a bed of thinly sliced fennel and herbs marinated in red pepper flakes and lemon juice - and truly, it was exactly what the lamb needed to balance its saltiness. Alison doesn’t mention this, but after 3 hours of braising, the sliced fennel bulb that cooks underneath the lamb in the braising liquid is soft and infused with all of the lamb’s spices - fennel seed and cumin seed. I scooped them out of the baking dish and tossed them with the fresh fennel slices before laying the slices of lamb on top. It added even more flavor and substance to the dish. I served the lamb, sprinkled with sumac, alongside a bowl of sour cream. 

And thus marked my second to last All-Out-Alison meal of the project: 

• Yogurt-Marinated Leg of Lamb

• Sour Cream Flatbreads (for dipping into the fennel juices and leftover limey sour cream from the beets)

• Vinegar-Roasted Beets with Spring Onions

• Chicories with Yogurt, Preserved Lemon, and Mint

219 recipes cooked, 6 to go.

Salted Citrus with Fennel, Radishes, and Olive by Alison Roman

I’ve mentioned before that at the beginning of this project, I hated olives. So when I first perused Alison’s two cookbooks to evaluate all that would lie ahead of me, I made no less than an “ew, gross” face when I flipped the page to this recipe. 

But eight months and one much expanded palette later, I couldn’t wait to make this. And the last summer-weather days of October seemed the perfect opportunity to do so. This recipe is simple: thinly sliced tangerines, covered in salt, honey, and lemon juice. Layered with thinly sliced fennel and radishes, also mixed with lemon juice and salt. Sprinkled with crushed olives of the Frescatrano variety. 

Crunchy, juicy, briny, acidic, salty, and sweet. A salad that encompasses all six of those traits can only be described as excellent. 

144 recipes cooked, 81 to go.

Farro with Toasted Fennel, Lemon, and Basil by Alison Roman

I disobeyed the key ingredient and substituted quinoa. Admittedly, quinoa is not meant to be used here at all. Alison gives a list of five grain options, all of which have gluten, and none of which are quinoa. But alas, there are just some compromises that I need to make so my body doesn’t revolt against me. 

Quinoa doesn’t have the same kind of satisfying, chewy bite that farro has, and it soaks up flavor really quickly. Which I think are two reasons why I wasn’t blown away by this salad. Both of which are not Alison’s fault. But in general, my main critique is that it needs more flavor, regardless of grain choice. It’s heading in a really good direction – frizzled garlic slices and fennel seeds, caramelized lemon and fennel bulb – and I wished it went further! I think it could use lemon juice or white wine vinegar, which I ended up adding. I want it to require parmesan! (Which Alison suggests as an option in the comments, and I recommend taking this advice.) I ate this grain salad and said out loud to our dinner guests, “But I want MORE FLAVOR!” I stand by that wish. 

One element I appreciated is that after the lemon, garlic, and fennel elements are nice and toasty, the grains get added to the skillet with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to become slightly crispy and soak up all the garlicky oil. A crisped grain, IMO, is much more interesting than a non-crisped grain. You know? So this was a nice extra step that I didn’t mind doing. 

And finally, here we have a truly rare Alison Roman moment, where she tells you to garnish the grains with BASIL! Alison recently admitted on social media that she doesn’t love basil, and I wasn’t at all surprised. I had noticed that this herb is hard to find anywhere in her books. She loves her dill, chives, thyme, and marjoram. But basil, and sort of rosemary too, hardly ever show up at the scene. So enjoy this moment where you get to have with basil, because it may be a while until you meet again. 

127 recipes cooked, 98 to go.

Tomatoes Dressed in Toasted Fennel and Anchovy by Alison Roman

Alison describes this dish as something so good, it made her cry. I agree, it’s really good. (It didn’t make me cry.) It was also effortless, pretty to look at, and totally consumed in about 30 minutes. 

The recipe calls for 2-3 lbs of small-ish ripe tomatoes. I used the kind that grow on a vine, are larger than a cherry tomato, but smaller than a beefsteak tomato. You know what I’m talking about, right? Of course you do. 

Several hours before dinner time, I assembled the anchovy oil. This consisted of melting about 8 anchovies in some olive oil and Aleppo pepper over medium heat. I tried not to let the oil get too hot so that it bubbled, but hot enough to let the anchovies melt. This took some vigilance and heat adjustment as the fish began to break down. I assume it would have gone much quicker if I had a more predictable gas stove, but it’s hard to nail an exact heat range with my electric stove. I waited to prepare the tomatoes until right before our guests arrived so they were as fresh and cold as possible. I chose to quarter the tomatoes instead of slice them, which made them easier to eat. 

The combination of flaky salt, anchovy and aleppo oil, and toasted fennel seed was far more subtle, in a good way, than I anticipated. I could only partially taste the anchovy, which allowed the fresh tomato to still shine in its own juicy glory. I could have easily eaten half the plate by myself, but instead, I had several others help me with it. If you love tomatoes, then this is a fabulous, and quick to assemble, side dish for any summer meal. 

88 recipes cooked, 137 to go.

part of this All-Out-Alison meal — served with the Scallops with Corn, Anchovies with Potato Chips, Baked Summer Squash, and Alison’s Upside-Down Apricot Tart