So You (yes, you!) Shared Your Favorite Recipes
A grandma's green ziti and WFH breakfast muffins.
Today's menu didn't come from my brain, Courtney's kitchen, or even a special guest. Instead, a bunch of our beloved readers submitted their favorite recipes for us to share with the rest of you! And not to worry, all of you seemingly look for the same qualities in a recipe that we do: low-lift but high-reward (a hearty, bread-heavy ribollita soup), nothing that requires a trip to the grocery store for (two easy weekday cakes), and recipes that aren’t really recipes at all (leftover-pesto-turned-baked-ziti). Thank you to these readers for covering the recipe recommendations this week so that the two of us could focus on something much more pressing at the moment — the green M&M. We’re obviously pro the old, flirty version so after the fabulous recipes, you’ll find our fantasies of a world where all mascots are as sexy as the old green M&M was. Oh, and P.S. you can submit your favorite recipe to be shared in a future Sifted, too! Dream on.
SO YOU’VE GOT A GO-TO RECIPE
Banana Quinoa Muffins: Perfect for meal prep Sundays so you have breakfast throughout the week. You know, working from home means sleeping until 8:50AM and logging on at 9AM, which doesn't leave much time to whip up a good breakfast. It's not a perfect match for The Smile's magically healthy, moist, soft, crunchy, and hearty banana quinoa muffin, but it's close and customizable! I nix the blueberries and keep them pure. When I want a blueberry muffin, I turn to Miss Smitten Kitchen. - Brooke
Lemon Pound Cake: No one needs me to tell them, "King Arthur is good" but if you haven't made this cake, please try it! I made it with oat milk instead of whole milk and it came out great, and I would like to stress that the icing is NOT optional like they claim — it elevated the whole thing. The combo of thin, syrupy glaze soaking into the cake while the thick, tart icing sits on top is perfection. - Nandim
Ribollita: This is actually my ribollita recipe! I make it at least once a month during the colder months. Make sure you use good bread, because the top is the best part. - Esmeralda
Poppy Seed Almond Cake: This recipe is really from Claire Saffitz's Dessert Person, but a bootleg (see link) is floating around. No changes are necessary — it is just a perfect cake that keeps for a whole week and is almond-y and citrus-y without requiring real almonds or citrus. One of my all-time favorite cakes! - Sifted reader
Green Ziti: Pesto di pistacchio is big Sicilian vibes, but every time I make this I end up with WAY too much left over, so I jar it and then when the time is right I turn it into a green ziti. Get out your ziti pan and boil a pound of pasta (I like mezzi rigatoni). Make sure it is AL DENTE because once you bake this, it will only get softer — my grandma is explicit about this in her traditional ziti recipe, where she calls for 6 mins of cook time instead of 8. While the pasta water is going, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and sauté a bag of spinach in olive oil with some chopped garlic. Add your leftover pistachio pesto to a little pot with some pasta water and a drop more of olive oil to soften it up and make it mix-able. Drain the pasta and return it to the pot, mix with pesto and spinach, then pour it all into a baking dish. Then, add about 2 handfuls of shredded mozzarella or whatever is to your cheese-liking. Top with dollops of ricotta (about half a small container) and then mix in, and add a little more mozzarella on top. Bake until the edges start to get crispy, about 15 minutes. You usually should let ziti sit and hold itself together but that's what Second Day Ziti is for, so I only wait about five minutes before taking a big scoop. Top it with a lil’ bit of red pepper flakes and fresh basil, and it is divine. - Grace
TAKEOUT
In case you somehow missed it, Mars relaunched the M&M’s mascots with a new, “more inclusive” and (yes, they really said this) “laid-back, post-Covid” look, featuring the de-booting of the green M&M. The internet was up in arms with (again, actually real) headlines like “Society implodes at the very suggestion of unsexy M&M's” and “Let the Green M&M Be a Nasty Little Slut”, which got us thinking that some other mascots could use a little more sex appeal…
Quaker Oats Man: Who among us hasn’t flipped their hair over in a pool and paraded around as a sexy colonial man? In this oat milk-loving era, our pacifist zaddy is due for a makeover and we just know he could pull off a pair of Tabi boots.
Pillsbury Dough Boy: It’s time to turn this doughboy into a doughMAN. JK! I have no problems with freezing this genderless, sexless, anthropomorphic ball of dough in time, but I personally would like them to make him a little more hip to the times. According to the Pillsbury website, the Doughboy’s favorite things include cream cheese, air fryers, & the country Christmas music station on Pandora… which leads me to believe Mr. Boy is not voting the same color as his beady little eyes. Let’s usher the boy into Gen Z and get him vaxxed, waxxed, and snatched.
Chester Cheetah: Chester actually needs no makeover and is basically the Machine Gun Kelly of snack food, but we would like to see a Megan Fox-esque partner for him to share Cheeto-dusted embraces and blood and such with. They do not have to be a lady nor a fox, but this flaming hot king deserves a queen.
Which mascot should we makeover next? And were these completely unhinged? In a good way?