Farmhouse Weeknights: Quick, Wholesome Recipes from Melissa Bahen

Quick and wholesome recipes for feeding a family are the premise of “Farmhouse Weeknights,” a new cookbook from Oregon’s Melissa Bahen.

The (Somewhat) Grumpy Part

Years ago, when I began my quest to learn how to cook, I turned often to Cooking Light magazine. The recipes were not my mom’s – no chicken liver or oxtail or goulash – but they were an introduction to an American way of cooking, often utilizing ingredients readily found at a big box store or my local supermarket, touched with a hint of spice or a dash of hot sauce. Melissa Bahen’s  Farmhouse Weeknights uses the gloss of farmhouse cooking to entice what I suppose is a similar reader, searching for something wholesome, packaged in a family-first format.

This style of cooking works for busy families like mine where the ratio of speed to an on the table meal is short and basic flavor is more than enough to satisfy the minions. Caprese Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (p. X) or Harvest Salad with Creamy Herb-Dijon Vinaigrette (p. X) can be on the table with minimal effort, squeezed in-between soccer practice drop-off for one kid and choir practice pick-up for another. It’s a formula that works and it gets enough protein and veg into each meal to make most moms happy. Will there be cheese in many of the recipes? Yes. Do you care? Maybe. Is it legit to call it “farmhouse?” Bahen lives in a farmhouse, so yes. If your style of farmhouse involves canning, pickling or other bountiful harvest food storage techniques, the term will be misleading.

Recipes I Made

I started with Sheet Pan Honey Lime Chicken Fajitas (p. X). I love a one-pan meal, and the recipe calls for the seasoning to be added right to the chicken and onion on the pan – no bowl. Hooray! Nicely flavored chicken and veg and super-easy clean-up for the Monday night win.

I modified Bahen’s Tacos (p. X), serving them with beans for an additional protein source and August’s peak fresh corn. I regularly serve tacos and this one was another winner – decent flavor and easy clean-up, if you don’t count shucking and stripping corn cobs. While I wouldn’t say that Classic Cobb with Lemon-Shallot Vinaigrette (p. X) involved any cooking – I purchased almost all of the ingredients from my local supermarket’s salad bar, including the cooked and diced chicken – I did make the vinaigrette which is so classic, it will be on repeat for all eternity for its flavor bounce on basic chicken and veg.

With tomatoes and basil in their peak season, August glory, Stella Blue (p. X), a pasta sauce made with fresh tomato and basil, was a no-brainer. Relying on little more than the inherent flavor of tomato and basil, the recipe hews closest to the idea of “farmhouse cooking” that I am most familiar with – exceptional, in-season produce will yield exceptional, maximal flavor with minimal effort.

Who Would Like This Cookbook

I imagine the author’s days are as cramped as mine, with cooking dinner smushed between finishing your work day and handling the needs of the family. While I don’t prefer to cook from the salad bar at my local supermarket and cheese is typically a side dish in my house, I will cook this way when time permits nothing else. It is a feel-good way to get dinner on the table for those days when planning ahead is critical to success. Or – whoops – you did not plan ahead and thank goodness a cookbook goddess has thought of a way out of the “my kids are starving and I have nothing in the kitchen” jam. Bahen’s got your number.

Short-cuts don’t always add up to big flavor but sometimes, the time saved means happy faces without fuss. And sometimes, that is more than enough.

Sheet Pan Honey Lime Chicken Fajitas

I was provided a preview copy of Farmhouse Weeknights.