A Weeknight Dinner that Makes Itself

Presenting the Bath Time (Or Anytime) Braise

Hi Friends,

Sometime around the fourth or fifth month after Fanny’s daughter was born, she began to crave meals slightly more nourishing and cozy than handfuls of nuts devoured in 37 seconds while standing in a dark kitchen. Enter: the “Bath Time Braise,” the dinner that makes itself while you bathe and put your kid to bed. Braising is a wonderful cooking method—you cook meat and/or vegetables in the oven submerged in liquid using low, moist heat to render them velvety tender, caramelized and infused with flavor.

An ideal technique for hearty dishes like roasts, we’ve made it ultra simple here: two recipes—one with chicken, one with vegetables and chickpeas—that strip it down to the essentials, with zero sacrifice on flavor. Where a typical braised dish often involves searing meat, making a mirepoix, maybe even homemaking a stock to use as the braising liquid, this recipe removes all of that mishegoss. A couple minutes of prep, an hour or so in the oven, and you have meat falling off the bone or succulent vegetables—ready to be eaten as is, or ladled over polenta, rice, lentils or pasta.

Though the Bath Time Braise was conceived as a way to feed the adults in the family after the kids were asleep, braised meats and vegetables make ideal kid food, starting with babies just beginning to eat solids—just smush everything with a fork, or hand your baby a braised drumstick and see what happens (that’s what Fanny did and her daughter went crazy for it). So, whether this dish becomes dinner for parents and lunch for kids the next day, or dinner for all (started in the oven a touch earlier in the evening or even cooked the night before), it deserves a spot in your regular rotation.

Have at it,

Fanny + Greta

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The best cooking method for parents busy with bath time, after school time, or you know, life. It takes ten minutes to throw together, cooks entirely unattended and will fill your home with the aroma of an Italian nonna’s kitchen.

From this to that, zero babysitting required.