Everything Starts at the Dinner Table

Baked ziti - the kind of dinner everyone says yes to.

I grew up in a big Italian family.

My dad was the oldest of six kids, and my sister, my brother and I were the first grandchildren. So before all of my aunts and uncles started having kids of their own, we had a lot of time around Grandma and Grandpa's kitchen table.

And that's really where so much of this started for me.

Sunday dinners. Family celebrations. My mom cooking dinner every night. People coming and going. Stories being told. Food being passed around the table.

Food and family were never really two separate things.

They still aren't.

When Maddox and Luca were born, I wanted that to continue.

The funny thing is, I've spent most of their lives working in restaurants. A lot of my nights are spent behind the line or standing at expo, cooking for somebody else's birthday, anniversary, Father's Day or celebration.

People sometimes ask me if the last thing I want to do on my day off is cook.

It's actually the opposite.

Cooking at home has always been a release for me.

I love cooking for my family. I love sitting down at the table, hearing about everybody's day and putting something in front of them that I'm excited for them to eat.

And my boys have eaten just about everything.

Italian. Mexican. Vietnamese. Thai. Japanese. Mediterranean. Laotian food from their family. Shrimp tostadas. Pork chile verde. Lasagna roll-ups. Lettuce cups. Shawarma.

Nothing particularly fancy about that list.

Just good food, cooked the way it's supposed to taste.

One of the things I've always wanted my boys to understand is that cooking food from another part of the world isn't just about combining different ingredients.

There's a story behind it.

They're half Laotian, and they've grown up eating food prepared by aunts and uncles who learned to cook it through their families.

That's an incredible education.

Those dishes can look simple, but the layers of flavor are anything but simple. Close your eyes and good food can take you somewhere.

The same thing happened for me when I lived and went to school in Italy.

If we're cooking Italian food, I want it to taste like it belongs in Italy.

If we're cooking Mediterranean food, I want those flavors to make sense.

Whatever the cuisine is, understand it before you start changing it.

Respect the ingredients. Respect where the food came from.

And then don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Get organized.

Prep ahead.

Have everything ready.

Build flavor deliberately.

Those are professional-kitchen lessons, but they're just as valuable at home.

Maddox and Luca have essentially grown up around kitchens.

They were babies when I started at The RANCH. They've watched Pops and Uncle Dave cook professionally. They've spent time in my kitchens. And now they're old enough to work alongside me.

This Father's Day, the three of us worked together at The Beach Club.

Michael with his sons, Maddox and Luca, working Father's Day at The Beach Club.

There's something pretty special about looking over and seeing your boys standing there beside you.

They haven't gone through culinary training, but they understand a kitchen.

They understand urgency. They know how things should look. They have good palates. They understand seasoning. And when I ask them to do something, they get after it.

Not long ago, Maddox told me he might consider this profession someday.

I told him I loved hearing that, but I also wanted him to understand the sacrifice that comes with it.

He looked at me and basically said, Pops, I know.

He's watched it.

He's seen me working while other people are celebrating.

But he's also seen the other side.

He's seen what happens when somebody takes a bite of something you've made and absolutely loves it.

That's the part that keeps a lot of us cooking.

And hearing my son recognize both sides of it meant a lot to me.

Back in the kitchen together.

That brings me to this week's plan.

After last week's deep dive into Hatch chile season, I wanted this week to feel a little different.

Familiar favorites.

Not boring food.

Not dumbed-down food.

Just dinners where you can look at the plate and think:

Yeah. Everybody's going to be happy about this one.

And then we use a few small techniques to make those familiar things really good.

You don't need ten completely new ideas every week.

Honestly, you don't even need to cook all ten dinners we give you.

Cook one. Cook two or three if the week allows. That's enough.

The point is to have some good answers ready before somebody asks:

What's for dinner?

Steak Burrito Bowl - grilled steak, charred corn, avocado, cumin-lime.

This is everything I love about a good burrito bowl.

Grilled steak, cilantro-lime rice, charred corn, black beans, avocado, tomato, romaine and those crispy tortilla strips on top.

Familiar.

But here's the little move:

Toast your cumin.

Before you make the cumin-lime dressing, put the cumin into a dry pan for about 30 seconds.

That's it.

You're waking up the spice before it goes into the dressing. It changes the aroma and gives you a deeper, warmer flavor.

Thirty seconds. Better dressing.

Those are the little things I want to teach you.

California White Sea Bass - summer squash, blistered tomato, lemon.

This might be the plate that looks most like California in August.

White sea bass, summer squash, cherry tomatoes and lemon.

The tomatoes blister and burst in the pan and essentially become the sauce.

You don't need to bury good fish under a lot of other things.

Hot pan. Dry fish. Let it sear.

And here's the move:

Lemon goes in at the end.

Take the pan off the heat and then squeeze your lemon.

You keep that bright, fresh acidity instead of cooking it away.

Sometimes good cooking is knowing when to stop.

Orange Sesame Tofu - crisp tofu, sticky glaze, sesame, rice.

I never want the Plant-Based side of SEASON to feel like the menu you eat because you can't have the other one.

It should be food you want.

This week, Orange Sesame Tofu is exactly that.

Crisp tofu, sticky orange-sesame glaze, rice.

Comfort food.

And if somebody at your table doesn't normally get excited about tofu, this is the kind of dish I'd put in front of them.

Don't tell them what they're supposed to like.

Just make it delicious.

Learn This Week

Let the Sauce Rest

Lamb Chops - lemony white beans, mint chimichurri.

We're serving the lamb chops this week with lemony white beans and mint chimichurri.

But here's the part I want you to remember even if you never make the lamb.

Make your chimichurri first.

Then leave it alone for about 20 minutes while you cook everything else.

Freshly mixed chimichurri can taste sharp. You've got raw garlic, vinegar and fresh herbs all meeting each other at once.

Give them some time.

The vinegar starts softening that raw garlic. The mint and parsley begin to open up. Everything starts tasting like one sauce instead of five ingredients that just landed in the same bowl.

That's not extra work.

That's using time as an ingredient.

And that's a technique you can carry into all kinds of uncooked herb sauces.

Ten dinners this week - five Classic, five Plant-Based. Cook one, cook three, or cook them all.

Green Chile Chicken Hatch Chile · Cilantro · Cotija	Steak Burrito Bowl Corn · Tomato · Avocado · Cumin-Lime
Lamb Chops White Beans · Mint · Chimichurri	California White Sea Bass Summer Squash · Tomato · Lemon
Sausage Baked Ziti Sausage · Tomato · Ricotta · Mozzarella

Texas Caviar Black-Eyed Pea · Corn · Avocado	Portobello Mushroom Fries Comeback Sauce · Crispy
Orange Sesame Tofu Sticky Glaze · Sesame · Rice	Crispy Eggplant Sandwiches Tomato · Arugula · Garlic Aioli
Stuffed Zucchini Herbed Rice · Tomato · Pine Nut

When I talk about the 5:30 moment, handled, I'm not suggesting dinner is suddenly going to become perfect every night.

Life doesn't work that way.

Somebody gets home late.

Practice runs long.

Work follows you home.

You're tired.

And sometimes at some point during the day, before you've even walked through the front door, you start thinking:

What are we going to make for dinner tonight?

That's the part I want to help with.

Maybe Sunday you marinate some chicken.

Maybe you make a sauce.

Maybe you cut a few vegetables.

Maybe you get something going in the Instant Pot before work.

Maybe you simply look at the week's plan and decide:

We're making these two.

That's enough.

The shopping list and recipes and prep aren't really the destination.

They're tools.

Because at the end of a busy day, home is still home.

And I really do believe the kitchen is the heart of it.

If we can remove some of the decisions and some of the stress before 5:30, maybe there's a little more of you left for the people sitting around that table.

A little more time to talk.

A little more time to laugh.

A little more time to enjoy something good together.

That's what we're trying to protect.

And every once in a while, you'll make something and somebody at the table will look at you and say:

For a cook, it doesn't get much better than that.

- Michael

Chef Michael Rossi

SEASON Weekly is where we share what we're seeing, cooking and learning.

SEASON takes the next step - the weekly dinner plan, recipes, shopping and prep organized for you so you're not starting from scratch every night.

SEASON Weekly is free every Monday. If you know somebody who loves food but could use a little less pressure around dinner, send this their way.