Spring is springing and so is my step! With new flavors to play with, new veggies to bring to the table, I’m a happy cook indeed. You might even say I have Spring Fever.
To slide into the season with a carryover from winter, I crave citrus more now than ever that the weather is crisp and fresh. I love it with lamb, of course – maybe for having friends and family over to carve a roasted leg and fight over the citrusy potatoes from the pan. Or for a weeknight, perhaps, as chops roasted with lemon, peas + potatoes. Toss together a quick cucumber salad where lemon + poppy explore their savory side. Or poach some cod and spoon a lemon-butter sauce over the fish and some arugula to make an elegant, edible spring centerpiece. Maybe a sheet pan chicken dinner with veggies bathed in citrusy goodness is your thing: hard-working flavor and equipment to make dinner in a flash.
Citrus is cheating, though. It’s not new at the market, and so much is (and will be throughout the month) that I will jump right in with asparagus: steamed with sauce (3 ways!), shingled into quiche squares, or in an omelet, they are a wonderful ambassador to start our vegetable tour. There are spring greens for a stellar salad, dandelion greens for a cheerful soufflé, spring onions for a hands-off brown rice risotto, ramps for a compound butter or a simple bread or a simple spaghetti with breadcrumbs, rhubarb for a life (and meal!)-changing chutney or with lamb chops (more lamb!) prepared agrodolce, radishes to roast with mint, snow peas to sauté with pancetta or shred for a clever slaw, even fiddlehead ferns for a flash in the pan with pine nuts and Parmesan. Or maybe you can’t choose just one and prefer to jumble them together, so try: this tempura; this one pan, cheater vegetarian lasagna; this spring minestrone with its very own arugula pesto; or this spring greens spanakopita-inspired tart.
As flowers are literally springing from the ground and sun is beginning to peek out, it feels like every day is an inspired occasion, maybe one that calls for a special dessert (but that’s still easy enough for a weeknight). Spread this Meyer Lemon curd over anything and feel fancy, tuck these Rhubarb Possets into your fridge, or (literally) whip up a fool from gooseberries (or any other single cup of fruit you have).
Another way to support my work is to buy my books, as they all have spring goodness at rest between their covers, like: Twenty Dollar-Twenty-Minute Meals for its killer Pasta Primavera; Cake Magic! for its entire chapter of citrus layer cakes of every sort imaginable; read about the annual tradition of gathering to celebrate and roast the Catalan spring onion, the calçot, and make an asparagus paella in Catalan Food; and no less than five spring-crazy, creative, vegan soups in Soup Club (though a black lentil, arugula and roasted scallion number might be my favorite).
I hope all these recipes inspire you, connect you to the season and the life that’s bursting from the ground around you, and bring a huge smile to your face as they did mine over the decade plus years I spent writing them all. Thank you for reading here, it is a gift to me to write for you and share my recipes. For paid subscribers, hang back a moment while I share a no-bake key lime bar (Paleo and vegan, too) to get that citrus fix. (This gooey, soft key lime bar is somewhat its opposite but packs a similar zing.) See you all here next month!
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