Summer ending can feel sad — once Labor Day arrives and we’re in September, it feels like the warm, jacket-less days are becoming numbered. I love summer weather when all I have to do is throw on a dress or shorts, and I don’t have to worry about layers.

But like with every year I’ve been in New York, I do get excited about September coming. I always look forward to all the autumn/winter squash, like butternut, buttercup, and kabocha (!). While zucchini is fine, and I tolerated yellow squash last summer because Pookster loved it so much, I’ve never been a huge summer squash person. I also love the pumpkin flavored things that come out everywhere, especially at Trader Joe’s. I look forward to stocking up on all my cans of Trader Joe’s organic canned pumpkin, plus seeing what new pumpkin products they have (and yes, I do check to see whether they actually have pumpkin in them). This past weekend, I picked up my first butternut squash for the season. And yesterday, I asked Chris to pick up yet another one since they were on sale at Whole Foods. I am looking forward to buying even more as the month progresses, and more varieties of squash become available.

A colleague asked me, referencing the squash in the background of my apple cider donuts picture from yesterday, if my background with all that squash (seriously, there were just two!!) and apples was real, or a photo board. I told her that yes, all the food, both in the foreground and background, were real. Why would they not be…?!

“Wow! How can you have that much squash at your house!” she exclaimed.

How…? I responded, a bit confused. How… not at this time of year?

When I was growing up, we enjoyed regular meals out as a wider family, with my grandma, aunt, uncle, and three cousins who lived upstairs from us. The meals were always at the latest Cantonese restaurant somewhere in the Richmond District of San Francisco that my grandma deemed “the best” at the time for Cantonese Chinese food. When I started getting into my tweens and teen years, my aunt always insisted that “the kids” have a voice when ordering. And because I loved eggplant, I would request it as soon as I was asked. So my aunt always made sure that there was some tofu dish and some eggplant dish at the table especially for me.

The thing I found funny, though, was my aunt used to say that I always wanted to eat “healthy foods.” Little did any of us know back then that the Chinese preparation for eggplant was really anything but healthy: to get that silky smooth, buttery, luscious texture in each bite of eggplant, the eggplant actually needs to be deep fried. After deep frying, it’s then lightly stir fried in a sauce that is known as “yu xiang” or “fish fragrant,” with a chili bean paste that is characteristic of Sichuanese cooking. Even the Cantonese restaurants do it this way, just with perhaps a different version of chili bean paste. Then, it’s served, glistening, silky, smooth, and with the eggplant skin nice, bright, and purple.

Both my mom and aunt tried replicating this at home by simply sauteing the eggplant. It never worked: the eggplant texture was always squishy instead of silky smooth; the eggplant skin would turn from bright purple to this sad, miserable brown color. When I moved out and started cooking on my own, I tried doing things like steaming (tasty, but again, not the same. Plus, in a stir-fry it would totally fall apart into mush) or roasting/broiling (good, but again, wouldn’t stay in tact). But finally, I decided after my corn and coconut fritters worked with some shallow frying that it was finally time to shallow fry eggplant. I wasn’t doing it totally traditionally: I wasn’t deep frying the eggplant. I was soaking the pieces in a salt water mixture to a) remove any bitterness and b) prevent the eggplant from soaking up too much oil, which I didn’t want. I shallow fried the eggplant in my Instant Pot for 4 minutes per batch, drained on a towel, and lightly stir fried. And I was totally floored… if I can even say that about something I cooked myself: it really tasted and looked restaurant quality. The eggplant pieces remained in tact and the skins were bright purple and glistening. Each bite was addictive, super luscious in the mouth. And the sauce was perfect — not too spicy but very savory. Kaia enjoyed the sauce, too, but kept smushing the eggplant itself in her hands…

For health reasons, I probably won’t be making yu xiang qiezi that often at home. I also don’t love shallow frying because even if it’s not deep frying, it’s still way more oil than I am used to cooking with. But I had a deep satisfaction in knowing I faced my fear with frying eggplant and can easily replicate this when I’d like in the future… pretty much anytime. It really was delicious and made me feel proud.

The Instant Pot official site explicitly says that it does not recommend using the Instant Pot on “saute” mode for frying. “Frying” or “deep frying” is *not* a mode on the Instant Pot. But when you look at all the Instant Pot comments and posts in Instant Pot groups that are dominated by Asians and Asian Americans, you can see very clearly that they have found *the* solution for mess-free shallow or deep frying: IN THE INSTANT POT because the walls are so high, and so any splattering would be fully contained. It’s a win for everyone! And because the Instant Pot is so contained, you can also use less oil for shallow frying, which I think pretty much everyone would like when frying. It’s less waste, less mess, and less oil (less $$) to use.

After six years of owning an Instant Pot, I finally decided to try this out using a recipe from my Andrea Nguyen cookbook, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. I made her batter for corn and coconut fritters and shallow fried them in the Instant Pot, and WOW, was it not only quick to heat up, but it was so clean and mess free! I had virtually no splatter at all to clean up and just the Instant Pot insert to clean and wipe down. I was so satisfied with this experience that I’ve now decided to try shallow frying eggplant, which I’ve always wanted to do, but was scared of because of all the oil and mess. So tomorrow, here I come: shallow fried eggplant!

While preparing my mise en place for my chicken tenders today, I realized that I didn’t make enough bread crumbs earlier in the week for these chicken tenders. That was annoying, but then I also realized that I didn’t have enough grated parmesan cheese, anyway, even if I really did have enough bread crumbs to triple the recipe. So instead, I breaded and baked as many chicken tenders as I could with my breadcrumb/herb/parmesan mixture, then created a workaround for my remaining chicken tenders: I coated the rest with egg, then tossed them around a mixture of seasoned flour, spices, and some shredded mozzarella that I had leftover in the freezer. Would these bake up the same as my chicken tenders with a proper breaded coating? No. But given that they were coated in shredded melty cheese and would be baked at the high temperature of 450 F, I figured they’d still turn out tasty.

Well, it looks like they all turned out well – the proper batch of chicken tenders and my hacked version. Chris even though the hacked version came out better and crispier. So maybe my kitchen skills haven’t totally fizzled during my sick time!

As soon as I purchased the lion’s mane and maitake mushrooms on Sunday, I was already excited about making them when we got home. I knew that given both would have delicate flavors and meaty textures that I’d want to lightly pan sear them with a little olive oil, a bit of butter, and season simply with sea salt and pepper. I remember I had also purchased a container of ricotta last week, so they’d go really well together on some crusty bread slices and a drizzle of olive oil. So that’s how I made them this morning. Unfortunately, to get the nice brown sear on both sides, I did create some smoke on my carbon steel pans, which did not sit well with Pookster’s eyes or our air purifier, even with the stove fan on high blast, but I had no choice. But at least it wouldn’t last too long. With one bite of both the maitake and the lion’s mane, and I knew that this purchase was absolutely worth it: the lion’s mane had this interesting, meaty, almost scallop like texture with a light flavor. The maitakes were a bit crunchy and had a deep, earthy flavor. I was obsessed with both and wish I had four times the amount. But if I did, I’d have spent $80, which I wasn’t really going to do with mushrooms… at least, not this time. These mushrooms looked, felt, and tasted extremely luxurious. I just love, love fungus — of the edible variety.

I am pretty certain that everyone loves fried food, whether they want to admit it out loud or not. I’m also certain that everyone loves fried chicken, even vegans who are in denial. Who could really resist the crunch, the juiciness, and the delicious scent of chicken fat? However, what most people do not like is a lot of oil used for frying… in their own kitchen. It’s a LOT of oil that is required for deep frying, and potentially a lot of waste if you do not reuse the oil. There is also a fine line between re-using that oil enough times to get a good ROI vs. using it one time too many and getting a stale, greasy “fry.” But the crispy skin juxtaposed with the juicy meat quite the temptation. So many home cooks have tried to replicate “frying” with techniques used in the oven for similar results.

I’d had Amanda Hesser’s “oven fried” chicken bookmarked for years now. I always said that at some point, I’d prioritize buying bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs just to make this recipe, but I got so sucked into my usual routine of just buying boneless, skinless thighs that I’d always forget. Once I got Butcherbox, though, I decided I would slightly go out of my comfort zone and finally make this happen. And I did today! I used this recipe, brined, coated in a light flour/parmesan/smoked paprika coating, and oven “fried” with just two tablespoons of butter, for about one hour. And the result was incredible: the skin was super crackly and crunchy. And the meat was juicy and tender.

I’m looking forward to using this recipe again and again in the future, with slight tweaks here and there for seasoning, like garlic or onion powder. This was a hit!