No. 285: Top 10 Recipes of 2024
Plus: Our favorite snacks, trends, ingredients and pop-ups of the year.
📩 And the envelope, please…
Good morning. I hope you might be waking to a blanket of snow on the ground and glittery crystals in the pine trees. I hope you’ve got a hot cup of coffee or cocoa in hand, that popovers or other treats are in the oven, and that perhaps a stocking with your name on it awaits unpacking.
While you’re enjoying the quiet before the rest of the household gets shaking, I’ve got the most popular Cook the Vineyard recipes of 2024 for you. Narrowing down this year’s list was tricky; I felt like an Olympic judge or an Academy member voting on the Oscars. So much data to look at!
There were the “most visited” recipes on cookthevineyard.com, determined by Google Analytics, which has logged more than 100,000 page views for the website this year. There were the “most clicked” recipe links on the free newsletters and the “most clicked” recipe links on the paid newsletters. Plus Instagram hits, recipe comments, and more.
Not being a statistician – and not being sure how to weight the data – I used a little intuition and a genie’s magic lamp to divine the truth. In other words, my results are like presidential polls – don’t take them to the bank!
Keep in mind there is one criterion I held fast to: It had to be a new recipe, published on cookthevineyard.com and highlighted in the newsletter for the first time in 2024. At the end of the newsletter, I’ll mention a few favorites from past years that perennially hit the top of Google searches.
It warms my heart that so many of these recipes showcase or incorporate seasonal ingredients that are grown on the Vineyard. That’s what we’re all about.
So without further ado (or excuses), here are the top 10 most popular Cook the Vineyard recipes of 2024.
🥇1. Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
The number one favorite recipe was (rest assured) unequivocal this year, with Abby Dodge’s Valentines treats topping every chart I looked at. With no mixer required, these Carrot Cake Cupcakes With Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting (that double as muffins) are easy to make. And of course they are moist, fragrant and packed with beta-carotene. (From newsletter No. 239.)
🍅 2. Tomato-Corn Chowder with Bacon and Leeks
Timing can be everything, and Tomato-Corn Chowder with Bacon and Leeks was published in Martha’s Vineyard Magazine and on cookthevineyard.com at the height of tomato and corn season this summer. It tastes of summer itself. A total crowd pleaser. (From newsletter No. 269.)
🥔 3. Grill-Roasted Potatoes with Rosemary, Lemon, Sea Salt & Fresh Corn Vinaigrette
One of my favorite ways to grill potatoes – in a foil pouch – gained fans this summer with this recipe for Grill-Roasted Potatoes with Rosemary, Lemon, Sea Salt & Fresh Corn Vinaigrette. The steam created inside the pouch cooks and flavors the veggies, while the direct heat of the grill grates penetrates the foil just enough for some caramelization to occur. (From newsletter No. 265).
🍯 4. Crispy Sheet Pan Chicken with Honeynut Squash and Hot Honey Drizzle
Anytime we can incorporate freshly harvested veggies into a sheet pan dinner is a win. Clearly, many of you agree, and those adorable, nutty tasting honeynut squash found a popular home this year in this Crispy Sheet Pan Chicken with Honeynut Squash and Hot Honey Drizzle. (From newsletter No. 273.)
🍐 5. Gingerbread with Pear Cranberry Compote
The little black dress of winter desserts – gingerbread cake – got a delicious update from Abby Dodge this year. Moist and spicy, Gingerbread with Pear Cranberry Compote featured a glam garnish, too, made with seasonal fruit. (From newsletter No. 280.)
🍊 6. Simple Sautéed Bay Scallops with a Citrus Pan Sauce
Breaking the rules, I let this new variation of a previously published technique sneak on to the list. As popular as Simple Sautéed Bay Scallops with a Citrus Pan Sauce always is, this year, I tried a slightly different preparation by serving it over maftoul, a type of Palestinian hand-rolled couscous. I also added late season Sungold and Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes to the pan sauce. The couscous made a marvelous bed for the saucy scallops. (From newsletter No. 282.)
🫛 7. Spring Veggie Stir-Fry with Lemon-Dill Yogurt Sauce
Inspired by the beautiful new vegetable varieties our Island farmers are growing (like the Fioretto below), this weeknight stir-fry gets an Ottolenghi-style lift with a swath of Lemon-Dill Yogurt Sauce beneath it. (From newsletter No. 251.)
🍓8. No Bake Strawberry Cream Cheese Icebox Cake
Another highlight from our Baking Together column, Abby Dodge’s No Bake Strawberry Cream Cheese Icebox Cake is a luscious, make-ahead masterpiece that requires minimal effort and zero oven time, resulting in a layered, mousse-like textured dessert that’s bursting with the flavor of the season: ruby-red strawberries. (From newsletter No. 257.)
🍜 9. Cavatelli with Roasted Artichokes and Preserved Lemon
For the second year in a row, Vineyard pasta guru Katie Leaird makes the top ten (last year was her Lasagna Bolognese) by way of her collaboration with best-selling cookbook author Dan Pashman on this Cavatelli with Roasted Artichokes and Preserved Lemon. Dan calls this one of his five “sleeper hits” in Anything’s Pastable. But the flavor is anything but sleepy. (From newsletter No. 247.)
🍲 10. Comforting Cabbage Soup with Linguiça, Yukon Gold Potatoes and Fall Herbs
Surprise! Where else but the Vineyard would a cabbage soup be one of the most popular recipes of the year? Yay us! I have to say, this Comforting Cabbage Soup deserves the limelight, and it really is handy to have a destination for all the Island-grown cabbages that seem to pop up like mushrooms on fall farmstands. (From newsletter No. 278.)
🏃🏻♀️Runners Up: You knew I was going there.
Yeah, I just had to mention the two that almost made it. Grilled Marinated Butterflied Leg of Lamb with Mint, Garlic, and Ginger (I love that photo!) from newsletter No. 245 and Mediterranean Farro Salad With Roasted Cherry Tomatoes, Olives, Chickpeas & Cilantro from newsletter No. 235. Both loaded with flavor.
👓 Special Mention: Top Google Search
The number one most Googled recipe from cookthevineyard.com this year was Black Sea Bass with Lemon Garlic Butter (published in 2021). This makes me happy, because I’ve been enjoying black sea bass for a few years now and am trying to help folks learn to cook with it. This year I got it often in my Community Supported Fishery shares. Try this or one of our other black sea bass recipes in the archives.
🍗 Perennial Favorites
Other than Katie’s lasagna, the recipes from past years that keep getting searched and clicked like nobody’s business are: Grilled Mayonnaise-Mustard Chicken, Layered Tomato, Zucchini and Parmesan Gratin, Buttery Small Batch Dinner Rolls, and Crispy Roasted Chicken Thighs with Garlic, Lemon & Rosemary.
❤️ PLUS: Eight Things We Loved This Year
Favorite vegetable: Murasaki Fioretto, a hybrid purple cauliflower that has slender stems, tiny bouquets of flowerets, and a subtly sweet flavor, grown by Beetlebung Farm.
Favorite pastry: Bialys! From both Morning Glory Farm and Beetlebung Farm.
Favorite cookies: Spelt and rye chocolate chip cookies from The Grey Barn and Beetlebung Farm.
Favorite snack: House-made bagel from The Model Deli.
Favorite Farmers’ Market Treat: Soft-serve ice cream from Ophelia’s.
Favorite trend we hope is here to stay: Community Supported Vegetable, Bread, Fish, and Flower Shares (CSAs, CSBs, CSFs)
Favorite baking trend: Bread made from local and regional grains on Island farms
Favorite pop-ups: Anything at S&S Kitchenette.
➡️ SPECIAL NOTE: Martha’s Vineyard Sea Salt Needs Your Help
During 60 mph+ winds on Dec. 11, a recently built 30’ x 70’ solar evaporator at Martha’s Vineyard Sea Salt was badly damaged, resulting in the loss of 200 pounds of salt – and the need to rebuild the expensive structure. If you’d like to join Island farmers and foodies in helping MV Sea Salt rebuild their much-needed solar evaporator, visit their GoFundMe page.
Photos: Cavatelli, Dan Liberti; Fioretto, Kate Woods; S&S Kitchenette, Ray Ewing; Nina Levin/Ophelia’s, Jeanna Shepard
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I love, love Abby's Small Batch Dinner Rolls. They are hard to mess up! I've baked them 4 times in the past 30 days!