Merry Christmas! Welcome to 5 Weeknight Dishes, and whereas a few of you might be off from work subsequent week, you’ve nonetheless acquired to eat — and presumably, should you’re studying this, you’ve additionally acquired to prepare dinner. Even essentially the most devoted dwelling cooks have been tried on this infinite 12 months of infinite kitchen duties, as Tejal Rao wrote so eloquently about in The Instances, and Helen Rosner in The New Yorker. (Do you learn Helen Rosner on meals in The New Yorker? You need to.) I’ve felt it, too, not a lot within the cooking itself, however within the relentless meal planning, and the loading and unloading and reloading of the dishwasher.
And but cooking has offered one in every of my solely 2020 joys, in that it was one in every of my solely reprieves from routine — one thing to sit up for, arriving within the type of coq au vin, or mango pie, or a double-chocolate layer cake. So listed below are a couple of recipes which are achievable on weeknights, and that I hope ship pleasure to you, although that’s, in fact, a extremely private factor. Inform me what yours are, or simply ship alongside ideas, ideas or issues. I’m dearemily@nytimes.com.
Two bonus recipes earlier than we get to dinner: Genevieve Ko’s sheet-pan bacon and eggs (toast bread on a separate oven rack for egg sandwiches), and Mashama Bailey’s vegan stewed black-eyed peas for New 12 months’s Day, a want for good luck in 2021.
Listed below are 5 dishes for the week:
2. Gruyère Puff
Melissa Clark described this pancake as a large, puffy, eggy gougére. I’m bought. Make it dinner by including a considerable salad on the aspect — I’m speaking mix-ins like jarred tuna, shredded leftover hen, nuts, et cetera.
View this recipe.
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3. Potato and White Bean Puttanesca Soup
I wish to curl up in a bowl of this soup and keep there all winter. Hetty McKinnon’s recipe, which is vegan, is hearty and warming, however briny pops of taste from olives and capers preserve issues attention-grabbing and brilliant.
4. Bucatini all’Amatriciana
This traditional pasta is famously easy, however an important rendition feels particular. This recipe is customized from the cookbook writer Giuliano Bugialli, and, although it’s value looking for out the pancetta or prosciutto, it is going to work with bacon, too (purpose for thick-cut), and with spaghetti subbed in for bucatini.
View this recipe.
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