Weeknight Kitchen

These baked eggs are such a fun way to use squash. I’m partial to butternut, but acorn or spaghetti squash would work equally well. Roasting the squash before adding the egg ensures that the squash will be tender and slightly caramelized, while the eggs will be cooked to perfection in the center.

My personal opinion on street corn is this: Nine out of ten times, the corn tastes better off the cob. When you have a nice big bowl of perfectly balanced street corn, there is nothing getting in the way of shoveling it into your face.

That’s why these street corn nachos, inspired by Mexican elote—the famous grilled corn topped with a mayo mixture, spices, and cheese—are great. Every bite has tons of corn and the perfect ratio of crema, cheese, corn, chips, and cilantro. If you make this in the summer, you can cut the corn off fresh in-season cobs. The rest of the year, frozen works just as well.

The recipe for this hearty, garlicky bread soup comes from Rosa Filipe of O Barro restaurant in Redondo, Portugal. According to Filipe, the soup is often nicknamed “beggar’s soup” because it contains no meat or fish.

Carrots, celery, and onion are the base for any good comfort meal. Using rotisserie chicken puts this meal on the table in under thirty minutes!

Enjoy this dish as is or use it as a star element of the Best Friend Salad. Better yet, make a double recipe; eat some now and use the rest in a salad later in the week. Any leftover dressing is amazing tossed with sliced cucumber and sesame seeds.

A “virtual” cream soup, this is a creamy soup made without the cream. We don’t want to oversell, but this soup comes together in a blink and proves simple really can fly.  

The spicing opportunities in this recipe are limitless. If you skip the puree, the soup takes on a totally different life. The essential finale is fresh lemon and generous spoonfuls of whole milk yogurt.

This express chicken and haloumi bake leaves you with a gorgeous pool of sweet, citrusy, herby tray juices to drag each bite through.

There are two things going on with this 30-minute dinner that will probably appeal to kids: (1) the crunchy and (2) the cheesy. I love how those melty mozzarella rounds recall a classic baked chicken Parm—but there’s not an obscene amount of cheese. The recipe as written makes enough for four medium portions. Pair it with a simplegreen salad and some crusty bread.

Shortly after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, celebrated Italian chef Massimo Bottura launched a fantastic daily cooking show on Instagram. One of his ideas? Cook something today and use the leftovers in another dish tomorrow. This pasta with tomato and tuna sauce serves two, with enough to also make my Pasta al Forno.

This chocolate and hazelnut toffee is one of my favorite treats to gift during the holidays. Crack the toffee into shards and package it in small paper boxes. As with most candy-making, be sure to use a calibrated candy thermometer to cook the sugar to the right temperature—not too soft and not too hard.