30 Minutes or Less

Pasta with butter, ricotta, and Parm cheese is an Italian children’s standard. Add a little broccoli—we grown-ups need our fiber—then be a kid again and enjoy.

Another easy chicken dinner: good for you, a good go-to, and good to go!

The saffron does all the work for you in this dish—you’ll freak out when you take your first bite and actually taste how easy this was to make. Since you now have saffron on hand, next time you’re making regular old rice, add a pinch of saffron and your rice will taste extraordinary.

Sweet and simply delicious, this dish is a real mild-child, for nights when you feel less than wild.

Stoup is good food. Homemade? Well, that’s even better

The ingredients list is the whole sales pitch. Need I say more?

I loved corn so much as a kid that you couldn’t get that cob out of my hand for hours. In the summer months substitute fresh kernels scraped from the cob for the frozen.

A friend recommended that I add a little fresh dill and lime juice to my regular Bloody Mary concoction. I gave it a shot and it was great! The dill and lime punched up all the flavors without taking them over. I’ve applied that trick to these burgers.

This is a chop, drop, and open recipe. Place your cutting board next to the stove, heat up the pots, chop everything on the board, drop it into the pan, then open up your cans. As soon as the stoup bubbles, dinner is done.

Meaty, easy, and Mediterranean-style, this recipe will make any list of favorites.

Eat this meal in front of the TV. Invite Clint Eastwood and the cast of your favorite spaghetti western (mine’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly).

I know, I know, you’re exhausted. Well, let me tell you, this stew is easy to make, is good for you, and has a big satisfying flavor. You’ll be slurping away in front of the TV before you know it . . . and then you can go to bed, early, like your mom always said you should.

Here’s another one of my Better Burgers. This one comes out looking so impressive. I would serve it even when I entertain (were I not so exhausted!).

This stoup will quickly become one of your comfort food favorites, promise!

When is a sammy not just a sammy? When it’s a meal! Try wrapping your mouth around this riff on a Reuben.

If you like those spinach and artichoke dips you get on the appetizer menu in restaurants, you’re gonna LOVE this!

Pappa al Pomodoro is Tuscan stale bread soup. It is a favorite of my mom, Elsa. When we are both tired this is a good go-to recipe: pappa for my mama. Use a vegetable peeler to curl off nice big shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano to float on top of the soup.

Anchovies work magic here. Once they melt they will not taste fishy; they’ll taste more like salted nuts, really. Plus, anchovies in any seafood sauce I serve are the secret ingredient that makes the eaters go “Hmm, what is that?” (Don’t tell anyone my secret, k?)

I came up with this one because we always have sweet vermouth on hand to make Manhattans, but we use it for nothing else. It’s a big bottle. This sauce is so good that we may actually need to get another bottle one day soon! (Who knew you could make such a sexy meal so simply? Hey, there are some things you should never be too tired for, wink-wink, nudge-nudge!)

This Roman dish is as old as the city’s seven hills. It doesn’t get any easier, really. As a side, I fry up some garlic in oil and toss it with chopped defrosted spinach and some rinsed canned white beans.