30 Minutes or Less
Tropical Fruit with Rum and Lime
Look for ripe mangoes that are slightly soft to the touch. To evoke the tropics even more, serve the fruit with coconut macaroons or macadamia nut cookies.
Tarragon-Chive Dipping Sauce
This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.
Endive, Stilton, and Bacon Salad
This salad yields generous portions. Combined with a loaf of crusty bread, it’s easily a meal in itself.
Mustard-Tarragon Chicken Sauté
An elegant entrée in about 15 minutes — using ingredients you are likely to have on hand. Serve the chicken with mashed potatoes and baby peas or a Bibb lettuce salad for a balanced weeknight meal. Finish with a raspberry tart from the bakery.
Smoked-Trout Horseradish Dip
This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.
Orzo Pilaf with Green Onions and Parmesan Cheese
The rice-shaped pasta orzo is sometimes labeled riso or rosamarina.
Mashed Potatoes with Creamy Blue Cheese and Rosemary
A rich, delicious stove-top side dish with a silky texture. This pairs especially well with the Porcini-Rubbed Turkey with Shiitake-Madeira Gravy — or grilled steaks on any other day in November. You can make the potatoes eight hours ahead and reheat them just before serving.
Chile-Citrus Pickled Onions
Liven up chicken pibil with these pretty-in-pink, spicy-as heck pickled onions.
Ground Sirloin Patties with Red Wine Sauce
Known as bifteck haché in France, this dish would go well with potatoes au gratin from the freezer case and buttered, lightly steamed spinach. End with chocolate mousse.
Ham and Egg-Salad Heroes
Serve with potato chips, a heap of tangy coleslaw, and some sweet gherkins. Finish with strawberry ice cream and chocolate cookies. By the way, the filling for these quick sandwiches is delicious on toasted English muffins for breakfast.
Barbecued Ribs with Corn and Black-Eyed-Pea Salad
Add corn bread, a crunchy chicory salad, and peach pie for summer supper at its best.
Anything Rice
One of my favorite meals was made by finding some leftover meat or fish and some cooked rice, and tossing them in a skillet with whatever caught our fancy. When you're good and hungry, a mixed-up quick meal tastes every bit as good as any long pot [long-cooked dish]. And you don't have to wait.
Red Snapper with Cilantro, Garlic, and Lime
The cilantro lime topping in this recipe is a Southeast Asian variation on the classic Italian gremolata, which is made with parsley, lemon zest, and garlic.
Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 20 min
Fiesta Tortilla Salad
Spicy and sweet, this unusual salad would be ideal with grilled chicken or fish.
Pesto Bread
A twist on old-fashioned garlic bread.