Weeknight Meals

Throughout the 1980s, my family vacationed in Cozumel, off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. This recipe was one of our favorite local dishes prepared by the descendants of the Mayan Indians. Corn, peppers, and limes are all native to the New World and were likely cultivated by the ancient Mayans much as they are today. Spice up this dish with red pepper flakes or chopped chiles. Try a white, flaky fish such as cod, flounder, or sole. Or try a slightly meatier white fish like Oreo Dory, tilapia, mahi mahi, or snapper. Either fresh or frozen fish fillets work fine. This recipe is also wonderful with seafood such as shrimp or with thin slices of flank steak or pork.

Garam masala is the basic mix of Indian spices. You can purchase it at ethnic or health food stores. Use your favorite chile pepper in this dish. Jalapeños work fine, as do Anaheim or other green chiles, or even red pepper flakes if that’s what you have in your cupboard. For additional garnishing, use sprigs of fresh mint or cilantro. If your diet is dairy-free, try this recipe with plain soy yogurt.

This salad looks almost too pretty to eat! Try it with other Asian-inspired dishes like Broiled Tuna with Pineapple-Chipotle Salsa (page 57) or Bobby’s Favorite Beef Teriyaki Stir-fry with Broccoli and Peppers (page 18).

When we were traveling around the country shooting episodes of our Food Network show, Road Tasted, we ate lots of fried, barbecued, and sugary food (Hey, it’s a tough job but somebody has to do it). Wherever we were, Bobby would seek out a salad for lunch or dinner to add a little balance to his diet. The night he discovered chopped salad, it was love at first sight. He developed this easy week-night recipe as soon as we were back home. It’s a salad that accommodates almost any ingredient—feel free to add your own personal favorites into the mix.

Like Mama’s goulash, this easy, meaty baked spaghetti is based on ground beef. We add olives, Alfredo sauce, and bacon to give it loads of flavor. This is one of those dishes that folks line up for at a church dinner or school fund-raiser. It’s not much more complicated than following the instructions on the back of the Hamburger Helper box—but it’s a whole lot more satisfying. Serve it with a tasty and hearty green salad like our Crisp Romaine and Tomato Salad (page 115).

At The Lady & Sons, barbecued chicken and fried chicken are staples of our business—that’s what we’re known for. And barbecued chicken is the first thing on the list when we think about firing up the grill. It’s a classic. We add a squeeze of lime juice and some zest to bring out the smoky sweetness of the sauce. What you really want to taste is the fire—that’s our favorite flavor.

This is another quick-and-easy way to prepare shrimp that are smooth and buttery, with just the right amount of peppery fire to keep your family on its toes. We usually serve these with baked potatoes and a little bit of green salad on the side. Just pop the shrimp in the oven when the spuds are almost done and bring it all out to the table piping hot.

We’re always looking for new ways to cook shrimp. Here, the lip-smacking shrimp and veggies cook on skewers at the same time, making the meal fast and easy enough for a weeknight meal, even if shrimp seem like Saturday-night kind of food. Kids can even help out with threading the food onto the skewers. Serve this spicy recipe over Coconut-Orange Cashew Rice (page 66) and you’ve got a complete and extra special meal.

We perfected making honey mustard during the early days at The Lady & Sons, where it’s served mostly on the side as a condiment, or as a dipping sauce for the kids’ menu (see The Lady & Sons Honey Mustard Sauce, page 159). At home, we throw store-bought honey mustard in with chicken for this family-pleasing dish that’s a little sweet on the outside and nice and juicy inside. Warm macaroni and mozzarella salad is a nice complement to the chicken.

Southern cooks love to serve Swiss steak—a dish made with a tougher cut of beef that’s been pounded and braised with enough red sauce that it becomes so tender you can eat it without a knife. And that’s where the idea for this dish came from—pork chops cooked in marinara sauce and topped with cheese. We like to serve the chops with a bowl of egg noodles tossed with butter and chopped fresh parsley or with our Garlic Mashed Potatoes (page 21)—anything to soak up some of the delicious sauce.

We do so many pork chops at home and at The Lady & Sons these days because they’re fast—you can make as many as you need—and they’re a good change from red meat or chicken. This recipe is a really nice way to enjoy them. Orange marmalade gives them a sweetness that’s perfect for adding a little zest to your meal.

As kids growing up, we always loved Mama’s tasty “hobo” dinners. Super easy to make—she would just throw everything together in an aluminum foil packet—and easy on the wallet, these complete meals in a pouch were on the table each and every week. To dress up these humble-as-a-hobo meals for company, try adding baby carrots, fennel, and other root vegetables, along with some nice ground sirloin. The aluminum foil seals in all the flavor of the ingredients and makes the sacks—fancy or simple—even more delicious than they ought to be. And though they are a whole meal in themselves, we love to serve them with our Moist-and-Easy Corn Bread (page 45).

There’s just something about layers of ground beef, salsa, tortilla chips, sour cream, and cheddar cheese that appeals to the soul—at least when your mama has been making seven-layer salads and dips for as long as you can remember. Mexican flavors are particularly popular for parties—Brooke is definitely a big fan of them—but this dish is quick enough to fix for a fun weeknight fiesta, too. You can use up the broken bottom-of-the-bag tortilla chips for this meal, and you don’t need a side dish other than a little guacamole for dipping the extra chips in.

We get hungry just looking at the recipe for this biscuit-topped casserole! Made with some of our favorite foods out there—ground beef, pickles, ketchup, and cheese—this casserole is a fast way to make a big family-style meal that everyone will definitely love, especially the kids.

As a child, and well into adulthood, I was allergic to scallops. But little by little I got over it. It can happen; the body does change. So I’ve been making up for my years of deprivation and quite often treat myself to a full plate of carefully cooked sea scallops. I remember Julia Child emphasizing how important it was to use a large pan, so the scallops would have plenty of space to brown. And because they needed to cook over high heat, clarified butter was essential. We were once having lunch at an elegant French restaurant in New York, which will be nameless, and Julia ordered scallops. After her first bite, she put down her fork and proclaimed that the chef hadn’t used clarified butter. As she tucked away most of the flawed dish, she emphasized again the importance of using clarified butter when browning over high heat, although she did admit that most Americans aren’t going to take the trouble to clarify their own butter, and that it was okay for the home cook to use half butter and half light vegetable oil, which would temper the burning. I am always careful to watch the pan, as if Julia is still looking over my shoulder, whenever I make this dish.

Recently I’ve discovered an imported 1-minute polenta that works very well. So try it, and you can whip up a satisfying polenta supper in about 15 minutes.

“Tian” is a Provençal word for a shallow pottery dish, and there are almost as many tians as there are vegetables. The common ingredient is usually cooked rice enlivened with a green vegetable, aromatic seasonings, and cheese. To make it for one, use a shallow, single portion baking dish.