Weeknight Meals

Here again you can add in up to 1 pound Italian bulk sweet sausage, cooked and crumbled, and this becomes a hungry-man (or -woman) supersize meal!

We eat a lot of swordfish when we are in Sicily, where my mom is from. She always orders a salad of oranges and fennel or oranges and onions to accompany it. When I cook swordfish anything at home, I always have oranges in the salad, for Mama.

This dish combines fresh and pickled veggies. It tastes awesome hot or cold.

Leaving a little skin on the eggplants will add color and texture to the dish. The small, firm eggplants are not too bitter and when they are firm, they will not soak up as much oil, so they do not need to be salted and pressed. However, if you leave all the skin on, especially when you use baby eggplant, the skin overpowers the flavor of the flesh and the texture is too tough, overall.

No bread crumbs, plus it’s not deep-fried! You could eat a mountain of this eggplant parm and not have to loosen your belt.

No bread crumbs and it’s not fried. Eat two portions. Life is good.

If you prefer a smoother consistency, by all means, purée the cooked celeriac and parsnips in a food processor.

I’m on a never-ending search for different ways to prepare chicken, and I have one rule: Don’t make it different by making it more complicated. This chicken dish is simple, delicious, and different. It’s particularly great if you have company coming over. It will free you up so you can actually hang out, too!