My friend Linda brought something like this to a potluck maybe three or four years ago — one of those neighborhood things where everybody’s supposed to bring a dish and half the people show up with a bag of chips and call it a day. Linda showed up with a slow cooker still plugged into an extension cord she’d run from her kitchen, which is exactly the kind of person Linda is, and she set the whole thing on the folding table and said, “It’s just pasta and cream and garlic, don’t overthink it.” I had two helpings. I asked …
There’s a Tuesday-night version of dinner and a Saturday-night version, and this one sits right on the line between them. Three things go into a bowl, you spread the mixture over the chops, and the oven does everything else. My daughter-in-law made something like this for us a few years back — maybe 2019, or early 2020, right before everything got strange — and I asked her for the recipe before I even finished chewing. She laughed and said, “It’s literally just mayo and a ranch packet.” I didn’t believe her until I watched her make it. The topping melts …
My husband Gary is not a fancy-restaurant person. Never has been. Early in our marriage I’d get these ideas about Valentine’s Day — reservations somewhere with cloth napkins, the whole thing — and he’d go along with it the way he goes along with most things I suggest, which is to say quietly and without much enthusiasm. One year we waited forty-five minutes past our reservation time at some Italian place downtown and he ate his entire entrée in about eight minutes flat, which is how he eats when he’s anxious, and I spent the drive home genuinely wondering why …
My mother had this battered enamel pan — dark blue with white speckles, chipped along one edge — and every Sunday afternoon she’d pull chicken out of the oven, skin dark and glossy, the kitchen smelling like caramel and soy sauce and something warm I still can’t fully name. I’ve been chasing that dish ever since. What I’ve figured out is that a slow cooker gets you most of the way there. Bone-in thighs go in, a simple brown sugar glaze goes over the top, and a few hours later you’ve got something that made me stand at the counter …
There’s a dish I’ve been making for years — ground beef patties, a couple cans of mushroom soup, a gravy packet, and some water — that my family genuinely thinks I spent hours on. I don’t correct them. It all goes into the slow cooker in about ten minutes and comes out tasting like a Midwestern diner plate: rich brown gravy, fork-tender meat, the kind of thing you want to eat with mashed potatoes on a cold Tuesday when nobody has energy for anything. My neighbor Paulette gave me the idea, I think around 2009 or so. She showed up …
My brother Kenny has asked me to make these ribs at least a dozen times in the past two years. Maybe more. He texted me last Fourth of July — not “happy Fourth of July,” just “are you making the ribs.” That was the whole message. I made the ribs. They’re slow cooker country style ribs with barbecue sauce and brown sugar, and that’s genuinely it. Three ingredients, set it in the morning, and by dinnertime your whole house smells like a backyard cookout even though you haven’t done anything. Try our Dr Pepper Ribs next. Why You’ll Love It …
This bacon brown sugar pork tenderloin is one of those recipes that looks impressive but comes together faster than you’d expect. Crispy bacon, a sweet-smoky spice rub, a quick sear, and the oven does the rest. My neighbor Paulette used to make something like this for her dinner parties — she called it her “company pork” — and honestly, that name still fits. Why You’ll Love It Weeknight easy, Sunday dinner impressive — it takes less time than you’d think and the oven does most of the work That sweet-savory glaze — the brown sugar caramelizes with the smoked paprika …
My mom never called this anything. She’d just slice the kielbasa, open a can of whatever soup was in the cabinet, and twenty minutes later dinner was on the table. Growing up in the Midwest, smoked sausage and potatoes together was just Tuesday — not a recipe, just food. I’ve been making my version of it for thirty-some years now, and somewhere in there it became this casserole. One bowl, one dish, and my family still scrapes the pan clean every time. Four ingredients. This is the recipe I text my daughter when she calls me panicked at 5pm. Try …
I found this method during a week when I was genuinely too tired to cook but too broke to order out three nights in a row. Five ingredients, one bowl to wash, and four foil packets that go straight from the oven to the table. My neighbor Linda taught me the foil packet thing years ago — she used to make them on a camping trip every summer and said the secret was not overthinking it. She was right. I’ve been not overthinking it ever since. Try our Southern Chicken Fried Steak with Gravy next. This is not a glamorous …
My grandmother would have poured that Coca-Cola straight into a glass and given me a look for suggesting otherwise. Cola in a pot of pork chops? Get out of her kitchen. She wasn’t wrong to be skeptical. It sounds like the kind of thing someone invents on a dare. But here’s what I know now that she didn’t: cola does something to braised pork that’s genuinely hard to replicate. The sugars go dark and sticky. The acidity works on the meat for an hour while the oven does its thing. You pull it out and the gravy is glossy and …
