“Simply outstanding — tremendous flavor”

Sardine pasta puttanesca, as punchy as it is speedy.

View in browser|nytimes.com December 1, 2024 Sohla El-Waylly's sardine pasta puttanesca. Kerri Brewer for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. A supercharged pantry pasta By Sam Sifton Good morning. There are still leftovers in the refrigerator, but the house is quiet for the first time in a while, and it's fine to ignore them. You've prepared many variations on the Thanksgiving meal already — first as a feast, then as sandwiches, soups and gumbos — and now it's time to throw a changeup and make sure no one around here gets bored. For that, it's hard to do better than Sohla El-Waylly's recipe for sardine pasta puttanesca (above), which takes a standard puttanesca and supercharges it with sardines packed in oil and cherry tomatoes in place of the usual canned tomatoes. I like it best with bucatini, sturdy and thick against the slippery pilchards, the salty olives, capers and anchovies, all the garlic and red pepper flakes, the sweet pop of those tomatoes tying everything together into a poem about the Tyrrhenian Sea. Featured Recipe Sardine Pasta Puttanesca View Recipe → It's a dish that's about as far from Thanksgiving as you can get. And on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, that's exactly what's required. With that sorted, you can turn to the rest of the week. … Monday I love Melissa Clark's recipe for sweet-and-spicy roasted tofu and squash both for its complexity of flavors and for the way it balances a whole bunch of textures: the velvet of the squash and the pillowy crisp of the tofu against the crunchy sesame seed garnish especially. Serve over rice or baby spinach, with plenty of hot sauce on the side. Johnny Miller for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Susan Spungen. Sweet-and-Spicy Roasted Tofu and Squash By Melissa Clark 1 hour Makes 2 to 4 servings Tuesday More Melissa, because Melissa delivers: Her recipe for red lentil soup is just the thing for a pleasant weeknight dinner. It's a variation on mercimek corbasi, a Turkish lentil soup, that's vibrant red, deeply spicy against a low thrum of cumin and surprisingly light. Don't omit the lemon juice at the end. You'll thrill to the brightness it brings to the meal. Joseph De Leo for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini. Red Lentil Soup By Melissa Clark 45 minutes Makes  4 servings Wednesday Alison Roman's recipe for braised chicken thighs with tomatillos is almost a stew, with a sauce thickened with hominy and tomatillos that have cooked down to a pulp, like a bass line in a dance hall hit. (Jalapeños and lime juice play the high notes.) Do I sometimes use canned tomatillos in place of fresh ones? Yes, I do. Michael Graydon & Nikole Herriott for The New York Times. Prop Stylist: Kalen Kaminski. Braised Chicken Thighs With Tomatillos By Alison Roman 1 hour Makes 4 servings Thursday Here's a sheet-pan vegetarian recipe from Ali Slagle that evokes a visit to a steakhouse without involving steak: gnocchi with mushrooms and spinach, dressed in a creamy horseradish-mustard sauce. (Of course, if you'd like to flip a rib-eye around in a cast-iron pan for a while to go with it, well, that'd be very nice, too.) Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Sheet-Pan Gnocchi With Mushrooms and Spinach By Ali Slagle 35 minutes Makes 4 servings Friday And then you can welcome the weekend with a David Tanis recipe that makes for an elegant autumn dinner: pan-seared pork chops with sage, dates and parsnips. We fancy! David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Pan-Seared Pork Chops With Sage, Dates and Parsnips By David Tanis 30 minutes, plus at least 2 hours' brining Makes 4 servings But if you're looking for something else, head on over to New York Times Cooking and see what you find. (Kung pao chicken!) You'll need a subscription, of course. Subscriptions support our work and allow it to continue. If you haven't taken one out yet, would you please consider subscribing today? Thanks! If you have questions about your account, write to us at cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you. Or you can write to me if you'd like to lodge a complaint or say something nice about my colleagues. I'm at foodeditor@nytimes.com. I can't respond to every letter. But I read every one I get. Now, it's a considerable distance from anything to do with the preparation of Wellingtons or soubise, but the indispensable Longreads put me on to a story by Tyler Harper in The Nelson Star, a newspaper in Nelson, British Columbia. It's about a man named Jeff Truesdell, who was married to a man named Nelson Figueroa. After Figueroa died in 2022, Truesdell began to visit all the communities named Nelson in North America. Love, grief, travel. I'd watch that movie. It's shopping season. Here's Helen Rosner's gastronomic gift guide, in The New Yorker. And here's Jorie Graham's new poem, "[ ]," in The London Review of Books. Finally, rabbit, rabbit: Here's Mazzy Star, "Flowers in December," music to cook with. I'll be back next week. Sign up for Dinner Tonight One quick and easy recipe in your inbox each night to answer that eternal question: What's for dinner? Get it in your inbox Sign up for The Veggie newsletter Tanya Sichynsky shares the most delicious vegetarian recipes for weeknight cooking, packed lunches and dinner parties. Get it in your inbox Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for Cooking from The New York Times. 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