Dinner - quick and easy recipes - page 141

Using the slow cooker allows you to get baby back pork ribs incredibly tender, but you’ll need to cook them in a sauce with tons of flavor so they’re not boring. For these easy, tasty ribs, you make a bacon-bourbon barbecue sauce for marinating and simmering the ribs. After 4 or 5 hours, when the ribs are tender, you brush them with more sauce and give them a quick turn in the broiler.

This fun, slightly wacky twist on the chile relleno calls on everybody’s favorite savory snack food—ramen noodles—to stuff poblano chiles. Simply boil the noodles, then mix with Jack cheese, bacon, and mushrooms, and stuff away. Since the starchy element (the ramen) is already inside the peppers, you can bypass dipping the stuffed chiles in batter and frying. Just bake and enjoy.

Fish offers a wide canvas for tacos: grilled, battered and fried, ceviche-cured. Here, boneless fillets are seasoned, floured, and pan-fried so they’re crisp at the edges, moist and tender inside. A simple fresh pineapple salsa spiked with lime and jalapeños gives the tacos brightness and a little bite. What to buy: Tilapia is a fish that’s affordable and readily available, but check to make sure the fillets you buy are from a source that practices sustainable aquaculture.

A five-minute turn in a stovetop smoker gives instant ramen noodles a depth of flavor that tastes like it took hours. You start by steaming eggs in the shell, before placing them in the smoker with the noodles. Then make the instant ramen in the usual way, and serve the smoked egg on top. It’s simple, comfortingly complex, and satisfying all at once. Special equipment: You’ll need a stovetop smoker for this recipe—our favorite is the compact and affordable model from Camerons.

We love the sweet, pull-apart breakfast treat known as Monkey Bread, so—inspired by a suggestion from our Home Cooking community board—we devised this savory version with mozzarella and a hint of fresh chiles. The recipe calls for store-bought pizza dough, so apart from letting the dough rise for an hour and assembling everything, it comes together pretty quickly. Serve the monkey bread warm, with marinara sauce for dipping.

The calzone—pizza dough lavished with a handful of cheese and other toppings, folded over, sealed, and baked—is the perfect self-contained meal. Here we fill ours with cheese, ham, and sliced jalapeños, and because we start with store-bought pizza dough, it all comes together in a flash. What to buy: Premade pizza dough is available bagged in 14- or 16-ounce portions at well-stocked groceries. If you’d like to make your own, you’ll need two-thirds of our Basic Pizza Dough recipe.

Nothing opens our eyes in the morning like breakfast tacos, especially ones that hold something bold and spicy. Here, we combine sautéed poblano chile strips with ham under a fried egg, served in a warm corn tortilla. Up and at ’em!

We got the idea for these impromptu gnocchi from our Home Cooking community discussion board. All you need is half a pound of pizza dough, a pot of boiling salted water, and a sauce (marinara is perfect). Enlist your kids to help with the shaping, then let them watch you poaching the dough and tossing it in the sauce. What to buy: Premade pizza dough is available bagged in 14- or 16-ounce portions at well-stocked groceries.

Skip the bun and wrap it up pigs-in-the-blanket style with this ridiculously easy yet whimsical jumbo-sized rendition. Just roll out store-bought pizza dough and cut it into strips that you use to spiral-wrap the hot dogs. Bake and serve with beer and caraway seed mustard, spicy yellow mustard, or whole grain dijon mustard. If you’d like to make your own pizza dough, you’ll need two-thirds of our recipe for Basic Pizza Dough.

Rolls hot from the oven can take a dinner party from nice to amazing, but with all the other things clamoring for a cook’s attention, home-baked bread tends to fall through the cracks. These knot-shaped, garlic- and parsley-flavored rolls are different: You start with store-bought pizza dough, which slashes prep time; then just roll, brush with butter and flavorings, and bake. The dough knots also work as a stand-alone nibble, served with marinara sauce for dipping.

We love the Stromboli, the Italian-American pizza roll. We simplified things a bit here, with store-bought pizza dough and a once-over rolling technique. Our filling calls for marinara, shredded mozzarella, ham, and fresh chiles, but don’t be shy about freestyling with other cured meats and cheeses, herbs, veggies—the beauty of a Stromboli (er, Strom-Dough-Li) is its versatility. What to buy: Bags of premade pizza dough are available in 14- or 16-ounce portions at well-stocked groceries.

Homemade cinnamon rolls hot from the oven are a rare treat. But it takes time and organization to mix the dough, knead it, and let it rise, even before you have to shape the rolls and let them rise again. You can speed up the process by starting with store-bought pizza dough. Just roll out the dough, lavish it with butter and sugar, sprinkle with cinnamon, cut and shape, and let rise while you heat up the oven. You can go from bed to the best breakfast ever in about 2 hours.

The Spanish brought ensaïmadas—rich, tender rolls originally from Mallorca—to the Philippines. The spelling morphed into ensaymada, and what had been bread dough heavily enriched with pork lard became buttery rolls crowned with grated cheese and sprinkled with sugar. We slashed the prep time by starting with store-bought pizza dough. They end up chewier and a bit more rugged than classic brioche-based ensaymadas, but what you lose in tenderness you make up for in prep time.

This easy recipe yields a rich, smoky-tasting chili, perfect for laid-back Sundays. Made with chicken thighs, canned cannellini beans, and a handful of other ingredients, it tastes more complicated than it is. Bonus: You’ll have leftovers for the week.