Weeknight Meals

If an herbes de Provence blend isn't available, use a combination of dried thyme, basil, savory, and fennel seeds. Dried porcini can be found at Italian markets, specialty foods stores, and many supermarkets.

Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 30 min

For an attractive presentation, mound the salad on shredded lettuce and garnish with tortilla chips. Warm corn muffins and thickly sliced beefsteak tomatoes round out this substantial menu, and sliced fresh peaches and brown sugar wafers make a nice light dessert.

If you prefer, use honeydew melon for an equally good salsa. Offer buttered new potatoes and sautéed spinach with the fish. Afterward, serve slices of pound cake with rum-soaked raisins and store-bought caramel sauce. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

These steaks are delicious served with creamed spinach and roasted new potatoes.

This unusual dish — which combines biscuits, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese — is a cross between a meatless lasagna and a pizza bread. It's a terrific quick supper; just add a mixed green salad.

Neither peas nor potatoes are indigenous to North America. Peas were introduced in the seventeenth century and flourished over time. While sweet potatoes were popular with the settlers, white potatoes took getting used to; they had to cross the Atlantic twice (from South America to Europe, then from Ireland to the colonies) before they were widely grown.

The flavorful olive salad is also nice with sea bass, red snapper or tuna. Serve with steamed new potatoes, and uncork a Sauvignon Blanc to go with dinner.

Turnip plants were brought to America by early French and English settlers.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This very typical Lao dish may also be made with fish, pork, beef, or, in Southeast Asian tradition, water buffalo meat. While laap is often made with raw meat or fish, our chicken-based rendition is stir-fried, as it was when Lao cooks served it to us. A powder made from toasted glutinous rice subtly flavors the dish.