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Anything for Dinner Is OK
Hello, Five Weeknight Dishes readers. Of all the new kitchen responsibilities I currently have, cleaning ingredients with bleach solution and disinfectant is the hardest to wrap my mind around. We don’t have to worry about screen time, but we do have to worry about salad? All of this is very time-consuming and upsetting, and anything you decide to do about dinner is OK right now.
This was the week I started to cook anything I wanted, knowing it may be too spicy for others or that my kids probably will give it the hairy eyeball. They are getting better every day at grilled cheese and scrambled eggs; excellent life skills to have.
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Here are five quick-ish recipes for the week:
There are many boring recipes for chicken piccata, but this one has sliced lemons for tanginess and shallots for sweetness. Our reader Edward left this nice Note: “Every once in a while one makes a recipe for the first time and thinks, “Wow, I made this? This is delicious!” Serve it with bread or alongside pasta.
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This is a way to have scallion pancakes for dinner, and use up greens and onions that might be lingering in the fridge. There are some ingredients you may not have in the pantry, but all you really need is mayonnaise and hot sauce: The spicy topping will make the dish taste great.
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We are living inside as if it’s the depths of winter, but remember to enjoy the arrival of spring with a walk outside or an asparagus meal. Our reader Leah said: “This was like breakfast for dinner, with a good bottle of red wine.” (And if you feel like having a little wine at breakfast, as they do in Spain sometimes, go ahead.)
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4. Spicy Sheet-Pan Sausage and Squash
This week’s sheet-pan recipe holds winter squash and spicy sausages, ingredients that can hibernate for a while in a freezer. All you need is last-minute freshness from lemon and parsley to wake them up again.
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5. Tagliatelle With Proscuitto and Butter
This recipe from the Los Angeles pasta master Evan Funke is one of our fastest dinners: just pasta, butter and ham. Make sure to use egg pasta, but frozen is just fine. Some readers have suggested adding peas; it’s delicious both ways.
It is cheering to get your notes from Nepal, Australia and Costa Rica, but anyone anywhere is welcome: dearjulia@nytimes.com. I am on Instagram and Twitter, but go to NYT Cooking for our new recipes, or come through Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. It holds nearly 20,000 recipes. Maybe now is a good time to join? All of the past Five Weeknight Dishes newsletters are archived here, and you can send questions and problems (and compliments) to the kind people at cookingcare@nytimes.com.
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