Marge Perry - Hero dinners: complete one-pan meals that save the day

TO RACHEL AND ZAK,

OUR CAPTIVE AND MOSTLY WILLING TASTERS

FOR SO MANY YEARS; WE TAUGHT YOU MANNERS

AND MORALS AND YOU NOURISH OUR LIVES.

WEVE ALWAYS KNOWN WE GOT THE BETTER END

OF THE DEAL. MOM AND EBO

TO DAD,

WITH DEEP APPRECIATION FOR OUR EPIC ADVENTURES,

YOUR UNWAVERING BELIEF IN ME, AND ALL THE

GREAT HAND-ME-DOWN LENSES. THERES NO ONE

WITH WHOM ID RATHER CRAWL UNDER THE BACK

FENCE OF THE TAJ MAHAL. MARGE

TO MY BROTHER FRANK,

THE ONLY PERSON WHO WAS MORE EXCITED

I WAS GOING INTO THE FOOD WORLD THAN I WAS.

THANKS, FRANK, FOR ALWAYS POURING THE

VERY BEST. DAVID

Contents

W e cook all day for work. Its our dream job; not only do we create recipes for magazines, websites, and corporations, we get to do it together. And you should see our counters at the end of the daytheyre laden with food! But, as crazy as it sounds, when 6 p.m. rolls around, we often look at each other and say, What do you want to do about dinner?

Sure, weve been cooking for eight straight hoursand the result might be half a dozen cakes and variations of sticky buns, fifteen kinds of ice pops, or hamburgers that have sat under photography lights for four hours. But no dinner.

Were tired and hungry and yescooked out. As much as we love what we do, there are times when evening comes and the last thing we want to think about is dirtying more pots and pans. (Seriously: weve been washing dishes all day.) We want a great meal that takes almost no effort to prepareand even less effort to clean up. And we dont want takeout.

Our solution lies with the humble sheet pan and its kitchen cabinet bestie, the skillet. These two ordinary pieces of cookware transform everyday ingredients into hero dinners.

We all need hero dinners: meals made from real, whole ingredients that practically cook themselves. A hero dinner swoops in and saves the day. Not only is it a meal you throw together with confidence and ease, you can sit down to dinner and truly relax, knowing theres only one pan to clean.

Thats why we created this book. We dont want the hour leading up to dinner to be about getting out a bunch of pans, matching flavors and textures of several side dishes, and figuring out timing. At the end of the day, we just dont want to think that hard. We want to enjoy a lovely, wholesome homemade mealand we want the respite of dinnertime to be more than a brief interlude before we have to (once again) clean up.

Hero dinners get a lot of their super power from the fact that they are made in just one sheet pan or skillet. But you cant just throw any old ingredients in a pan and have them come out tasting great and all cooked to the right degree of doneness. You need the right simple techniques and combination of flavors and textures to magically elevate commonplace ingredients into delicious complete meals.

Okay, so maybe it isnt really magicbut there is something awe-inspiring about the deeply savory, gorgeously browned chicken with crisp-tender Brussels sprouts and starchy purple potatoes we made in one skilletand with only about fifteen minutes of prep time. And while it may not technically be considered magic, we dont know what else to call our incredibly satisfying mealall made on one sheet panof tender, juicy pork chops topped with savory Italian salsa verde and accompanied by sweet potatoes and garlicky broccoli rabe.

Sometimes the magic lies in respecting the inherently good flavors of whole ingredients. Like when you roast red snapper fillets that are sprinkled with fresh herbs and lemon zest and nestled next to baby new potatoes and a handful of cherry tomatoes. In half an hour, you sit down to tender, mild snapper with a pop of bright intensity from the roasted tomatoes and golden-crusted potatoes. The great thing about this dinnerbesides that it is more delicious and healthful than something this easy has a right to beis that after you make it once, you wont need a recipe again. You own this now: you wont even have to think about how to make it the next time.

Other times, we use simple condiments or seasoning to take the meal to the next level. Whether it is a sauce, spice rub, or myriad other robustly flavorful ingredients, we think of these as the fairy dust that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinarywith very little additional work, of course.

Were also big fans of blender sauces, which can be as varied as the sunset orange , made with cilantro, jalapeo, and mayonnaise. We also use condiments from around the world, including spicy harissa sauce, which is available in more and more grocery stores. Harissa invigorates chicken with its exotic heatand all we do is spread a little over the surface. Its delicious and healthful and requires almost no work to impart loads of flavor.

Of course, the interpretation of healthy when it comes to food is both everchanging and highly personal. We use the knowledge we have garnered from writing about nutrition and developing recipes for magazines like Cooking Light, EatingWell, Self, and Fitness and a wide range of bestselling diet cookbooks and health-focused companies. While some folks are willing to live on juice, eat like cavemen, or give up entire food groups (even chocolate!) in the name of healthy eating, we believe a diet based on fewer processed foods, more vegetables, and moderate amounts of intensely flavorful ingredients is a realistic, happy way to cook and eatas long as the food is truly satisfying.

Nearly everyone agrees that the use of natural, clean ingredients is best. It is an essential part of our cooking style and philosophy that our recipes rely on the flavors and textures of whole and minimally processed foods. Smart, simple techniques maximize the impact of every ingredient, and the results are meals you can feel good about eating and feeding to your family. But for the record: we recognize the important role some processed foods can have in getting a home-cooked meal on the table. We believe using the occasional processed product is not an issueespecially if it makes the difference between ordering in and cooking. The problem arises when every meal relies on foods made with chemical preservatives, loads of salt, and crazy amounts of added sugars.

We created all these recipes to satisfy our day-to-day weeknight needs, but we often end up serving them to company. While we love preparing elaborate feasts for friendsits one of the reasons we both ended up cooking for a livingit just isnt always practical. With a booming business and too little time on our hands, sometimes its really nice to be able to tell friends to come on over, even on a Friday night. So while most of these recipes are weeknight friendly (there are a handful of slow-cooking Sunday supper meals, too), a slew of them are also great for gatherings (see ).