Sarah E Crowder

The combination of bacon and clams is knock-your-socks-off delicious.

After years of meal planning for my family, I’ve finally realized what makes the plan work each and every week: embracing the grocery store dinner. See, for a long time I didn’t include this as part of my meal planning strategy, and time after time weekday life thwarted my best-laid plans. A meal I thought would be good for leftovers would get devoured in one sitting or a late workday would derail the meal schedule and I was left without a backup plan.

A homemade take on the microwave French bread pizza from my childhood, still weeknight-friendly, thanks to some help from the grocery store.

Plus you'll get those veggies in.

This is one of those recipes that originated as an off-the-cuff concept while speedily scanning the grocery store aisles a mere hour before dinner. I see hummus, we’ve got veggies at home, I’ll grab some pita. The hummus bowls — basically a pile of juicy roasted veggies over creamy hummus — were so well-received that they now regularly appear on our meal planning list. This smoky, tangy edition is the version I love most.

When I’m making a salad, I typically focus on the lettuce base and carefully selected add-ins, then dress them with a basic vinaigrette. While the dressing is always good, it’s not the star by any stretch. This honey mustard dressing, though? It’s the reason to make salad in the first place. Don’t get me wrong — I love the flavors and textures that make up this chicken tender salad, but it’s the honey mustard dressing that makes it worthy of sharing.

On weekends I do my shopping at a co-op with a huge selection of food and groceries, but if I need to fill in the gaps during the week I pop into our neighborhood grocery store. While the options aren’t as plentiful, our local store has quite a few draws, like the packaged naan that tastes almost as good as homemade. These naan wraps are a mid-week family favorite. They’re filled to the brim with cumin-spiced lamb, shredded iceberg lettuce, and a quick homemade cucumber raita.

A few months back, I was frantically searching for ways to simplify my life. Even my kitchen routines received a dramatic culling; nothing was too precious or too small to be immune. It was then I asked myself: Why do I need to chop garlic for every meal? I decided this tedious task provided too insignificant an impact to continue daily, and mostly avoided it — and garlic — for several months.

Slaw gets a lot of love in the warmer months — when it regularly appears as part of a cookout spread or tucked into a pulled pork sandwich — but in our household it’s on the menu just as often in the winter. Cabbage is a cool-weather crop, after all. The base of this winter slaw is a mix of red cabbage and julienned sweet potato, bejeweled with orange segments and pomegranate. It’s proof positive you can eat the rainbow even in January.

Roasted broccoli is a dinner staple in our household. It’s one of the easiest ways to get some greens on our plates — especially on those nights when our dinner timeline is particularly tight. I can grab a bag or two of frozen broccoli and we can eat as we normally do, but with a fraction of the prep. Since we eat it so regularly, I’ve tried plenty of variations on roasted broccoli. To date, this sesame-ginger roasted broccoli is my family’s favorite.

A childhood favorite is all grown up with an almond meal breading and yogurt-herb dip.

I used to use quesadillas as a vessel for leftover chicken — usually the leftover bits of a whole roasted bird from earlier in the week. This recipe, though, was the impetus for cooking chicken for the sole purpose of making quesadillas, and now I’m dedicated to the concept. The cilantro-lime chicken thighs are excellent in their own right, but they’re even better teamed up with buttery, flaky tortillas and melty Monterey Jack cheese.

Sometimes I think being such a food-lover makes my cooking more complicated than it needs to be. I’ll always think those cookies would have a little more depth if I browned the butter, or those tacos would be even better if I pickled the onions. Sometimes I think about making lasagna, but then I’d have to make fresh pasta, homemade sauce, a bechamel … ack, nevermind. But if there’s one dish I’ve kept simple, it’s roast chicken.

If you’ve ever wondered or been asked how vegetarians or vegans get enough protein, have I got a recipe for you. With quinoa, edamame, and peanuts, it’s supremely satisfying, but more importantly this is the most flavorful grain bowl I’ve ever made. The edamame mixture is a vegetarian version of kung pao chicken that’s just as sticky-salty-spicy as its inspiration.

Every time I cook farro, I kick myself for waiting so long to revisit it. Nutty and chewy, it’s a subtle but sophisticated grain, making it perfect to serve as a backdrop to strong flavors without getting lost. That’s exactly what it does in this grain bowl, proudly bearing the weight of crispy seared salmon and saucy sesame spinach. While the flavors are complex, the prep is surprisingly simple.

Sometimes I crave corn in the winter. It comes without warning and, well, without corn. This year, though, I turned to my freezer both to satisfy my off-season hankering and to make a summery grain bowl I can eat any time of the year. Starting with a bed of mildly nutty millet, the corn is alongside broiled shrimp with a crispy, garlicky breading and topped with a tangy parsley-yogurt sauce and toasted almonds.

This meal was just the motivation I needed to branch out from the ingredients I usually reach for when I’m making dinner. Amaranth is a grain I’ve used on occasion in a cereal capacity, but for this bowl I took a savory route, pairing the mildly earthy grain with garam masala butternut squash, garlicky collards, and crisp apple slices. It’s a porridge suitable for dinner.

This barley bowl did not initially elicit excitement — my husband later described it as “unassuming”— but like so many grain bowls before it, this meal is more than the sum of its grains and vegetables. The details make all the difference.