What to Cook This Week

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/dining/what-to-cook-this-week.html

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Good morning. I write from north-central Utah, a house under the Wasatch Range, snowshoe hares darting across the road outside, a moose sighted not long ago down by the corner that leads into town. The meals here are enormous, to feed teenagers who are present for as far as the eye can see, and they come repeatedly, in waves: for early risers; for not-early risers; for late risers looking for bacon that was fried off and eaten hours before. Lunch follows a reverse pattern, and then soon enough it’s time for dinner in waves as well, though someone will need to stop off at the market for milk beforehand because another gallon’s gone to, what — afternoon cereal?

A good thing to cook today: paella. It stretches nicely and feeds a lot of people, and is festive as the season demands. My pal Doc Willoughby has a nice recipe for a turf-centric paella with rabbit and chorizo; and another for a seafood paella with shrimp and clams. I’ve got a nice recipe for grilled paella (above) with just about every protein available at the market and fishmonger. (You can make all of those on a stovetop, easy.) And Florence Fabricant has a recipe for paella with mixed sausages that, she says, you can make in hardly more time than it takes “to babysit a risotto.” If all else fails, make that today and be proud of yourself.

And that’s Sunday taken care of, right there. Monday brings New Year’s Eve, that whole catastrophe. My advice: Only leave your home to celebrate if there’s a dress code and a band is playing, and cook at home before you go. Make steak Diane for two if it’s just the two of you celebrating, and it ought to be if you’re going to head out at 11 to hear a band, all dressed up.

Otherwise: set yourself up today to make some pan pizza tomorrow, then snuggle in to watch “Derry Girls” until it’s like 10 p.m., and you can credibly turn out the lights and get a good night’s sleep.

Tuesday can go in one of a couple of kitchen directions. For some, only black-eyed peas will do. Mashama Bailey, the chef at the Grey, in Savannah, Ga., recently gave us her recipe, and it’s a revelation: a vegan take on a dish generally flavored with ham hocks. “For me, there’s more to New Year’s than the tradition,” Ms. Bailey told Brigid Washington in The Times. “I strive to create a broader reach through a broader table.”

Others, hungover, will prefer Gabrielle Hamilton’s steak tartare, a family recipe with awesome quirks — Vegemite, Irish butter, pumpernickel — that makes the dish better than most any you’ve had. (Still others, really hungover, may turn to my recipe for griddled diner burgers. Eat those with extra mayonnaise and an ice-cold, 8-ounce serving of Coca-Cola.)

Wednesday. Honor your New Year’s resolution and cook even though it’s the middle of the week. I like Mark Bittman’s loosey-goosey recipe for borscht salad, which is improved immeasurably by the addition of some soft-boiled eggs.

On Thursday, you might try my recipe for pan-roasted salmon with jalapeño.

And then you can head into the first weekend in ages that doesn’t have some kind of holiday hanging over it like a spotlight or a sword with a really simple family meal for whoever’s still standing after this amazing run you’ve pulled off, Thanksgiving to the dawn of 2019. Say, chicken with shallots and cherry tomatoes, some garlic bread on the side, vanilla ice cream for dessert? Thank you, good night.

Thousands and thousands more ideas for what to cook this week are on NYT Cooking and waiting to inspire you — at least once you’ve taken out a subscription. Find us without charge on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. And, subscriber or not, please write if you get into trouble with a recipe or have technical issues with our site or apps. We’re at cookingcare@nytimes.com. We’ll help as best we can.

Now, nothing to do with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, but here’s Michael Pollan wrestling with how to write about tripping, in The Times. (The Byrds took on that challenge back in 1970: here’s their “Eight Miles High,” live at the Fillmore East in September of that year, and it’s a twitchy, brilliant performance.)

In Macleans, grim news from the World Wildlife Fund: Canada needs to do a lot more to save its caribou, owls and killer whales.

Finally, please do read this Yankee magazine feature by Wayne Curtis, “The Tinkerer of Dickinson’s Reach.” It’s about a man named Bill Coperthwaite and his work on yurts and with wheelbarrows and chairs, and about a particular kind of life as well. Fascinating. See you tomorrow.