Fish and chips with tartar sauce (oh, and salad). I made this recipe about five years ago, but since returning from Ireland have had some serious fish and chips cravings so it was time to revisit it. The fish is thoroughly seasoned, which is my usual complaint about fish and chips which rely too heavily on vinegar and ketchup to flavor the fish after the fact. This is my dream tartar sauce, with a quadruple zing from capers, pickles, lemon, and vinegar. The batter is easy to put together and sticks nicely to the fish. The one problem with this recipe is it appears to be written to mimic portion sizes from takeout places, which always serve an absurd amount of fish. This calls for 1.5 lbs of fish for 2 people, but I used 1 lb for 3 people and it was more than enough. There were no leftovers, because leftover fish and chips are just not worth having.

Fresh rolls. These didn’t end up being quite enough dinner, but they were a good use of a leftover mish-mash of vegetables in the fridge. I just shredded carrots and cabbage, added in some leftover roasted asparagus and snap peas from the week before, and finished them with roasted tofu and cilantro. For the dipping sauce I found a quick recipe in How to Cook Everything that was just rice vinegar, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and chilis.

Chipotle black bean soup. I’m so happy I revisited this recipe, and won’t wait so long to make it again.

Lentil chickpea salad. I love the mix of legumes in this salad, and you can never go wrong with a tahini dressing. I also roasted a head to cauliflower to have alongside, and the leftovers made their way into pitas with hummus later in the week.

Big salads with kale, roasted asparagus, snap peas, radishes, tuna, hard-boiled eggs, bacon, olives, and mustard vinaigrette. I rushed to throw these together before trivia and should have given them a bit more love, but they were still thoroughly satisfying. I almost forgot the tuna and olives, which is why they didn’t make it into the photo. Any big pile of vegetables with some protein and a nice dressing can turn into a stellar meal.

Toast with whipped feta, sauteed kale, and scrambled eggs. I’ve deviated from my original recipe a bit here and kept the kale separate from the scrambled eggs. I’ve found I like a very high kale to egg ratio, and when you try to put that much kale into the scramble the eggs get lost in all the wrinkles and take much longer to cook. Whole grain toast, briny feta, hearty kale, and creamy eggs remain on of my favorite combinations.

Cream cheese polenta with sauteed spinach and eggs. The leftover cream cheese from making whipped feta made for delightfully rich polenta topped with sauteed spinach and eggs. I had the spinach leftover from some tasting activities with kids this week, but if given my choice of green I would have obviously picked kale. I doubled the polenta and spinach so the following day’s breakfast was as easy as reheating them and frying up a couple more eggs.