Whether you are gathering for the holidays or this is an everyday meal, a beautifully roasted chicken is a wonderful dinner. This is Thomas Bouchon's simple preparation, where the main instruction is to truss, salt, then leave the chicken alone. Accompanied with mashed potato's cousin, parsnip purée, and a spinach salad with Dijon vinaigrette.

For those of us who love "A Christmas Story," a Chinese dinner during the holidays seems like a perfect idea. Probably because with all the chaos of the holidays, nothing is more comforting than taking the night off from trying to make everything perfect. Besides being organic and all-natural, this preparation is faster than getting take-out.

Sole Meunière is a classic French dish, typically presented with pommes château (house potatoes). Don't let this fancy name fool you. This is a rustic dish: a simple preparation of fish, potatoes and endive salad that will be pleasing for everyone at the table, including the cook and kitchen clean-up crew.

From the Jerusalem cookbook, Red Pepper and Egg Galettes are surprisingly easy to pull together and bring a wow factor to the dinner table. If you are lucky enough to have any leftover after dinner, they make a marvelous breakfast as well!

Herbivorous Butcher brings the flava' on this lo mien dish, with their Korean ribs. A quick sauté of noodles, sauce, and veggies make this a super quick weeknight dinner that is perfect for Holiday break.

French onion soup never ceases to amaze — it’s so simple, but that first bite just melts your heart every time. Slow and low is the key to the caramelized onion soup base, simmered with thyme and butter and topped with toasted baquette and Gruyère cheese.

The search for crispy, non-fried, chicken tenders — a year-long quest — has led to this: Omega-3, calcium, and iron-rich, heart-healthy seeds. This is not your fast-food chicken tender recipe.

It's amazing how one of the easiest slow-cook recipes ever can yield results that will have everyone swooning. By the time these beef spare ribs are done, they will be falling off the bone into a sauce bath that is both comforting and complex. Whip together some milk-braised cabbage and rice and dinner is ready to be served.

If you haven’t heard of cioppino it’s probably because we live in the midwest, leagues away from a proper dock-side fish market. But this delicious vegetable-based “Catch of the Day” soup is filled with all kinds of goodies from the sea — like shrimp, crab, scallops and cod — simmered in a tomato broth with herbs.

When I traveled to Greece, saganaki (fried cheese) was on every menu. At the time, I had no appreciation for this hard salty cheese because I was hoping it would be gooey like Wisconsin fried cheese curds. Too bad, since some restaurants lit it on fire before serving! The saganaki in this recipe is bite-sized, perfect for topping a traditional Greek salad with crunchy, salty nuggets.

This vegetarian of short ribs is short on time but long on flavor. James Beard-winning chef creates a flavorful sauce for Herbivorous Butcher porterhouse steak for a hearty entrée, served alongside milk-braised cabbage and rice.

I wanted to include a Jacques Pépin recipe on the roster, since he is brilliant at creating tasty dishes that take less than 30 minutes to make. These steamed drop-biscuits are tinged with ricotta cheese and covered with a luscious red pepper sauce and topped with Parmesan cheese.

This recipe for chicken will yield a skin so crispy you'll think this it is deep-fried (it's not). You probably are going to make this a go-to preparation for chicken. Dished up with parsnips coated with chestnut purée and brown rice tossed with cranberries, this is a winter dish that is fast and delicious.

This is one of those meals that make you hungry the minute you catch a whiff of it. Fresh peppers and chilies simmer with ground beef, taco seasoning, beans, corn, tomato and butternut squash, until your nose can't take it anymore. Serve it with the taco toppings of your choice, like chips, cheese, avocado and salsa.

Delicate flounder fillets either lightly breaded or simply pan-fried, laid in a buttery toasted bun and topped with tomato, lettuce and a 10-ingredient remoulade sauce. Perfectly enjoyable, for all family members.

When a vegetarian dish appears on the Serious Eats website — holding its own against carnivorous indulgences — it usually is pretty darned amazing. For this recipe, white beans get creamed up with two kinds of cheese, topped with bright kale and a fried egg. This light-yet-filling dinner makes an equally delicious breakfast or lunch.

Peppers, peppers, and more peppers: Three different kinds of peppers! Two kinds of beans ... plus squash, corn, and full-blown taco seasonings and taco toppings of your choice, like chips, cheese, avocado and salsa.

This simple dish is prepared by layering cooked spaghetti with a cheese mix of Fontina, mozzarella, Gruyère and gorgonzola. While easy, it still is elegant enough for a dinner party. Comes with mixed greens on the side.