Chorizo

One of my favorite suppers is a good sausage with warm potato salad. I love the way the sausage juices mingle with the tender new potatoes bathed in a mustardy vinaigrette—a very French taste that makes me nostalgic.

There are endless possibilities when it comes to topping pizza. Here, sweet shrimp meet spicy chorizo sausage, slightly bitter escarole, and salty Manchego cheese. The combination is out of this world! If you haven’t explored making your own pizza yet, let this be one to try with the family.

This brown-rice version of the national dish of Spain may raise some eyebrows in Barcelona, but at less than half the calories of the original, this combination of fragrant saffron, garlic, chorizo, and shrimp is a beautiful thing.

This one reminds me of the California surfer scene. It’s a way-cool mega-rito, dude!

Here’s a killer dinner that even a charging Pamplona bull would brake for. Olé!

Stoup is good food. Homemade? Well, that’s even better

I know, I know, you’re exhausted. Well, let me tell you, this stew is easy to make, is good for you, and has a big satisfying flavor. You’ll be slurping away in front of the TV before you know it . . . and then you can go to bed, early, like your mom always said you should.

This one is good for B, L, D: brunches, lunches, or dinners.

A stoup is thicker than soup and thinner than stew.

This meal is a lazy-man’s version of paella. (But we lazy, big-mouthed, big-appetite girls can dispatch this dinner pretty easily, too!)

Food Network is located at Chelsea Market, in Manhattan. The Lobster Place is a great seafood shop within this huge market. I made up this meal one night during a run of taping for 30-Minute Meals. I stopped into the market and took home pure white scrod, some tiny Manila clams, and a little pack of saffron powder as my inspiration. It was so delish that John and I ate it three nights in ten, sharing it with family and friends two of those evenings as the simplest, tastiest way we could think to entertain a crowd. Whether you’re feeding one or some, make a whole pot of this stoup (thicker than soup, thinner than stew), as the leftovers get even better!

In translation, arroz con pollo simply means “rice with chicken.” When I was the chef at Cafeteria, the Latin American cooks made this dish for our staff meal just about every day. Its truly authentic flavors are homey and satisfying. I prefer using whole canned tomatoes and crushing them by hand because I have more control of the texture; plus the flavor is a lot better than chopped canned tomatoes.

This corn bread stuffing is a stroke of genius. It's so easy, you'll be making it far more often than once a year for Thanksgiving! Shelley Wiseman, author of Just Tacos, knows a thing or two about corn—and not just in tortillas—and she decided to skip the process of drying the cubes of corn bread in the oven. That alone is a huge time-saver. To enliven the corn bread, she balances the flavor punch of chorizo with the sweetness of onions and corn kernels. When it comes time to bake it in a dish (not inside the turkey), she forgoes the old process of covering the stuffing—which allows steam to soften the dried bread—because the bread isn't dry. She simply bakes it uncovered, so that the top gets golden with crispy brown edges, while the interior stays moist.

This streamlined version of a favorite Malaysian street food noodle dish, char kway teow, substitutes Spanish chorizo for the Chinese sausage sometimes used. The smoked paprika that flavors the chorizo may be far from traditional, but it adds another layer of depth to this seductive stir-fry of rice noodles with shrimp, egg, and jicama. There's just enough chile paste for a mild buzz of heat, but not so much that your mouth is on fire. If the jicama seems like a weird Mexican-Malaysian fusion idea, then you probably don't know that jicama is used in Asia, where it's known as Chinese turnip or potato. Its sweet crunch is reminiscent of fresh water chestnuts. Don't expect a supersaucy dish, but rest assured there's enough sauce to coat everything.