Hi and welcome to Five Weeknight Dishes, where today we are celebrating two amazing women and their food. The first is the singular chef Angela Dimayuga, a creative force, whose 10 Essential Filipino Recipes collection is the latest installment in our cuisines series. You will not believe how good Angela’s recipes look; everyone who worked on the photo and video shoots went wild for them. Her incredibly simple bistek is below.
The second is our own Alison Roman, whose new book, “Nothing Fancy,” comes out this month. I’ve been cooking from it at home and have wished on more than one occasion that we could just publish literally all of the recipes on NYT Cooking. We are not allowed to do that. But we did publish a full menu of them, including these tiny, salty, chocolaty cookies (!!), which are fast enough to make whenever you feel like it. Her lemony white beans are below too, and have you had a chance to make The Chicken from last week, the one with the vinegar and crushed olives? I died.
And thank you for sending me your if-I-only-had-time dream cooking projects in response to last week’s newsletter. I feel you on the cassoulet and the lasagna from scratch. Write me anytime with ideas and feedback at dearemily@nytimes.com. I read them all!
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Here are five dishes for the week:
1. Creamy Chickpea Pasta With Spinach and Rosemary
Creamy and hearty and therefore the perfect cool-weather pasta. If you’re inclined to balk at the heavy cream, remember that it breaks down to just a few tablespoons per person — really not such a big deal, and part of what makes the dish so satisfying. I’m going to make it with bucatini.
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2. Sheet-Pan Chicken With Shallots and Grapes
A switch flips for me on Oct. 1: That’s when I become interested in roast chicken again, and will make it over and over again in various permutations until midnight on March 31. This recipe is the best chicken I can think of for this moment, and it’s as easy and delicious as it is beautiful.
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3. Bistek
This is the fastest recipe from Angela Dimayuga’s 10 Essential Filipino Recipes, seared steak and onions quickly bathed in a mixture of freshly squeezed lemon and orange juices. She adds brown butter, which is as good as it sounds. Make a pot of rice to go alongside, and, in 30 minutes or so, you’ll have an outrageously good dinner.
4. Lemony White Beans With Anchovy and Parmesan
You could treat this Alison Roman recipe (from “Nothing Fancy”!) as a side and serve with simple chicken or fish, but I’d just straight up make it for dinner. Omit the anchovy to make it meatless, and try upping the amount of capers to make up for the lost salt and oomph. I’d serve it with thick pieces of toast, but it would be delicious with farro, and I would also be up for tossing it with a relatively short pasta shape, like gemelli or mezze rigatoni.
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