2,500 leaf recipes

Drunken pioneers pasta: wagon wheels topped with sauteed peppers and onions in a quick red wine and beef-stock sauce with basil and rosemary. Pantry weeknight pasta in 25 minutes.

Parmesan noodles Alfredo tosses egg noodles in a quick sauce of butter, half-and-half, and grated Parmesan. Five-ingredient Italian-American comfort dinner ready in 30 minutes.

Yum Hoi Mang-Pu, a Thai mussel salad tossed with lemongrass, shallots, fresh mint, fiery bird's-eye chilies, lime juice, and fish sauce. Crisp, fiery, and sour, served over lettuce as a starter.

Homemade Boursin-style garlic and herb cheese spread with cream cheese, butter, Parmesan, garlic, parsley, thyme, and marjoram. The classic French appetizer made at home for a fraction of the boutique cheese price.

Pan-fried orange roughy fillets with crisp breadcrumb crust, finished with a bright pan sauce of garlic, white wine, lemon juice and parsley. Light, flaky and elegant in 40 minutes.

Microwave-poached sole fillets bathed in a creamy white-wine shrimp sauce. An elegant fish dinner from the 1980s microwave-cooking era, ready in 40 minutes without dirtying a stovetop pan.

Spirelli pasta tossed with crispy bacon, sweet red bell peppers, and onion, finished with butter, parmesan, and fresh parsley. A quick weeknight pasta with five-ingredient charm.

Blaff: traditional French Caribbean poached whitefish in a spicy broth of lime, allspice, thyme, garlic, and chili. A Martinique and Guadeloupe specialty for seafood lovers.

Lamb Klephtiko: Greek-style boneless leg of lamb studded with garlic, bay, cinnamon, and oregano, wrapped in parchment and slow-roasted 4 hours until fall-apart tender.

Simple chicken saute is a lean 30-minute dinner for two: lightly pounded chicken breasts pan-seared in olive oil, then topped with a quick lemon, green onion, and mushroom pan sauce. Weeknight French bistro technique.

Thick and spicy spaghetti sauce gets its character from an unconventional spice rack: basil, paprika, cinnamon, curry powder, hot sauce, and burgundy wine simmered slow into a deep, complex pasta sauce.

Fillets of bluefish Gen Patton: bluefish fillets poached in white wine with shallots, then cloaked in a cream and egg yolk reduction sauce finished with lemon. An old-guard American classic.

Checkerboard clam crunch: crispy pan-fried clam patties bound with Rice Chex cereal and egg, topped with sour cream. A retro mid-century appetizer with surprising texture.

Chicken finger packets wrap soy-Dijon broiled chicken, tzatziki, lettuce, and sweet peppers in flour tortillas. Portable lunch-box rolls that hold up in a bag all morning.

Brigitte's sauerbraten marinates beef for three days in buttermilk and red wine, then braises it in bacon drippings with tomato and carrots into a tender German pot roast finished with a rich cornstarch gravy.

Baby salmon stuffed with caviar, a restaurant-style dish where a whole baby salmon is filled with salmon mousse and a line of caviar, baked in white wine, and plated with two sauces. An elegant seafood showpiece.