The Perfect Pantry®

Roast beef panini recipe with caramelized onions and horseradish cheese sauce

During the week, when I indulge in a bowl of garden salad and call it dinner, I often think about the difference between guy food and girl food. If you believe that some dishes are not entirely gender-neutral, then you'll understand when I say this roast beef panini with caramelized onions and horseradish cheese sauce has guy food written all over it. I loved every single bite, yes I did, because the combination of beef, onions and horseradish reminds me in the best way of a wood-paneled steak house dining room, where thick cuts of meat arrive on oversized plates, with a baked potato and sour cream. The cheese sauce comes together in seconds from pantry ingredients, and really takes this sandwich over the top.

Recipe for salmon burgers with green yogurt sauce

At this point in my life, I admit to being set in my ways about many things. I like my hair short, my pants black, my dinner early, and my coffee without sugar. And I like my burgers all-beef, medium rare, sometimes cheese, never onions. With fries. However, at least when it comes to burgers, I'm expanding my horizons, and that's a good thing, because these salmon burgers are worth it. Light and bright with the flavors of lemon and capers, the burgers don't dribble down your chin, but that doesn't mean they're dry; Greek yogurt adds moisture to the fish, and the Green-Goddess-inspired sauce contains yogurt, too. I like the sauce chunky, but you can blend it to a smooth purée before you slather it on your burger. So, try something new, a flavor-packed fish burger so lean you can sneak a few French fries, guilt-free.

Grilled chicken, avocado and peach salsa quesadilla recipe

In the house where I grew up, we ate grilled cheese sandwiches all the time, but nary a quesadilla. Maybe it was a Northeast thing, but more likely, it was a my mother never heard of quesadillas thing. My own pantry always holds enough fixings for these simple Mexican grilled cheese sandwiches, a go-to meal on busy days. Most often I use Joseph's low-carb oat bran tortillas -- the gorgeous orange ones in these photos are habañero-lime tortillas from Trader Joe's -- and my friend Lucia keeps me supplied with her homemade peach salsa. Newman's Own peach salsa from the supermarket, or Trader Joe's peach salsa, will be fine substitutes that add a bit of fruity heat. Here's my secret to great quesadillas: tuck a few teaspoons of the salsa inside, and cook them on a dry griddle, to keep them from being greasy on the outside.

Recipe for roasted shrimp po' boy sandwich with Greek yogurt cole slaw and remoulade sauce

New Orleans' gifts to the world include jazz, Mardi Gras and two famous sandwiches: the muffuletta, layered with meat and cheese and pickled olive salad; and the po' boy. Clovis and Benjamin Martin, brothers who opened a restaurant on St. Claude Avenue in the 1920s, are credited with inventing the po' boy. When streetcar drivers went on strike in 1929, the Martins created an inexpensive sandwich of gravy and roast beef scraps on French bread; according to local legend, when one of the unemployed drivers came to get a sandwich, the cry would go up in the kitchen that "Here comes another poor boy." The sandwich became known as a poor boy, shortened to po' boy, and these days it's most often filled with fried shrimp or oysters. I tasted my first po' boy many years ago in New Orleans, as is only proper. More recently, at a farmers market in Atlanta, I treated myself to a fried shrimp po' boy (oh so good), dripping with remoulade sauce and sweet cole slaw. This recipe really cuts the calories -- roasted shrimp instead of fried, and judicious use of nonfat Greek yogurt -- while still letting the good times roll in your mouth.