Recipes that take shortcuts without sacrificing taste

A good recipe, according to Emily Weinstein, is a “map to deliciousness: follow it, step-by-step, and you’ll arrive at your destination.”

But as anyone who’s ever cracked a cookbook knows, that route can be fraught with unforeseen roadblocks that rely on a certain level of kitchen know-how to navigate. Having never gone to culinary school or cooked at home as a kid, Weinstein learned through trial and error, sometimes keeping dinner guests waiting hours to be served. Her hard-earned skills yielded an appreciation for well-written recipes, as well as the editor-in-chief position for New York Times Cooking and Food.

Now married with two young children, she remains passionate about trying new recipes that are fast and simple enough to fit into her harried schedule. She began writing Five Weeknight Dishes, a New York Times newsletter of genuinely quick yet inspired recipes from staff writers and contributors that appears weekly in millions of inboxes. “Easy Weeknight Dinners: 100 Fast, Flavor-Packed Meals for Busy People Who Still Want Something Good to Eat” (Ten Speed Press, $35) contains the cream of that fertile crop, curated by Weinstein in one easy-to-flip-through volume.