Easy Authentic Recipes Fully Tested

An onion and blue cheese tart cut into wedges with crispy onions scattered around it.

Starters

A fork holding a single garlic butter steak bite with a platter of steak bites nearby.

Easy Pot Roast, Potatoes, and Vegetables

This classic, hearty, homey dish—just like something your grandma used to make but better—is an ideal one-pot meat-and-potatoes meal. Includes oven as well as slow cooker instructions.

4 hrs

12 Days of Christmas Cookies

Cranberry Pistachio Cookies

These easy-to-make icebox cookies are bejeweled with cranberries and pistachios to create a standout holiday cookie.

3 hrs 35 mins

Italian Rainbow Cookies

Also known as Neapolitan or Venetian cookies, these vivid cakes are stacked and sliced and dubbed cookies. We can deal.

2 hrs

Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies

A classic. And it’s even better than we remembered. And we mean that in the best possible way, moms.

40 mins

Christmas Sugar Cookies

Christmas eating is mostly about the cookies, we think. Pull out your favorite cookie cutters and sparkliest sprinkles because it’s that time of year!

3 hrs 30 mins

Old-Fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies

Crisp at the edges. Chewy within. Peanutty through and through. A classic perfected. Pass the milk, please.

1 hr

Gingerbread Men Cookies

The cutest, sweetest, happiest gingerbread people ever, right? They also happen to be the fastest, cheapest, unfussiest gingerbread cookies we’ve encountered.

1 hr

Crisp Peanut Butter Cookies

These uncannily crisp, seemingly shortbreadish cookies from San Francisco’s Miette are–and we mean this–unlike any you’ve ever encountered.

40 mins

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Tender chocolate cookies that have a little secret, in the form of a creamy peanut butter filling. It might seem like magic but it’s actually pretty easy.

1 hr

Viennese Crescent Cookies

A holiday cookie if we ever saw one! So buttery, so nutty, so delicate, so mind-bendingly charming, these traditional Viennese cookies rival the city’s fancier pastries as our fave.

4 hrs

Biscochitos

Yes, lard. In a cookie. The rendered pig fat lends the biscochitos their trademark flaky texture. The truth lies in the taste. Swear.

1 hr 30 mins

Chocolate Ginger Crinkle Cookies

The classic cookie benefits enormously from a hit of ginger here with these surprise sleeper hits of your Christmas season.

1 hr 15 mins

Lebkuchen

These traditional German Christmas cookies that are subtly reminiscent of gingerbread are typically called lebkuchen, although we tend to refer to them as moments of perfectly spiced deliciousness.

5 hrs

Dinners for Dec 2 ~ Dec 6

If you’re like me, the last thing you want to think about is what to make for dinner. I’ve done the work for you!

Cavatelli with Turkey Sausage, Tomato, and Broccoli Rabe

35 mins

Breaded Fish Fillets

30 mins

New Cooking Class

A banner that reads Learn to Make Pasteis de Nata.

I hope you’ll join me on Sunday, December 8th, from 2 to 5 PM EST for a LIVE online baking class. I’ll be making one of the world’s most beloved sweets: the pastel de nata!

In this fun class, you learn how to layer and roll the dough to make that perfect spiral shell, cook the custard, fill the shells, and bake the tarts to get that gorgeous brown mottling on the top.

☞ I want in!

Hey, I’m David Leite

I’m a three-time James Beard Award-winning food writer, cookbook author, memoirist, podcast host, and publisher. I created this site in 1999 to help you find simple, quick, and wicked flavorful recipes. For the past 24 years, I’ve been cooking, teaching, and writing about all types of food, including those from my Portuguese heritage. Let’s eat! Vamos comer!