Good morning. There’s something special about dinner brought to you through the courtesy of friends and neighbors. My pal dropped off some tuna he caught out at the 100-fathom line, and the poke I made with it was a testament to his generosity and the magic taste of the wild. I get a similar thrill in the summer from someone else’s peak-season tomatoes, offered in return for a long-forgotten favor: one of the best sandwiches a person can eat.
This time of year, if you know a hunter and the hunter is generous, the bounty might be venison, bow-shot and garage-dressed, vacuum-sealed and wrapped in white butcher paper: backstrap to be marinated and grilled, or a rack to roast in bacon fat and serve with shallots and cumin.
My favorite preparation for that particular species of game, however? Mississippi roast (above), traditionally made with chuck roast. The butter in the braising sauce keeps the meat incredibly tender, and the mild spiciness of the pepperoncini both cuts and complements its minerality.
That is just as true when you make the dish with chuck roast, of course. And so that’s what I’m going to cook today, allowing the slow cooker to do its work all afternoon while I watch the N.F.L. conference championship games. I hope you’ll join me.
As for the rest of the week. ….
Monday
Rick Martinez’s recipe for roasted vegetables and buttermilk grits brings the cozy to a weeknight meal. While your vegetables roast, cook the grits over a low flame with milk and water, then hit them with butter and buttermilk at the end.
Tuesday
One of the cool things about Yewande Komolafe’s recipe for glazed tofu with chile and star anise is how you brown the tofu — in whole blocks, so that they pick up a crisp exterior, but not so much as if you cubed the tofu and fried it instead. It’s a different ratio of crisp to soft. I like it!
Wednesday
We all get to a point in home cooking where it’s impossible to imagine that you can cook another meal. (Often that happens on Wednesdays.) Some order takeout, but I hope you’ll consider Christian Reynoso’s recipe for chicken and greens pasta instead, made with rotisserie chicken and those triple-washed prepackaged greens. It comes together quickly, and more cheaply than anything you’d order in.
Thursday
Hetty McKinnon keeps a few jars of store-bought marinara sauce in her pantry, and I’m guessing she’s not alone. She uses it for a simple sheet-pan mushroom parmigiana. You can, too.
Friday
And then you can swan into the weekend with Melissa Clark’s adaptation of the recipe for Nashville-style hot fried chicken that’s served at Peaches HotHouse in Brooklyn. If you don’t have time to brine the bird, don’t brine the bird. We’re all just out here trying to do the best that we can.
Many more thousands of recipes to consider cooking this week are at New York Times Cooking. To answer a question I get quite a lot: You do need a subscription to access them. Subscriptions allow us to keep doing this work that we love. If you haven’t already, I hope that you will subscribe today.
Write for help if you run into trouble with our technology: cookingcare@nytimes.com. Write to me if you have beef with us otherwise, or just to say hello: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I can’t respond to everyone. But I read every letter.
Now, it’s a far cry from ghost peppers and limoncello, but Ron Lieber’s article in The Times about how Charlie Javice got JPMorgan to buy her company for $175 million, only for the bank to declare that it had been conned? You’ve gotta read it.
Here’s a poem from Adele Elise Williams in The Georgia Review, “Idolatry for Dummies.”
Meditating in The Washington Post, Tom Sietsema took on the question of $50 cocktails.
Finally, here’s Wednesday’s new single, “Chosen to Deserve,” from their forthcoming album, “Rat Saw God.” Big “Demon Copperhead” vibes. Enjoy them. Melissa Clark will join you tomorrow, and I’ll be back at the end of the week.
