Good morning. A while back, Kay Chun developed a great recipe for manicotti (above) designed for weeknight cooking. But for a Sunday supper, I skip the store-bought marinara and instead make Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese sauce to drench the stuffed pasta. It’s more work to do that, to be sure, but it’s work I enjoy — labor exchanged for smiles and conversation with friends and family.
That’s the plan I’m starting with today, anyway. Sometimes there are no manicotti shells at the market. If that’s the case, I’ll burble up some Sunday sauce and serve it with riggs and herbed garlic bread. Cheesecake for dessert? I think so, yes, either way.
As for the rest of the week. …
Monday
Mark Bittman’s recipe for pasta with mint and Parmesan is an absolute classic: a rich combination of butter and cheese that uses a copious amount of mint to leave the dish light and refreshing. And if you happen to have some leftover lobster meat in the fridge (as one sometimes does!) and a stray jalapeño? Make like a restaurant chef and chop those into the sauce. You won’t be sorry.
Tuesday
Puntas al albañil is a saucy Mexican dish made with beef and bacon in a thick, fire-roasted salsa. Pati Jinich uses it as the basis for a recipe for these bricklayer-style nachos, with melted Monterey Jack (at least in my version), crumbly queso fresco, plenty of avocado and sliced scallions.
Wednesday
I don’t know that I’d ask for it seated in the dining room of Bamonte’s in Brooklyn, but Kay Chun’s recipe for tofu Marsala with asparagus is an impressive vegetarian take on the Italian American classic, and the asparagus makes it a beautiful early-spring meal.
Thursday
Ali Slagle’s recipe for one-pot tortellini in a garlicky tomato sauce with sausage is perfect for the frozen tortellini I have stashed in the freezer (alongside bags of tteokmyeon and boxes of Jamaican beef patties).
Friday
Arthur Schwartz, the maven of Jewish food in New York, made fun of my recipe for chicken paprikash because of the attention I pay to the crispness of the chicken skin, and for the recipe’s inclusion of sour cream, which for those who keep kosher makes the dish tref. But, hey, seven years in? Six thousand ratings. Five stars!
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More housekeeping. Write us at cookingcare@nytimes.com if you run into trouble with our technology. Write me at foodeditor@nytimes.com if you’d like to pay a compliment or raise a complaint. (Here’s one now: I somehow managed to misspell Deborah Solomon’s name on Friday, when I pointed out her amazing Picasso essay in The Times. Apologies.)
Now, it’s nothing whatsoever to do with scapes or lamb chops, but today is the birthday of the 19th-century painter Ford Madox Brown, as good a time as any to spend some time looking at and thinking about what may be his most important painting, “Work,” at the Manchester Art Gallery in England. Very Hogarth.
You should read Charles Gaines in Garden & Gun this month: “An Alabama Kidnapping That’s Stranger Than Fiction.” True crime in Birmingham.
Also, a previously unpublished short story by Laurie Colwin in The New Yorker, “Evensong.” A love affair!
Finally, why don’t you listen to P.J. Harvey’s “Maniac” while you’re cooking that manicotti tonight? It’s credit music for a prestige television series, and you’re the showrunner. Have a great week. I’ll be back on Friday.
