When We Can Barely Be Bothered To Cook . . .

The holidays are fast approaching and that means, for those of us planning and hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, it's time to take things easy in the kitchen for a week or two. Follow our lead and please, save up that energy for the big meals! Above, leftover Sweet Potato Rice Pilaf (recipe in post below), quickly curried chickpeas, lettuce and radish sprouts, roasted chilies, onion pakoras and almonds. Most of this meal was reheated in the microwave, straight from the fridge, and if you keep the house stocked with leftovers, just add a salad to freshen things up.

These Onion Pakoras don't require deep-frying which means no messy clean-up afterwards. If you missed it, here's our recipe for the pakoras.

More of that leftover Sweet Potato Rice Pilaf with roasted veggies, fresh salsa, sour cream and Cheddar-Chipotle Quesadillas. For a superb snack in seconds, combine 1 cup grated cheddar with 1 T. sour cream and 1 chopped, canned chipotle pepper. Stir in some of the adobo sauce from the can as well. Use as a filling for quesadillas. Devour them all; repeat.

It's tempting to decry quesadillas as an uninspired dinner. Except they're just so scrumptious, all that melted gooey cheese encased in a crisped tortilla, a hint of heat from chilies perfectly cutting through the richness along with the acidic/sweet bite of just-chopped pico de gallo.