This spicy, satisfying pork and zucchini stir-fry, rich with ginger and garlic, is the ultimate solution when you don’t know what to cook midweek. Toss everything together in one skillet or wok and it comes together in next to no time. Pile the good stuff on top of rice in a bowl and enjoy the comforting, well-balanced dinner in front of you. Go ahead and take that bowl to the couch if you’d like, along with a glass of wine, if you’re in need of serious respite after a long day — it will most definitely help nudge you along toward the weekend.

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I recently read that the TSA is increasingly cracking down on travelers’ snack foods, ordering additional inspections of, like, suspicious-looking goldfish crackers or requesting that we place our KIND bars in the plastic bins beside our shoes, belts, and oversized bracelets. I snarled at that article the day before I flew to Europe, so part of my packing process included a few minutes of unpacking, as I shook all of the snacks out of my usual carry-on bag.

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Welcome to Kitchn’s series A Week of Dinners, where we show you how our favorite cooks put dinner on the table.

Alison Roman is the creator of a chocolate chip cookie that sent Instagram into wild fervor last fall — a recipe with enough panache to show off, but so easy it gives Tollhouse cut-and-bakes some competition. “They’re really, really good and they’re simple. They’re not crazy. There’s nothing polarizing about them,” Roman says about their virality.

The truth is that the cookies were not a happy accident. Roman has been a professional cook for 13 years now, and the thought and attention she puts into her work is substantial. “I want to help people feel empowered in the kitchen,” she explains. “It brings me a lot of joy.”

As a former Senior Food Editor at Bon Appétit (turned contributor) and new columnist for the New York Times, Roman is a force in the food world. She came out with her first cookbook, Dining In, last fall, and her second one is well under way. Somewhere between working on all of her various side projects and checking Instagram messages, she manages to make dinner for herself and her friends — usually unplanned, and sometimes involving popcorn and nutritional yeast.

I got to visit Roman in her new Brooklyn apartment, where we talked meal planning (or her lack thereof), the pantry ingredients she always has on hand for easy dinners, and the things she makes consistently for dinner (you guys, her steak salad recipe is so damn good).

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Wander the middle aisles of the supermarket and you’ll find no shortage of snacks. But if you’re looking for healthy snacks, well, that’s another story. Packaged snack foods are notoriously high in the stuff you don’t need (namely fat, sugar, and salt) and low in just about everything else. In between the stacks of cookies and the potato chips, however, we found a few great options that can satisfy your cravings for crispy, crunchy bites — without all the junk.

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Whether we’re buying a coffee maker or some knives, Cuisinart almost never lets us down. The brand is known for offering reliable kitchen accessories that won’t break the bank. And yet, there are still frequent sales to be found, which is why we’re currently so excited about what’s going on over at Williams Sonoma: For a limited time only, you can save up to 60 percent on select Cuisinart small appliances. We’re talking toasters, tea kettles, pressure cookers, and much, much more.

We know you don’t have all day to scope out the sale, so we’re sharing our five favorite finds below. Just don’t forget to add the promo code “PREP” during checkout!

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Kitchn’s Delicious Links column highlights recipes we’re excited about from the bloggers we love. Follow along every weekday as we post our favorites.

Can we all just take a moment to appreciate this insanely photogenic lasagna? This is not your average lasagna. This is a use-up-all-the-veggies-in-your-fridge lasagna. This is a your-friend-just-had-a-baby-and-you’re-cooking-dinner lasagna. This is a make-it-for-the-Instagram-likes lasagna. This is an I-know-it’s-summer-but-I’m-really-craving-lasagna lasagna. This is a Thanksgiving-will-be-here-before-you-know-it-so-you-better-practice-your-lattice-weaving-skills lasagna.

Name an occasion that wouldn’t be made infinitely better with this lasagna. I’ll wait.

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When I was growing up, my mom always had a bag of frozen mixed vegetables in the freezer. Mostly she used it for icing boo-boos and hiding the box of Popsicles behind it, although occasionally she served a long-freezer-burned (and then microwave-steamed) serving of that bright-colored corn, carrot, and green bean medley.

My own children’s childhood freezer is better stocked with frozen chicken nuggets, fruits for smoothies, and homemade (and store-bought) Popsicles that I don’t hide, but there is one bag of frozen vegetables that I rely on much the same as my own mother did and it is not the mixed vegetables of my own youth. This is the bag of frozen vegetables that is the hero of family dinners — and occasionally saves us from those childhood boo-boos too.

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Back in April, I wrote about what I found at the Bullseye’s Playground, which I still affectionately call the Dollar Spot. (See: Here’s How Target Almost Tricked Me into Spending $44 This Weekend.) The products in this section — brilliantly located right by the entrance, where customers are sure to stop and shop — are all so cute, colorful, fun, and inexpensive. Usually, nothing there costs more than $5 and most items are priced at $3 or $1. A dollar here, a dollar there — what could go wrong?

If I had bought everything I picked up, I would have spent at least $25. Luckily, I was able to show some restraint and only left with some new gingham cloth napkins.

Here’s what I was eyeing when I stopped in earlier this week.

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This week’s meal planning dilemma — there’s always at least one — is that our dishwasher is out of commission for what might be the foreseeable future. Fortunately for me, we have a “I cook, you clean” agreement, and my husband is the primary dishwasher. Still, I’m planning a week of easy one-pot dinners for us.

Here’s where one-pot dinners shine: they save everyone time, not just whoever washes the dishes! They typically mean fewer ingredients, more streamlined steps, and, yes, less time cleaning up. So whether you’re soaking up the last days of summer or are already in full-swing back-to-school mode, these one-pot meals will help you put easy dinners on the table this week.

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