Cottage Pie, Sweet and Spicy Meatballs, Salmon Burgers and Miso Chocolate Chip Cookies

“Oh, this is a knife kind of dinner.”

That’s what we say at my home when dinner is a capital-D Dinner, requiring plates and forks and knives. Think: giant hunks of roasted squash full of tomato-ginger chickpeas, or any bone-in chicken situation, flank steak, pork tenderloin.

More often, though, I’m making the sort of dinner that doesn’t need a knife — just a fork, spoon or chopsticks will suffice. This could be because it’s capital-W winter where I live, and a shallow bowl cradling noodles or stew just feels so much cozier than a flat plate. (It could also be because there’s a lot of good television on right now, and I want to eat on the couch. “The White Lotus,” how I missed you.)

Dan Pelosi’s new cottage pie is perfect winter comfort food. “Cottage pie is a near twin to its sibling, the slightly better-known shepherd’s pie,” writes Dan. “The main difference between these traditional dishes, which have roots in Ireland and Britain, is that cottage pie embraces ground beef while shepherd’s pie, fittingly, favors lamb.” His recipe is freezer-friendly, economical and versatile: Try ground chicken or turkey in place of the beef. Eat with a fork, maybe even a spoon (that mashed potato topping makes it easy to scoop up the savory filling), but definitely no knives are allowed here.

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Cottage Pie

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I suppose you could use a knife on Christian Reynoso’s sweet and spicy chicken meatballs, but the side of a fork should do the trick on these tender orbs. The sweetness comes from chopped dates, which contribute their honeyed, molasses-y flavor; crushed red pepper flakes provide the spicy. To go with, make Yasmin Fahr’s citrusy couscous salad with broccoli and feta, since you’ll be zesting your citrus fruit of choice for the meatballs.

No utensils are necessary for enjoying these salmon burgers, a classic recipe from Mark Bittman that makes great use of frozen fillets you might have stashed away. I know that burgers feel like a definitively summer food, but I want these with Melissa Clark’s flawless baked French fries, and you’d have to pay me a lot of money to crank my oven to 500 in August.

Speaking of not turning on the oven: Ali Slagle has four new sweet treats you can pull together in no time at all, with only the miso chocolate chip cookies requiring actual baking. (But they don’t require any actual work. All you need to do is stir together brown sugar, miso, chocolate chips, vanilla, an egg and your nut butter of choice and off you go.) Stovetop berry crisp, built on either fresh or frozen berries, comes together in the time it takes my oven to preheat; microwave sticky toffee pudding, even faster.

And while the main audience for fairy bread might be children, it’s hard to deny the appeal of soft, spongy bread slathered with butter and showered with sprinkles. I’m already thinking of ways to play with this formula — a thick slice of milk bread with creamy kaya jam comes to mind. Or maybe sweet, eggy brioche and salted butter? Whatever you come up with, don’t skip those whimsical sprinkles.