A New York Times bestseller built around the most honest observation in home cooking: you are a different cook on a Tuesday than you are on a Saturday. So the book splits in two. Seventy quick fix weeknight dinners on one side, thirty luscious weekend recipes on the other, and you pick based on the day you are actually having.

Jennifer Segal trained professionally and then spent years testing recipes for the Once Upon a Chef audience, which shows in how few of them fail. Whole chapters go to the things people cook again and again: marvellous meatballs, chicken winners, breakfast for dinner, family feasts.

Gina Homolka of Skinnytaste said she wanted to make everything in it. It is an unusually high hit rate, and it is the reason this one ends up splattered rather than pristine.