Levantine spicing and Italian braising, with a coconut-lime shrimp and a pomegranate salad

The Parmesan baked gnocchi with beef-bacon, peas, mint and arugula is a dish I started making for one household and now put on half my menus. I first made it as a way to use up peas, and it turned into the thing people ask for by name. The gnocchi is browned in the pan before it ever sees the oven, the beef-bacon is crisped separately so it does not go limp, and the mint and arugula go in cold at the very end. Alongside the Italian braised chicken pomodoro it makes the most familiar plate of the week, which every menu needs one of.

A few notes on what is in what, since this menu spreads its allergens around. There is no pork anywhere: the gnocchi uses beef-bacon. Nuts appear only in the charred asparagus with shallots and almonds, and shellfish only in the coconut spinach lime shrimp, so both are easy to leave out. Dairy is harder to avoid here, running through the pomodoro chicken, the gnocchi and the whipped feta dip beside the crispy baked zucchini sticks.

Crispy baked zucchini sticks are best on day one and want 7 minutes at 425°F on a rack, never covered, with the whipped feta added after. The pomodoro chicken takes 15 minutes at 350°F covered and is genuinely better on day two once the tomatoes have gone into the sauce. Coconut spinach lime shrimp I would eat first, warmed for no more than 3 minutes in a pan, because reheated shrimp goes tight fast.