Are you a foodie, or are you a techie? Put another way, do you cook dinner from scratch most nights, or are you more inclined to, in the words of writer Virginia Heffernan, "bust out boxes marked Amy's or Annie's"? Heffernan's recent New York Times column about her life as a "dinner hacker" didn't go over so well with foodies, but in a subsequent online back-and-forth with food writer Amanda Hesser, the two sides found a place to meet halfway when Hesser, who just won a fancy James Beard Award for her Essential New York Times Cookbook, said she sometimes assembles "hacky" dinners for her family, cobbling together bits and pieces to make a full meal.

Hesser's version of a hacked dinner involved olives, cheese, salumi, bread and roasted asparagus. "Preparing dinner involved laying the foods out on a platter—this was our Sunday dinner," she said. "Interactive. Fun. My kids and I talked about where salumi comes from and what cheese rind is. It was a total 'hacky' dinner but still good."

Here are some of my go-to hacked meals. No cooking involved, but no opening a box and microwaving the contents either. What are some of yours?

1. Tuna packed in olive oil, black olives, jarred sun-dried tomatoes, slices of baguette
2. Brie, crackers (Almondina Brantreats are perfect), figs, prosciutto
3. Rotisserie chicken, boiled new potatoes, asparagus microwaved (both vegetables drizzled in olive oil and salt)
4. Hard salami, jarred roasted red peppers, fresh mozzarella, semolina bread
5. Slices of avocado on crackers, hunks of sharp Cheddar, canned black beans, chorizo