Roast pork tenderloin

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The (Easy) Wednesday Night Pork Roast
Pork tenderloin is one of the best-kept weeknight dinner secrets. You can prep it before work (in this case, smear mustard, mashed garlic and ginger over the meat and refrigerate) and then just pop it in the oven for a half hour. In the highly unlikely event of leftovers, try dicing the pork and using it in place of bacon for a breakfast scramble.

Get the recipe: Roast Pork Tenderloin
Salmon and salsa

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A Fresh Fish Dish—3 Ways
A lime-miso marinade gives salmon fillets zesty flavor, though you could easily sub in lemon or orange juice and mustard. The cooking method is up for grabs, too, whether you want to grill, bake or broil the fish. This recipe's accompanying rainbow salsa includes tomato, chili and roasted red, yellow and green bell peppers, so the finished dish is just as beautiful as it is delicious.

Get the recipe: Seductive Salmon with Rainbow Salsa
Grilled steak

Photo: Jeff Harris

A Better-for-You Steak Dinner
Strip steak is a good choice for grilling; it's leaner than other cuts but still tender. And in a twist that'll have microbrew fans cheering, food scientists have found marinating the meat in beer can reduce the formation of carcinogenic compounds during cooking by almost 90 percent.

Get the recipe: Healthy Grilled Steak
Cat Cora's Chicken Kebabs with Chimichurri Sauce

Photo: Coral von Zumwalt

A Succulent Way to Serve Chicken Tonight
Cat Cora's mouthwatering new take on chicken kebabs involves a garlicky, herb-flecked chimichurri sauce that you can also drizzle over vegetables or even salad. It's a welcome break from plain grilled chicken but just as easy to throw together.

Get the recipe: Cat Cora's Chicken Kebabs with Chimichurri Sauce
Egg salad

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The Dinner-Ready Egg Salad
Tarragon mustard can be an extremely useful condiment to stock in your kitchen: Use it as a dipping sauce for shrimp or fresh vegetables, serve it alongside broiled salmon or stir a spoonful into chicken salad. In this recipe, the subtly spicy sauce adds a kick to egg salad. Serve it over salad greens or atop cucumber rounds.

Get the recipe: Egg Salad with Tarragon Mustard
Greek Shrimp Skewers with Feta

Photo: Marcus Nilsson

A Greek Dinner Where You Won't Miss the Pita
Although many Greek dishes come wrapped in a pita, you won't need any bread to enjoy this shrimp-and-feta combination. You can leave the tails on and cook the peeled, deveined shrimp over the grill, or remove them and pan-fry in a skillet. Either way, the shrimp's lemony-garlicky flavor gets a bump from a finishing sprinkle of crumbled feta and chopped dill.

Get the recipe: Greek Shrimp Skewers with Feta

Next: 7 slim-down dinners
Published 08/27/2012