I love making curries, because they're so colorful. Grill vegetables, especially bell peppers, mushrooms, sliced carrot, etc., add meat (shrimp = yum), curry paste + coconut milk. Meanwhile, fire up your rice cooker, add rice, water, chicken stock, leftover coconut milk, peas, cumin, and turmeric (to give it a nice yellow).

Delicious, and way cheaper than your average Thai place.

BTW, the easiest thing in the world to do is roast any kind of meat, but I'm impressed by Mark Bittman's 45-minute roast turkey, which makes it even easier. (The trick is cutting out the backbone and cooking the thing flat.)

Not so out there, and more of a late summer recipe, but if you have a blender/food processor, gazpacho is easy, fun, and delicious. Basically you get a salad minus the leafy stuff: tomatoes, cucumber, bell peppers, olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt. Add some spicy: raw onion, raw garlic cloves (not too many! but enough!), maybe some jalapeno. Add some bread for body if you want. Blend that all together. Serve chilled. You might need to add some water at first to get the blender going. If you want to be classy, toss some diced veggies on top and maybe some homemade croutons.

Goes great with poor man's sangria: full-bodied red wine mixed with grapefruit soda.