This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies and for Terry Gross. Like a lot of families,

we've gotten in the habit at my house in recent years of trying recipes from the New York Times

cooking website, and we've noticed that many of our favorites are written by Melissa Clark.

Over time, many other friends have said the same thing. Hers are just reliably good.

This shouldn't be a big surprise really. Clark is the author of more than 40 cookbooks and

winner of multiple James Beard and International Association of Culinary Professionals awards.

She writes a weekly column for the Times called Good Appetite and she regularly produces cooking

videos. So we are delighted to have Melissa Clark on the show as she publishes her latest cookbook

Dinner in One, Exceptional and Easy One Pan Meals. Melissa Clark, welcome to Fresh Air.

Oh, it's so good to be here. Thank you.

This cookbook has everything from meatball subs to peanut crusted tofu. What gave you the idea

for this One Pan cookbook? Well, you know, I've always been interested in making my recipes

accessible and simple for home cooks. I mean, because that's how I cook. I just love to,

you know, cook my meal to get into the chopping. But the one thing that I don't love is the cleanup.

So as part of the way I always cook, I've always been figuring out, how can I streamline? How can

I make this recipe easier? How do I eliminate a bowl or do everything on one sheet pan or in one

skillet? And I've been doing this over the years. But for this book, I decided, you know what?

I know I've been kind of doing this. I want to set a challenge and I want to do one pot only.

I mean, One Pot Meals with they are classics, you know, but we mostly think of one pot as being a

stew or a soup. And I wanted to just do it across the board. Give me one vessel, a sheet pan,

one of my favorites, an instant pot, another favorite, a skillet, a casserole dish. How do I do a

meal that would normally take two or three pans and do it in one? Right. And that's how the book is

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