For this recipe from our book "COOKish," which limits recipes to just six ingredients without sacrificing flavor, we turned to canned black beans for a chili-like stew that can be on the table in about 30 minutes. Fresh Mexican chorizo sausage — not to be confused with dry-cured Spanish chorizo — comes pre-spiced, packing big flavor in one ingredient.

"In the Quarantine Kitchen" offers some 120 recipes from pastas to fish dishes that pandemic users have proudly posted — with all proceeds going to charity.

Delicious, yes, but we picked up a revelatory technique from Tel Aviv's farm-to-table restaurant Igra Rama that saved time and effort without sacrificing flavor. Chef Aner Ben Refael turns to a common Israeli pantry staple — pearl couscous — and treats it like rice for risotto.

"It's my bedtime routine," Lori Jackson, 54, of Lynn, Massachusetts, said of watching TikTok cooking videos. "I've taken ideas I've seen on there and made them."

Historically, stale bread was crumbled and mixed into the soup to turn it nearly into a porridge. Some Italians say this "soup" should be thick enough to eat with a fork. But we preferred toasting cubes of ciabatta or another rustic bread in olive oil and using the resulting croutons as a garnish so the bread better retained its texture.