Once you’ve been using Emacs for a while you end up using eval-expression a lot. 99% of the time I use it to make function calls. I never noticed before that it is kind of tedious to reach for S-M-; and then () despite using it so much. Here is a binding and a function definition that make it easier to use binding it close to home and inserting the round parentheses.
(global-set-key (kbd "M-;") #'my-eval-expression)
(define-key org-mode-map (kbd "M-;") nil)
(progn
(defvar my-read-expression-map
(let ((map (make-sparse-keymap)))
(set-keymap-parent map read-expression-map)
(define-key map [(control ?g)] #'minibuffer-keyboard-quit)
(define-key map [up] nil)
(define-key map [down] nil)
map))
(defun my-read--expression (prompt &optional initial-contents)
(let ((minibuffer-completing-symbol t))
(minibuffer-with-setup-hook
(lambda ()
(emacs-lisp-mode)
(use-local-map my-read-expression-map)
(setq font-lock-mode t)
(funcall font-lock-function 1)
(insert "()")
(backward-char))
(read-from-minibuffer prompt initial-contents
my-read-expression-map nil
'read-expression-history))))
(defun my-eval-expression (expression &optional arg)
"Attribution: URL `https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2014-07/msg00135.html'."
(interactive (list (read (my-read--expression ""))
current-prefix-arg))
(if arg
(insert (pp-to-string (eval expression lexical-binding)))
(pp-display-expression (eval expression lexical-binding)
"*Pp Eval Output*"))))