Buttermilk

With just two ingredients, this has to be one of the simplest-not to mention tastiest-recipes ever devised.

Swedish cooks use lots of buttermilk, and the lingonberry jam suggested as an accompaniment to these incredibly light pancakes is a typical Swedish condiment.

What to drink: Fess Parker 2000 Late Harvest Muscat Canelli, Santa Barbara County, or another sweet dessert wine with orange and honey flavors.

These muffins have the comforting flavor of graham crackers, with just a hint of cinnamon and sugar.

Prunes and Cognac add moistness and great flavor to this rich chocolate cake.

The silky texture and tangy buttermilk flavor of this panna cotta are irresistible. Start preparing the dessert one day ahead.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. Makes use of the microwave oven.

Serve with black-eyed peas, biscuits, a watercress salad and cold beer or iced tea.

These muffins are at once light and chewy.

The lovely color and tangy taste of this starter make it a real crowd pleaser. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional unattended time.

Made with a mixture of cooked and raw potatoes, boxty was created as a way to use a few readily available ingredients to produce different results. It can take shape as bread, pancakes or dumplings. The recipe has been popular for so long that one traditional rhyming song goes, "Boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan; if you can't make boxty, you'll never get a man." The households that didn't have a store-bought grater improvised by using nails to punch grating holes into a box or flattened tin can. Boxty is most often made as a griddle bread, served with bacon and eggs for a special breakfast treat.

From Figtree's Cafe in Venice, California.