Simple Cooking

This luscious combination of hot cider and Averna is our favorite way to spike cider these days. Sweetened with citrusy Grand Marnier and enriched with salted butter, it’s the perfect hot drink to enjoy outdoors.

This golden-hued turmeric hot toddy from Claire Sprouse of Brooklyn’s Hunky Dory is wonderfully savory from the combination of nutty Amontillado sherry and earthy turmeric.

Warm, spicy crust seeks peppy, tangy curd for meaningful conversation, foodie adventures, and romantic oven snuggles. Low-maintenance and easy to love.

The secret to these stewy baked eggs is a can of lentil soup. Any basic variety of lentil soup will work—you'll dress it up with the earthy spices and caramelized onions.

While pimento cheese is perfect as is as a spread, it also makes a pretty darn good queso-like dip. This particular version is smooth and velvety and has a kick of smoke and heat thanks to chipotle in adobo sauce—even pimento purists will find it delicious.

The process for this spiral ham is all about imparting flavor. Once finished, the meat will be super-tender and you’ll have a great cooking liquid that can be sopped up with rice, tortillas, potatoes, bread…or egg noodles.

The thought of making homemade caramel sauce is daunting for many cooks, but there’s no reason to be intimidated. It’s simple to prepare and, start to finish, takes only 15 to 20 minutes, after which you have a luscious, full-bodied sauce to drizzle on apple and peach pies, use in and on cream pies, and top off pie à la mode. No fancy equipment needed: just a 3-quart stainless steel saucepan and a candy thermometer.

My classic salted caramel, enriched with butter and a touch of cream for a thick, smooth sauce, is perfect as a pie topping, or served alongside à la mode slices.

It’s never a bad idea to serve pie with plenty of whipped cream. Think your pie is sweet enough? You can leave the sugar out—ain’t nothin’ wrong with plain ol’ whipped cream. For a luxurious twist, try the mascarpone variation below.

This isn’t your average Caesar salad. Here, the chicken gets smothered in Caesar dressing then roasts until the garlic, anchovies, and mustard become deeply caramelized and flavorful.

This one-skillet dinner gets deep oniony flavor from lots of leeks cooked down to jammy tenderness.

Traditionally, enfrijoladas are made by dipping stale tortillas into leftover frijoles from the night before. They are also great topped with a fried egg, or with roasted vegetables instead of chorizo to make this a plant-based breakfast.

Use plátanos manzanos—a short, fat, and incredibly sweet plantain variety—if you can find them. When pan-fried, the outside caramelizes and forms a hard shell while the inside becomes soft and custardy (like crème brûlée!). Look for them in Latin and Caribbean supermarkets or in the tropical fruit section of large supermarkets.

These turmeric-spiced pumpkin falafels come together in a food processor, then roast in the oven to golden-brown perfection. A punchy carrot slaw keeps things bright.

Brush butternut squash with maple-chile oil before roasting, then top with a lemon-tahini dressing and herby quinoa.

This is a pretty standard all-shortening piecrust, like the one my dad used when I was a youngster. A shortening piecrust won’t have the delicate flavor of a butter crust, and the texture is typically more crumbly, less flaky. Still, this yields a delicious, tender crust that many bakers believe makes the best pies.

Paneer is a fresh farmhouse-style cheese that has a slightly tangy, subtly salty flavor with a texture similar to tofu. It’s a breeze to make at home using only three ingredients: milk, lemon juice, and salt. 

This turkey-based Sloppy Joe-inspired sauce uses carrots and deeply caramelized onions to add a bit of sweetness. Adding eggs and garlicky spinach turns it into a meal.

It takes the better part of an hour to coax an onion's sugars from blonde to nutty brown. Make a big batch of caramelized onions once and save them to pull out when you want all that complex flavor without having spent all that time.