Brunch

My favorite recipe for the Bloody emerges from years of experimentation. Think Jonas Salk behind a bar. What I have come up with in my lab is:

Without the ice cream and served warm, these make a great brunch dish.

For a gentle boost of sweetness, these buttery biscuit roll-ups feature maple in both the dough and the filling.

Rosemary and black pepper make this bread anything but typical. Wedges are delicious with plenty of butter and your favorite preserves.

Katy Hees of Santa Fe, New Mexico, writes: "Eating local, fresh, organic food is important to me. It doesn't get much more local than the eggs I use, which come from our own chickens. I came up with my fried eggs on toast recipe as a great way to dress them up for dinner."

In July of 1864, the Confederate cavalry rode into Owings Mills, Maryland, where an ice cream factory's employees were loading a shipment bound for Baltimore. With rations low, the soldiers seized the ice cream and ate it straight out of the ten-gallon freezers for breakfast. Many of the mountaineers had never seen ice cream before. Some put it into their hats and ate it while riding, while others thought it too cold, so they put it in their canteens to melt.

Here, the beloved grits of the South are baked into a tender, cheesy roll that embraces all the elements of a country-style breakfast. Just slice and serve.

There may be no better way for a yeast-phobic (or time-pressed) cook to put a fetching basket of fresh bread on the table. The secret is a biscuit dough so simple to make and handle that you'll find yourself baking these twists for weekday family meals as well as special dinners.

Persian in origin, this soufflé is wonderfully airy, and the eggplant is infused with garlic and lemon. Think of it as a warm, puffy baba ghanouj.

Palacsinta When crêpes entered the American consciousness, they had an air of fussiness about them. But the truth is they're very easy to make — and a regular nonstick skillet and ordinary spoon work just as well as any crêpe pan or tiny specialty ladle. This Austro-Hungarian dessert strikes just the right balance of lightness and sweetness.

Sausage, egg, scallion, and cheese are layered over garlicky "Texas toast" in the heartiest take on savory bread pudding we've ever come across — just the sight of it could stir a cowboy-size appetite. This stick-to-your-ribs breakfast for a crowd can be completely assembled the night before.

These tender and not-too-sweet cakes fall somewhere between an American flapjack and a crêpe. Though they're traditionally served for dessert, we love them for a special winter breakfast, generously dusted with cinnamon sugar.