Brunch

Ah, the conchas! These wonderful soft breads with their crunchy shelllike topping are a favorite in Mexico. This particular recipe is based on one made by Irving Quiros, a pastry instructor at the Colegio Superior de Gastronomía in Puebla. The dough is almost like a brioche, and the buttery bun makes wonderful, melt-in-your-mouth conchas. To make a chocolate topping, substitute 3 tablespoons cocoa powder for 3 tablespoons flour.

GINA These sparkling beauties (you know I love sparkles) add a festive color to your party table. Note that it may be easier to find blood-orange juice in a carton or bottle, but if you’re lucky enough to find fresh blood oranges, you’ll need about eight oranges to make 2 cups juice.

Easy to transport and to eat while unpacking, these moist and dense muffins are more like little pound cakes with blueberries than your typical crumbly muffin. If blueberries are out of season and you want to use frozen ones (a perfectly fine option!), increase the oven temperature to 375 degrees F.

PAT My sweetie and her mama love their sweet potatoes. You think maybe that has something to do with why they are so sweet? Gina created this extra-special dish for the mamas in our lives, but I love to prepare these potato cakes for her on Mother’s Day and serve Miss Gina in bed, of course.

Any time you add olive oil, salt, and pepper to asparagus, you’re off to a delicious start. This dish calls for both whole eggs and egg whites, which cuts down on the calories but not on the flavor. Feta is also a low-fat, low-calorie cheese. So no excuses—a slice of this light vegetable delight will be irresistible to any mother.

Who needs pork? (Did we really just say that?) This herb- and spice-infused turkey sausage is a Mother’s Day masterpiece. Moms won’t have any idea that the patty is all turkey and no pork.

GINA If you are having an Easter-egg hunt, you might as well have deviled eggs. I remember asking my great-great-grandmother, “Why do they call them devil eggs?” And she replied, “Because if you eat too many, the devil will show up!” To this day, I have never understood that saying, but I miss all those little pearls of wisdom that my mom and grandmother used to share. The two of them were magic together, and they always kept us guessing. Pat had a similar experience: as a child, he always wondered how his mother got the insides of the hard-boiled egg out, made a delicious egg mixture, then put it back in! Deviled eggs are easy and even fun to make with the kids. Here, once again, I do my thing as the “Spice Fairy” with a magic sprinkling of black and red pepper, which gives this dish just the right amount of kick.

GINA Pat says no Super Bowl should ever be viewed without a beer, but I’m the queen of cocktails, and who needs regular beer when you can have a Michelada cocktail? When we filmed the show Road Tasted with the Neelys, we discovered this spicy beer in Santa Fe, where it is generally served during Fiesta. It has such a unique flavor, and sometimes it’s nice to mix it up and serve the totally unexpected . . . but you definitely need to be ready for the spice. If you want to add a little something special, you can rim your glasses with lime, put salt and chile powder on a separate plate, and dip the rims of the glasses in it—just to give the cocktail a little something extra! Go ahead—drink it, and score a touchdown!

This is my idea of bacon and eggs. Thick, homemade bacon adding a smoky, salty touch to gorgeous spring asparagus and tender new-crop potatoes, all crowned with a perfectly poached egg—it doesn’t get much better than this. When you break into the soft yolk, it melts into the vegetables, forming a luxurious sauce. This recipe makes four hearty portions. If you would like to serve six smaller plates, keep the other quantities the same and simply increase the number of eggs.

Think of these as the most decadent, upscale version of a deviled egg you’ll ever eat. But instead of rubbery eggs sprinkled with paprika, these soft-boiled beauties reveal moist, velvety yolks, accented by a luxe anchovy mayo. This is the recipe where you want your eggs to be as fresh as possible. Short of keeping your own chickens, go to your farmers’ market and buy local. Don’t get all freaked out if they have a bit of straw or dirt or, um, other debris on the shells. It means they’re fresh, plus eggs have a natural antibiotic coating that protects them until you wash them. Inside, you’ll find bright orange-yellow yolks and an incredible flavor that supermarket eggs just don’t offer.

Make this with homemade ricotta and you will be rewarded with a starter that is rich, pretty, and piquant. It is perfect for entertaining, because you can prepare the crostini, ricotta mixture, and salsa verde ahead of time and put the bruschetta together when your guests arrive.

Both winter and summer savory are related to the mint family, with a fairly strong flavor that rests somewhere between mint and thyme. Summer savory is a bit milder and makes a perfect partner to spring’s first morels in this tasty frittata. This would make a nice light lunch served with a side salad and a glass of Italian white with enough texture to stand up to the frittata (I had a glass of 2007 Marco Felluga Friulano Bianco when we tested the recipe). Make sure you use an 8-inch skillet for this recipe: if the frittata is too thin, you’ll end up with rubber; too thick, and you risk runny eggs.

This would make a lovely brunch dish, but you could serve it as an appetizer, too, with some toasted or grilled bread and a glass of sparkling. The quenelle of crème fraîche is made using two spoons like paddles to shape softer ingredients into an oval or a football. For a throwback to dot.com excess, pile some caviar on top if you like. If you aren’t feeling fancy, just dollop the crème fraîche on top instead.

This rich sauce adds cool heat to Friday Night Steak Sandwiches (page 188), Crispy Fried Oysters Four Ways (page 117), and Foster Family’s Pot Roast with Herb-Roasted Vegetables (page 199).

In the cattle-ranching heartlands of Texas, barbecue usually means beef, not pig, and brisket—which comes from the animal’s lower chest—is hands down the most popular. A little patience and a few hours of smoking or braising transform this relatively tough cut into the most succulent, falling-apart-tender meat you’ll ever eat. Part of the trick is marinating the meat for several hours or even overnight prior to cooking, so be sure to factor in this additional “inactive” prep time. To avoid standing over the grill for six to eight hours, I start the meat on the grill for an infusion of smoky hickory flavor and then let the oven do the rest of the work.

This dish—an adaptation of an Anne Willan recipe I used to make at the Soho Charcuterie—is what my dad most often requested when I came home to visit. Rillettes are a classic French preparation similar to pâté that are made by slow-cooking fatty meat until it falls apart, packing the meat in the rendered fat, and allowing it to congeal. The resulting rough spread pairs elegantly with Rosemary Cheese Crackers (page 8) or Cornbread Toasts (page 18), grainy mustard, and pickles. The most important thing to keep in mind is that rillettes need to cook very slowly at a low, steady temperature, so make sure the cooking liquid doesn’t boil once you put the dish in the oven.

This is not your typical pea-and-carrot-laden pot pie. Inspired by fall flavors, this sophisticated version is loaded with butternut squash, oyster and chanterelle mushrooms, and fresh sage—all tucked under a layer of golden, flaky puff pastry.

With blue crabs, sausage, corn on the cob, and tender new potatoes, this lowcountry-inspired shrimp boil makes for a rustic and utterly delicious spread that is just the thing for impromptu summertime gatherings. I sometimes serve it in individual tins or buckets, but that’s about as refined as I ever get with this low-key dish, which is best eaten right out of the bucket or from a big pile on the table, with a crowd of friends, and always with your fingers.

This hearty dish, which is a great way to reinvigorate leftover Foster Family’s Pot Roast with Herb-Roasted Vegetables (page 199), is inspired by Southern dishes featuring “low” cuts of meat. With savory layers of potato, roast, and poached eggs finished with the cool heat of the Horseradish Mustard Vinaigrette and brightened with fresh greens, this crowd-pleaser makes for a decadent Sunday brunch, but it can just as comfortably double as the main event at dinner. Serve with warm, crusty toast for a complete meal.

A good hash is like soup: you can toss together all the odds and ends from your fridge and pantry and end up with something rustic and hearty that is much more than the sum of its parts.