5 Ingredients or Fewer

Heads up, beginners and cheapskates! This recipe is so easy you don’t even have to turn on the stove (melt the coconut oil in the microwave!), which makes it ideal to make with kids or frugal old folks. If you want to reduce the fat in this recipe, you can omit the coconut oil, but be warned that the blocks won’t be as buttery. All the ordinary tricks you learned from your mom as a child apply: Chocolate can be added on the top or throughout, colored rice cereals are in play, even dried fruit or nuts can be tossed in to frighten or entice your young ones.

A plate of fudge passed around the table at the end of a meal is as good a dessert as any. A simple way to form the fudge is to take the box the sugar came in and line it with a plastic bag or use the paper inside the box. Spoon the fudge into the box and let it set—then it is all boxed up and ready to give as a gift!

Sauternes and melon fluff spooned over ripe cubes of cantaloupe make a fabulously mature dessert for a late-afternoon luncheon. When the fruits are at their aromatic best and you want a dessert that is not overly sweet or directed at the kiddies, this comes together with remarkable sophistication.

This can be cooked in a slow cooker, in a Dutch oven on top of the stove, or in a roasting pan in a 375°F. oven. Pick the way that suits you. Any way you cook it, you will find that the sweet pickle relish and barbecue sauce flavor the meat through and through.

This simple batter puffs up in the oven like a popover and envelops the sweet sausage nestled down in it like a snuggly down comforter. This is a family favorite on cold winter Sunday nights.

Omelets make a wonderful meal any time of day. This omelet is just right for those summer evenings when the next thing you know the sun has just gone down and it’s nine o’clock.

Cooking spaghetti squash in the microwave steams the squash and the strands come out nicely—unlike cooking it in a conventional oven, which can cause the strands to bake to the skin. A simple quick fresh pesto is a snappy sauce for the steamed squash.

Peeking out from dried leaves, last-of-the-season tomatoes can be some of the most flavorful. Here they are wrapped in leaves of phyllo pastry and baked with just a bit of Dijon mustard.

The dance the Mashed Potato was all the rage after James Brown incorporated it into his rousing live show and review with his band the Famous Flames. Under a contract with a recording label that did not think much of the idea, in 1959 Brown took the song down to a friend’s studio in Florida and recorded the hit song “(Do the) Mashed Potato.” So he would not run afoul of his own label, Brown billed the song as Nat Kendrick and the Swans and the lyrics were attributed to one of Brown’s aliases, Dessie Rozier. Soon the nation was whipped up in the craze with two other hit songs, “Mashed Potatoes U.S.A.” and “The Mash Potato Man.” It is fun to use purple potatoes the same color as James Brown’s famous cape to make mashed potatoes while having a kitchen dance party with the kids.

My in-laws grew up in Indiana. My husband grew up in a meat-and-potatoes type of home. This changeable delectable potato dish can match up with anything. The potatoes inside are tender and flavored with the broth and the potatoes on top are nicely crisped and browned.

These glazed rutabagas look like topaz when cooked down with brown sugar, cider vinegar, and butter. My friend Jule adores rutabagas and thrift store jewelry. I came up with this dish for her.

When Ernestine Williams, mother of Ole Miss Colonel Reb and NFL football great Gentle Ben Williams, was teaching me how to make skillet fried corn, the top of the black pepper shaker fell off and a ton of pepper fell in the skillet. She scooped out as much as she could but there was still a whole lot that got left in. We liked it. Now when I make it I add a good bit of black pepper and a whole lot of garlic. You have to use fresh corn in this dish; frozen just won’t do if you want it to really fry up nice.

Jack-o’-lanterns are wonderful. When else does a vegetable get to have so much fun? Serve this roasted pumpkin with the lights down dim and tell the spooky story of Stingy Jack tricking the devil once you get home from trick-or-treating.

Romano beans (aka Italian string beans) are really just a different variety of snap bean, and are grown and eaten the same way. Broad flat-podded green snap beans with five- to six-inch pods are often called Italian Pole or Romano beans, and varieties include Roma, Greencrop, and Bush Romano. Anchovy paste makes these good; don’t tell folks what is in them and they will eat them up.

The Palestine Gardens is a miniature replica of sites from the Holy Land built down in the piney woods around Lucedale, Mississippi. For sixteen years Reverend Walter Harvell Jackson and his wife searched for a place to build his Bible-themed garden. After seven years of construction, the forty-acre garden opened in 1960 with Bethlehem, Jericho, and Jerusalem all constructed out of concrete blocks, and with its own Dead Sea. It has expanded over the years to include the Sea of Galilee. Jerusalem artichokes do well in the kind of sandy soil and full sun they have down there in George County and will thrive in most gardens, producing the edible tubers and brilliant yellow sunflowers. I like to serve this over Israeli couscous, of course.

When something is really impressive, it is declared “plum good.” As summer wears on and I grow tired of plum pies and tarts, I crave this simple, colorful salad. It is such a pretty mix of green and purple flecked with creamy white. The flavors offer sweet and sour, and the combination of textures—smooth, crunchy, and juicy—is really plum good.

This composed warm potato salad came together as a dish for my father. It has all the salty, tart flavors that he loves.

When I see the river rise and hear the birds sing, I think of my late dear friend Charlie Jacobs and his tune “Rhythm of Spring.” His association between native produce and more innocent days elevates the memory of spring smells to a sort of romance. He beguiles us. And he tells us that from our soil comes the ingredient we need to find meaning. When I make this soup in the first cool days of spring, I’ll serve it warm, and when the days begin to lengthen and turn warm, I like to serve it cool.

I don’t think people think of making their own crackers much, but homemade crackers can make store-bought dips and spreads set out for parties a little more personalized. A batch will last for a month stored in a tin and, when paired up with a hunk of good cheese, makes a very nice hostess gift.