Gourmet

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

The quinces in this stew are not combined with sugar and therefore will not change color. They require only 45 minutes of cooking time to become tender. This flavorful dish is even better when made a day ahead.

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

Beer gives a yeasty flavor to this quick bread made without yeast. Slices of the bread are good toasted or sandwiched around a filling of choice.

Christmas cookie baking starts Thanksgiving weekend for one food editor. Together with her mother, she makes family favorites like the buttery balls below.

A few years back, I renewed my romance with Galatoire's restaurant. The reacquaintance was arranged by my friend Kerry Moody, who is one of New Orleans's black Creoles. A frequent visitor to the restaurant, he led me through the menu and introduced me to such off-the-menu delights as fried eggplant lightly dusted with confectioners' sugar. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've returned to Galatoire's many times since. Now when I arrive at the restaurant, I feel like a regular when my waiter, Imre, remembers me after any length of absence and brings the eggplant to the table unasked. The combination of eggplant and sugar sounds strange, but the dish is delicious, a perfect beginning to a Creole feast and a subtle reminder of the African traditions of New Orleans cooking. The eggplant on which the dish is based may have originated in Africa, and the frying in deep oil is one of the major African culinary methods brought to this country by slave cooks.

Although most of the molasses imported by the Colonies in the seventeenth century was used to make rum, some found its way into the kitchen. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.