Recipe Sifter

Crispy deep-fried oyster croquettes wrapped in a mushroom-shallot bechamel, breaded and fried golden. An elegant French-style seafood appetizer with a creamy, briny center.

Marinated eggplant, an Italian antipasto of golden-fried eggplant slices layered with garlic, bay leaf, rosemary, and red wine vinegar. Keeps up to two weeks in the fridge.

French onion soup gratinee slow-cooks sliced onions in butter, simmers in beef stock and white wine, then crowns each bowl with toasted French bread and Gruyere bubbled to golden under the broiler.

Indian curried chicken bakes mild curry-spiced chicken breasts with onions, apples, and golden raisins in a light chicken broth gravy. A budget-friendly weeknight curry that's easy on the calories.

A rustic open-faced apple pie piled high with chunky apples, blanketed in buttery sugar-flour crumbs, and soaked with an egg-milk custard before baking. Part crumble, part pie, all comfort.

Ginger molasses skillet cake baked in cast iron with brown sugar, five warm spices, pine nuts on top, and a sour cream whipped cream. Served warm from the pan.

Pheasant Amerind with poached then roasted pheasant halves in a mushroom pan gravy with thyme, rosemary, and chopped black walnuts.

Praline apple bread: a moist sour cream quick bread studded with Granny Smith apples and toasted pecans, finished with a buttery brown sugar praline glaze poured over the top. A standout fall bake.

Molasses sandwich cookies with a hidden strawberry preserves filling, spiced with cinnamon and ginger, and topped with a vanilla powdered sugar glaze. The secret is inside.

Texan fried pies stuffed with spiced dried apricot filling in a flaky, vinegar-laced pastry. Hand-held, golden-fried, and dusted with sugar. A classic Southern dessert from scratch.

Kopenhai is a Greek almond torte with an orange-scented shortbread base, fluffy ground-almond souffle filling, crackly phyllo top, and a fragrant lemon-cinnamon syrup soaked through every diamond slice.

Classic Spudnuts: fluffy potato doughnuts made with real mashed potatoes and yeast, fried golden and dipped in a powdered sugar glaze. This big-batch recipe makes about 100 doughnuts that freeze beautifully.

Lighter cheesecake made with blended cottage cheese and low-fat sour cream on a graham cracker crust. A slimmed-down dessert topped with cherry pie filling or fresh fruit.

Orange-butterscotch cheesecake on an oat-and-brown-sugar crust, scented with orange zest and crowned with homemade butterscotch sauce. Bright citrus and deep caramel in one dramatic dessert.

This is absolutely great, full of flavor and very moist, denfinitely a keeper for my family.

Peach Melba pie with fresh peaches and raspberries in a brown sugar filling spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, baked in a double-crust pastry with an egg wash glaze.