Recipe Sifter

Couscous with red peppers, onion, garlic, and cumin finished with lemon juice, olive oil, and fresh parsley. A quick side dish ready in 30 minutes.

Peanut butter king cake cookies shaped in a ring with a hidden chocolate kiss surprise inside one ball. Frosted with purple, green, and gold icing for Mardi Gras.

Salmon scallops pounded paper-thin, flash-cooked in seconds, and served over wilted garlicky spinach with a bright lemon-parsley pan sauce. French bistro technique for sky-high quality dinner.

Gift cake: a birthday sheet cake decorated to look like a wrapped present, with coconut "paper," strawberry preserves filling, and a gumdrop bow. Perfect kid's party centerpiece.

Pecan sticky buns use frozen dinner rolls topped with vanilla pudding mix, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and pecans. Assemble at night, rise overnight, bake in the morning for fresh sticky buns.

Pickled peppers or chilies in vinegar brine, with optional olive oil top layer. Versatile pantry preserve for sandwiches, charcuterie, or stir-frys.

Spaghetti puttanesca with anchovies, black olives, capers, and garlic in a chunky tomato sauce. Bold, briny, and on the table in 45 minutes with pantry staples.

Nectarines and raspberries tossed with sugar and crumbled almond biscotti for a no-cook summer fruit dessert. Simple, elegant, and ready in minutes.

Wellesley Fudge Cake is the classic two-layer chocolate cake from the Wellesley College era, topped with a deep fudge frosting and chopped walnuts around the edge. Old-school, properly rich.

Almond rolls are buttery shortbread logs made with just four ingredients: butter, sugar, ground almonds, and flour. The kind of cookie tin staple that goes with afternoon tea or coffee.

Classic devil's food cake made with real melted unsweetened chocolate, two sugars, cake flour, and folded egg whites. Dark, moist, and deeply chocolatey from scratch.

No-bake peanut butter pie with cream cheese, real whipped heavy cream, and a hot fudge topping over a graham cracker crust. Richer than the whipped-topping versions, with a denser, fudgier cut.

Creamy vegetarian corn chowder pureed silky-smooth with sweet corn, sweated onions, fresh rosemary, and a hit of warming mace. Meat-free body from cream and pureed corn.

Angel hair pasta tossed with fresh chopped tomatoes, basil, parsley, scallions, green olives, and olive oil for a no-cook sauce that comes together in minutes.

Apple squares fold chopped fresh apples, walnuts, and raisins into a cinnamon-spiced one-bowl batter mixed by hand and baked into a 13x9 sheet. No mixer, no fuss.

Sweet cream cheese spread blended with apricot preserves and golden raisins, garnished with walnuts for crackers or bagels.