Recipe Sifter

Santa's Thumbprint cookies with oats, brown sugar, and chopped nuts rolled on the outside, filled with jelly. A festive holiday cookie recipe that makes 3 dozen.

Chewy fruit bars packed with apricots, raisins, and crushed pineapple, then dusted with powdered sugar or spread with frosting.

Hungarian-style venison paprikash: flour-dusted cubes browned in butter, simmered with onions, tomatoes, dry sherry, and generous paprika, then finished with a swirl of sour cream.

Citron preserves, a spiced lemon and raisin conserve simmered with sugar, cinnamon and clove until thick and glossy. A small-batch, no-pectin preserve to spread on toast or spoon alongside cheese.

Irish whiskey pie is a no-bake chiffon dessert: a light, boozy whiskey-spiked custard set with gelatin, folded with whipped cream, and chilled in a pie shell under shaved chocolate. A grown-up treat.

Mini pound cake baked in a 6-inch loaf pan with butter, sugar, egg, and flour. A scaled-down classic with a tender, buttery crumb and a golden top that springs back when pressed.

Home-candied angelica turns young spring stalks into emerald-green confectionery jewels using just sugar and patience. A traditional British technique for decorating cakes, trifles and Christmas puddings.

This dump-and-bake chicken and rice casserole uses just 5 ingredients and one pan. Onion soup mix seasons everything while the rice absorbs all those savory juices as it bakes. Weeknight dinner, handled.

You don’t need an ice cream maker to make this, but you do need a food processor. I use a banana and a small amount of honey to sweeten the yogurt. (See the banana-only variation on this recipe below.) You can serve it like soft-serve ice cream, or let it freeze solid so that it’s more like regular frozen yogurt.

Kraut burgers (bierocks) stuffed with seasoned ground beef, shredded cabbage, and onion wrapped in soft bread dough and baked golden. A Midwest German-American classic you can make with frozen dough.

Kolache cookies with a cream cheese pastry dough folded around fruit jam and dusted with powdered sugar. A three-ingredient Czech-style pastry that melts in your mouth.

Based on Dean Ornish's Eat More Weigh less. I give this as Christmas presents each year and get rave reviews.

Chocolate phyllo crisps: three sheets of phyllo brushed with cocoa-clarified butter, sugared between layers, and baked flat under a weight. Elegant chocolate wafer garnish for plated desserts.

Homemade dandelion jelly made from foraged dandelion petals boiled into a golden liquid, then set with pectin and lemon juice. Tastes like honey with a floral twist.

Bananas halved and pan-fried in butter until golden, then dusted with sugar and cinnamon. Four ingredients, 15 minutes, and pure warm comfort on a plate.

Ergolavi Greek almond cookies made with just four ingredients: ground almonds, sugar, egg whites, and vanilla. Naturally gluten-free finger-shaped cookies with a chewy, marzipan-like texture.