Eve/7 recipes

Old-fashioned beef vegetable soup built from meaty soup bones, loaded with potatoes, carrots, cabbage, green beans, peas, and rice. One pot, one hour, and enough soul-warming goodness to feed the whole family.

A rich broccoli quiche layered with Swiss cheese, Parmesan, and scallions in a flaky prebaked crust. The custard gets extra savory depth from chicken broth and a dash of hot sauce. Brunch, lunch, or dinner worthy.

Soft, pillowy homemade cinnamon rolls with a buttery brown sugar filling, raisins, and pecans, finished with powdered sugar glaze. Make them overnight or same-day. Includes an apple cinnamon variation.

Oven-baked baby back ribs rubbed with brown sugar and celery seed, then glazed with a tangy homemade BBQ sauce. Fall-off-the-bone tender in about two hours, no grill or smoker required.

Crisp cucumbers and juicy tomatoes coat tender penne in a tangy dill-lemon dressing that gets better as it sits in the fridge.

Old-fashioned buttermilk chocolate cake baked low and slow with cocoa powder and boiling water for an incredibly moist, dense crumb. A single-layer 9x13 sheet cake.

This is not your ordinary potato salad...which I don't like. This is quite different and yummy!

Easy pizza sauce to take it up a notch that uses store bought sauce which is then thickened and spiked with added ingredients.

Dark chocolate bundt cake with cocoa, buttermilk, and almond extract, topped with a sugar-free velvety chocolate frosting. Rich, dense, and deeply chocolatey.

Fudge Bundt cake made with cocoa powder and buttermilk for a deeply chocolatey, moist crumb. Simple one-bowl method, dusted with powdered sugar for an elegant no-fuss finish.

From the McCalls Great American recipe collection, a classic American carrot cake for the microwave.

Ensalada de Nochebuena, a traditional Mexican Christmas Eve salad with oranges, bananas, beets, jicama, pineapple, peanuts, pomegranate seeds, and sugar cane on a lettuce-lined platter.

Christmas Eve couscous with a spiced vegetable stew of squash, carrots, broad beans, and zucchini, served with harissa, chickpeas, raisins, pine nuts, and yogurt. A vegetarian North African feast.

Heritage apple pie with a butter-and-lard crust, tart Northern Spy apples, brown sugar, and a teaspoon of bread crumbs lining the bottom shell to keep it crisp. A three-stage bake delivers an evenly browned crust.

Two-ingredient fruit butter made from dried apricots simmered in water and pureed smooth. No sugar, no pectin, no canning needed. Just dried fruit and water.

New Year's Eve clock cake: three airy white cake layers stacked with silky chocolate cream filling, wrapped in rich Hungarian chocolate frosting and decorated to look like a clock striking midnight.