Eve/9 recipes

Canned pork and beans get the full BBQ treatment: molasses, barbecue sauce, ketchup, mustard, and Worcestershire, topped with bacon and smoked low and slow for over two hours. Cookout-worthy baked beans with minimal prep.

Make-ahead bran muffin batter that keeps in the fridge up to 6 weeks. Bake fresh muffins anytime from one bowl of buttermilk-bran batter. The classic refrigerator muffin trick.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Classic meatloaf with cream of mushroom soup baked into the loaf and spooned over the top. Old-school comfort food with a built-in mushroom gravy, no ketchup glaze required.

Best-ever barbecue sauce in the Cajun style with crispy bacon, dark caramelized onions, honey, citrus, and toasted pecans. A rich, complex Paul Prudhomme-influenced sauce that earns its name.

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.

A hearty ground turkey meatloaf seasoned with barbecue spice and Worcestershire, bound with bread and egg, and finished under a tomato paste glaze. Sliced and re-baked so every piece gets crisp edges.

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.

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

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.

New Year's Eve chocolate clock cake stacks three layers of egg-white sponge with stovetop chocolate cream filling and Hungarian chocolate frosting, then iced with a clock face for the midnight countdown.

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.