Recipe Sifter

Make-ahead ham and cheese breakfast casserole with buttered bread, sharp cheddar, eggs, and a crunchy cornflake topping. Assemble the night before and bake in the morning.

Spicy-sweet chutney with Granny Smith apples, fresh red chilies, and toasted pine nuts. This Indian-inspired condiment simmers for 30 minutes, then chills to develop complex flavors. Pairs with roasted meats or cheese boards.

Applesauce nut bread with brown sugar, chopped nuts, cinnamon, and an unexpected pinch of dried mint. A tender, fragrant quick bread that slices like coffee cake.

Applesauce whole wheat zucchini bread is a healthier loaf sweetened by crushed pineapple and applesauce instead of sugar or oil. Whole wheat flour and optional walnuts add fiber and crunch.

Cream cheese dough rolled with apricot preserves and walnuts, sliced into crescent-shaped cookies and baked until golden.

This Asian-inspired cabbage noodle salad recipe is addictive. The cabbage and noodles are tossed in a magical sweet, salty, sour salad dressing.

Greek lobster plaki simmered in tomato sauce with saffron, white wine, fennel, orange juice, and fresh herbs. A luxurious Mediterranean seafood dish served over saffron rice.

Aunt May's pickled green tomatoes is a heritage four-day sweet pickle recipe that turns 15 pounds of unripe tomatoes into translucent, cinnamon-and-clove spiced jewels in cider vinegar syrup. Old-school canning that fills the pantry.

Authentic French onion soup built on a homemade veal-and-chicken stock and deeply caramelized onions, ladled over toasted croutons and broiled under a blanket of melted Gruyere. The real, from-scratch classic.

Old Mexico slow cooker chili with cubed stewing beef, three forms of tomato, chili powder, and a kick of hot sauce. No beans, just deep-simmered Texas-style heat.

Pig cake, a Southern church-supper classic with mandarin orange cake layers and a fluffy pineapple cream cheese frosting. Three-layer pastel pretty, ready for potlucks and reunions.

This is a vibrant colourful dish that has Summer BBQ ‘written all over it”. Adding mint to the pesto brings in a classic flavour accompaniment to great Australian Lamb – fabulous with a glass of Banrock Station Shiraz Mataro, 2008, £5.99 at Sainsbury’s, Somerfield, Tesco, Waitrose and Thresher.

Bacardi rum cake made with yellow cake mix, vanilla pudding, pecans, and dark rum, then soaked in a buttery rum syrup. A boozy, sticky bundt cake that's a holiday classic.

Two-layer banana cake with whole wheat pastry flour, filled and topped with vanilla Bavarian cream and fresh banana slices. A lighter, more elegant take on classic banana cream pie.

A layered tube cake with banana sour cream batter and a crunchy coconut-oat-pecan streusel swirled through every layer. Semi-homemade with yellow cake mix. Serves 12.

Beef Brisket with Barbecue Sauce: a hands-off crockpot brisket cooked low for 10 hours in a Worcestershire-vinegar braise, finished with a separate ketchup-brown-sugar sauce.