92 rustic recipes

Two-tone plum bowl mashes canned greengage and purple plums into a quick rustic spread. Two ingredients, minutes of work, and a natural pairing for toast, cheese boards, or cured meats.

A traditional Spanish clay pot dish of fresh clams cooked with garlic, onion, lime juice, red wine, parsley, and bread crumbs. Rustic, briny, and served straight from the cazuela to the table.

Potato leek soup with sweet corn, carrots, celery, and a hit of hot paprika. A rustic German-style soup with a partially blended texture and only a splash of cream for finishing.

A simple whole wheat bread machine recipe with just honey, flour, water, salt, and yeast. This rustic peasant loaf has a hearty crumb, nutty whole grain flavor, and a crispy, golden-brown crust.

A hearty whole wheat corn bread loaf sweetened with molasses, baked in a standard loaf pan. Just stir, pour, and bake for a rustic bread that pairs with everything from chili to butter.

Garlic mashed potatoes made lighter with nonfat yogurt and nonfat sour cream instead of butter. Tiny new potatoes boiled with whole garlic cloves and mashed skin-on for a rustic, creamy side dish.

Rabbit with sweet Italian sausage braised in a tomato-and-wine sauce with peppers, garlic, and a bright lift of orange. Lean rabbit browns in the sausage fat for deep, rustic Italian flavor over pasta or rice.

Making your own mustard is easy and a perfect compliment to home-made deli recipes. You can control how smooth and how rustic and chunky your mustard is. This makes about 3/4 cup of mustard.

Oven-fried potato stew: layered potatoes, onions, and cardamom-spiced beef cubes baked in a deep tomato broth until the potatoes turn a rich red. A rustic Middle Eastern home-style dish from the Arabian Gulf.

Apple nut cake built on applesauce and olive oil with overlapping apple slices and a toasted cinnamon-sugar nut topping. A dairy-free, butter-free autumn cake that bakes into something moist, rustic and crowd-ready.

Smoky roasted eggplant mashed with fresh tomato, garlic, and a splash of red wine vinegar. This Odessa-style eggplant caviar is a rustic Russian appetizer that's just as good spread on pita as it is on dark rye bread.

A thick, rustic Italian-style soup loaded with penne, cannellini beans, fennel, zucchini, and summer squash simmered in vegetable broth spiked with dry vermouth. Low-fat, naturally vegetarian, and feeds 8 from one big pot in about an hour.