Make Ahead

"When we visit our daughter at Amherst College in Massachusetts, my husband and I stay at The Lord Jeffery Inn," says Caroline I. Cameron of Washington, D.C.."The granola at breakfast is terrific. I would be grateful if you could get the recipe from their chef so that I can surprise my husband by making the granola at home." This granola can also be enjoyed as a snack with the addition of chocolate chips. You could sprinkle it over ice cream, too.

(FRAGOLE ED UVE CON MENTA E VINIGLIA) This colorful salad is accented with mint, a favorite ingredient in native cooking.

These cookies have a wonderful texture; chewy yet crunchy-just like a candy bar.

Like the pepper relish, these super-satisfying onions would be good with all kinds of meat.

The secret to a perfect brûlée crust is using both the turbinado sugar and a blowtorch.

This recipe originally accompanied Frozen White Chocolate and Hazelnut Dacquoise .

Mashed potatoes and Green Beans with Warm Bacon Dressing (see recipe) are great side dishes. Follow with apple pie à la mode.

It's unusual to butter and flour the pan when making a chiffon cake, but we liked the delicate crust that resulted. Because we did it this way, the cake must be cooled, inverted, on a rack, not on a bottle (the usual procedure for chiffons), or it will fall right out of the pan! Don't be tempted to substitute lemon juice for orange juice in the recipe, as the cake will not be as tender.

Use this versatile sauce as a dip for crudités, a dressing for cold fish or chicken, and as a substitute for mayonnaise. Tofu makes it virtually fat-free.

These biscotti can be baked in different size pans — even free form on a baking sheet — depending on what shape you’d like them to be. We used an 11- by 4-inch pan for a square shape. A 9- by 5- by 3-inch pan yields a long, narrow rectangle. The cooking time will not be affected by the pan you use.

In this recipe we call for creamed honey, another name for the crystallized, or non-liquid, form of this sweetener.

This is easily one of my three favorite dishes in my mother's repertoire. She only started making it five years ago, and whenever I'm home I ask for it. It takes well to substitutions, so go ahead and experiment.