Vegetarian

Sweet potatoes make delicious home fries, and with the addition of ginger, these become something really special. Choose small to medium sweet potatoes and use them within a week: They don’t keep as long as white potatoes. Store sweet potatoes in a dark, cool place, but don’t refrigerate them.

To make this dish, you’ll need a mandoline, which is a hand-operated slicing appliance with assorted blades for thick to thin slicing. A metal kitchen utensil known as a spider, which vaguely resembles a spider web with a long handle, is handy when frying because it lets you quickly remove hot food from the oil without removing much of the oil. It’s inexpensive and sold in most kitchenware shops. Soaking the julienned potatoes before cooking them removes some of the starch and yields a crisp shoestring effect.

Also known as latkes, these crispy, golden treats are a childhood favorite and are best served with caramelized onions, sour cream, and fresh, tangy farmers’ market applesauce. Allow yourself about twenty minutes to soak the grated potatoes in the cold water to remove the starch. Otherwise, they become gluey as the starch cooks in the potatoes and they won’t get crispy.

While the classic fried potato dish served with bacon and eggs in diners everywhere is excellent on its own, the “smothered and covered” variation is more decadent, blanketing the crusty brown potatoes with caramelized onions and cheese. Thanks must be given here to the Waffle House chain for their inspired innovation!

Steel-cut oats go through a machine that cuts the whole kernels into tiny bits. Sometimes called Scotch or Irish oatmeal, steel-cut oats are chewier and have more texture and flavor than regular rolled oatmeal. They take more time to cook, but steel-cut oatmeal is well worth the wait. McCann’s makes the best steel-cut oats that I know. They’re available in specialty shops and some supermarkets, as well as at www.mccanns.com. To sweeten the steel-cut oats, add brown sugar, sautéed bananas, raisins, applesauce, berries, or whatever other fruit you like.

What would bacon and eggs be without a side of home fries? These “homers” are too good to be called simply a “side.” Many Bubby’s customers prefer to eat them in great quantities with an accompaniment of bacon or sausage.

For the best grits, choose good stone-ground hominy grits, found mostly at high-end gourmet shops. Good-quality grits can be yellow, white, even blue, and they have a lively, crunchy texture. Just for the record, most regular folks down South use quick grits. And also for the record, that’s what we use at Bubby’s. But at home I cook from a bag of stone-ground hominy grits from Hoppin’ John’s, a small mill in Georgia (www.hoppinjohns.com). The Tabasco in the recipe really adds a zing to the grits, which go especially well with Smithfield Ham with Red-Eye Gravy (page 189).

This homemade cereal is hearty, wholesome, and filled with nutritious ingredients such as walnuts, rolled oats, raisins, and sunflower seeds. Granola is very flexible, so you can add whatever fruits and nuts are your personal favorites. This granola is great with milk or yogurt, or even as a topping on pancakes. Because raisins can make the granola soggy, we add them right before serving. The granola keeps well for a long time, so this is a big batch—it makes three pounds. Just keep it in an airtight container and eat it for breakfast all week, as we do at Bubby’s, or cut it in half to feed a smaller crowd.

A simple green salad, this one is made special by the unusually good vinaigrette. The dressing can be made up to three days ahead and stored, tightly covered, in the refrigerator.

A nice vegetarian option, these crêpes have a substantial, almost meaty texture thanks to the mushrooms. They’re rich enough to be a main course and especially flavorful, thanks to the fresh herbs. Serve with Mixed Summer Berry Parfait (page 231).

A sophisticated dessert or even a sweet main course, these crêpes feature two favorite flavors of kids everywhere: bananas and chocolate. Using bittersweet chocolate cuts the sweetness of the banana and makes these crêpes quite elegant.

Crêpes can be sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar and served flat, like regular pancakes; or rolled up around fruit, Nutella (chocolate hazelnut butter), or chocolate; or topped with fruit, fruit compotes, whipped cream, or jam. You can make this batter ahead of time and refrigerate it in an airtight container for up to two days. Use a crêpe pan, which has a very long handle and slightly sloping slides, or a small to medium nonstick skillet. Prepared crêpes can be frozen for up to a month and defrosted at room temperature for a couple of hours. For best results, place crêpes between layers of waxed paper or parchment paper before freezing. Rewarm them by removing the waxed paper and baking them, tightly covered, in a baking pan in a preheated 300°F oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

A delicious and painless way to sneak more vegetables into the brunch, these crêpes are good for when brunch tilts more in the direction of breakfast. You can make the filling a day in advance and store it, tightly covered, in the refrigerator. Warm it over low heat before using it as a filling.

Gruyère is one of the best cheeses to use in a crêpe because it is flavorful and melts nicely. Here, broccoli adds color and texture. You can prepare both the filling and the crêpes ahead of time and assemble the crêpes at the last minute. If you make crêpes in advance, the crêpes can be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to two months. Serve with Mixed Greens with Shallot Vinaigrette (page 169).

If you didn’t think waffles could taste good and be good for you at the same time, these will change your mind. Besides the taste of fresh applesauce, the addition of flaxseed meal, wheat germ, and whole wheat pastry flour imparts a wholesome flavor. If you choose to buy applesauce rather than making it from scratch, the waffles will still be very good, but nothing compares with homemade applesauce made with crisp autumn apples.

These golden, delicious-smelling waffles are an autumn treat, and they are even better when topped with a fall-fresh Cinnamon Pear Compote (page 277). They’re tender and especially aromatic, thanks to the various spices. Buy plain canned pumpkin purée, not the prepared pumpkin pie filling, which contains sugar and added spices. Serve with Fresh Cranberry Juice (page 240).

In place of maple syrup, try homemade Maple Butter (page 274) with these deliciously nutty waffles. Buttermilk makes these waffles especially crisp and light.

The yeast, in addition to letting the batter sit for at least six hours, gives these waffles a chewy consistency and a slightly pungent flavor. One note on preparation: Since this batter needs to stand overnight, be sure to prepare it a day in advance. You can freeze these waffles, well wrapped, for up to a month. Simply heat them until nice and crispy in a preheated 350°F oven for 5 to 10 minutes.

Since the invention of the nonstick electric waffle iron, making homemade waffles is a breeze. You can freeze these waffles for up to a month. Baking them in a preheated 350°F oven will quickly restore them to their irresistibly crisp, buttery state.

You can serve this brunch favorite as soon as it’s ready, or keep it warm for up to twenty minutes, loosely covered with a clean, damp kitchen towel in a 200°F oven. Avoid using very soft white bread as it tends to fall apart when dipped into the egg mixture. It’s best to use a firm bread such as a large baguette or sourdough loaf. In fact, French toast is a great way to use up slightly stale bread, and you can make this with just about anything from a baguette to brioche to a cinnamon raisin loaf.