Of Batter and Dough

As the pancake bakes, the batter puffs up around the apples and turns into a custardy pancake that’s creamy and rich with warm flavors as comfy as your favorite sweater woven into every bite.

This chicken and zucchini casserole is the kind of warm, cheesy, veggie-packed dinner that takes full advantage of the late-summer zucchini harvest while welcoming Fall with open arms. Not that you can't make this any time of year, of course. But it is the kind of thing I most want to make in those in-between months when the days are warm but the nights are crisp and cool.

Unlike most marbled cheesecake recipes, which rely on two different batters for the chocolate marble effect, this one swirls thick ribbons of hot fudge directly into rich New York cheesecake batter.

This is a restaurant-worthy meal with more flavor packed into every bite than you thought possible. Better still, nearly everything except searing the scallops can be prepared in advance, making it one of my favorite dinners for guests.

This soup is dark and sultry, the kind of thing that draws you in with the smell of roasting peppers and crisp bacon, then captures you with its rich, smoky flavor, and entices you to go back for seconds. It's the kind of thing that can remind you of the power of pleasure. No apologies. No regrets.

These are for people who want a really, really good buttermilk biscuit with lots of flaky layers that let the fruit, not a blanket of icing, do the talking.