Nut

These easy refrigerator cookies are great to have on hand. Chill or freeze the dough, then just slice some off and bake when you want cookies.

Named for the "muddy" Mississippi River, this is a dark and rich chocolate cake.

Begin making these one day ahead. The dough is much easier to roll out when chilled, and the buns hold their shape better when formed with cold dough.

This delicious dessert uses the Easy Pie Crust .

This recipe, adapted from The Viennese Pastry Cookbook: From Vienna with Love, by Lilly Joss Reich, requires a Rehrucken mold—a loaf pan with a rounded, ridged bottom.

These cookies from the town of Prato are also known as cantucci. They are usually served with the Italian dessert wine Vin Santo.

This dough can also be formed into crescent shapes and coated with confectioners' sugar while still warm, as is done in many eastern European countries.

The cool sweetness of this soup is a particularly good match for the tangy grilled chicken with mustard-dill sauce. Serve it with extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling.

These brownies can be fudgy or cakey depending on how long you bake them.

Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 2 hr

This jam-filled pastry with a cookie-like dough takes its name from the town of Linz. The recipe uses cherry preserves for the filling. It makes enough dough for the torte and extra cookies. To make cookies, roll out dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut out decorative shapes and bake at 350°F on a parchment-lined sheet until golden, about 10 minutes.

Mrouzia Mrouzia is a dish traditionally made after the celebration of Aid el Kebir ("Feast of the Slaughter of the Lamb"), an occasion when, historically, a family would have large amounts of meat on hand. In the days before refrigeration, the lamb was cooked in copious amounts of fat and spices to preserve it. Don't worry — this version has much less butter and less intense spicing than the original. Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 3 hr

Located in a century-old coal warehouse that stoked the train coming from Albuquerque, the Zia Diner is in the National Register of Historic Places—and on many lists of favorite neighborhood restaurants. Regulars fuel up with such popular dishes as chicken-fried steak and meat loaf with green chilies and pine nuts. The latter provided the inspiration for another Zia Diner classic: spaghetti with chili and pine nut meatballs.

Candied-Fruit Honey Wafers Dipped in Chocolate You might be tempted to bake 2 sheets of cookies at a time in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Don't give in to this urge — the cookies must go in the middle of the oven to cook through and brown evenly.