5 Ingredients or Fewer

You can transform this perfect crisp side salad into a main-course salad by slicing up any meat you like and tossing it on top. Or try it alongside Grilled Caesar Pork Tenderloin (page 89) or Down-Home Pinto Beans and Ham Hocks (page 127).

Warm, boozy cherries over ice cream is a classic dessert, and it’s so easy to do. We like ours over chocolate ice cream (but when Bobby doesn’t quite have the energy to make this, you know he’s always got Cherry Garcia in the freezer).

We heard about peanut butter–topped Ritz cracker treats from a friend in the Midwest. This is our down-South version, tricked out with both jam and chocolate.

Bobby’s dream is to retire to a beach in the Caribbean and sell frozen chocolate-covered bananas on a stick (see A Bit More, Y’all). He’d be open from noon to one, just long enough to eat lunch and read the paper. The hoped-for sales for each day would be six bananas. Seeing how this dream is not coming true any time soon, he’ll just have to settle for these island-inspired delights. We roll them in coconut for that tropical taste, and since they’re mostly fruit, they’re a pretty healthy dessert or snack. For an extra-special treat, roll them in the crushed candy or cookie topping of your choice.

We’ve never met a kid who doesn’t love grilled cheese—with extra-gooey cheese, please! We like to slip in some tomato, too, which some kids won’t eat otherwise. And let’s be honest here: You may as well make yourself one of these while you’re at it; otherwise your kid’s sandwich doesn’t have a chance.

When we were kids, we would go on camping trips and eat beanie-wienies out of the pull-top can and pretend to be cowboys. We thought that was just the best thing in the world to eat. When your kids try these, they will, too. Nowadays it’s easy to find healthier versions of traditional hot dogs (nitrate-free or turkey, chicken, or soy dogs) and lower-sodium baked beans in most supermarkets. Try a few different varieties and see which ones your kids like most.

This recipe was born in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee where, as kids, we went camping with our parents. We caught fresh trout, and Mama cooked them right up on the grill in foil packs. It was the best-tasting fish we’d ever had. If we’re making this over a campfire, we serve it on its own. At home, it goes well with green beans.

Salmon is something so healthy that we just had to put mayonnaise on it. The lemon mayo gives it a great zesty flavor and oomph—it keeps the fish moist, too. Our lettuce and cucumber salad is a perfect match for this light dish.

I use this rib spritz on spareribs and baby back ribs. It’s easy to make, and it will change the way your ribs look and taste. You can make it up to a day in advance and store it in the spray bottle, unrefrigerated. Since I can’t do that at a contest, I prepare it right after I put my ribs in the smoker. After the ribs have smoked for about 45 minutes, I start spritzing the meat at 15-minute intervals.

Cold fruit salads like this one are an old-fashioned piece of Americana. You can find recipes for stuffed canned peaches and pears and other so-called salads like this one in historic Southern cookbooks and of course in classics like the Joy of Cooking and The Settlement Cookbook. You don’t see them much around anymore, which is a shame because this salad is cool and refreshing—a great thing to serve for a summer lunch or as a first course for a dinner party. It may seem weird nowadays to serve canned pears with mayo, but would I waste my time with something that wasn’t good as hell? I didn’t think so.

I learned from Claudia Roden, who brought the secrets of Middle Eastern cooking to this country in the 1960s, how to make this invaluable preserve, which adds zest to so many dishes. I even find that you can use a little of it in place of fresh lemons to perk up a dish.

Another of the treats of summer was making ice cream, cracking up the big block of ice and taking turns with the crank—hard work that was rewarded by getting to lick the dasher when the ice cream was ready. Today we can buy convenient small ice cream makers that allow you to put the freezer bowl into the freezer so there’s no chopping of ice and the churning goes much faster. I particularly like making my own ice cream because I can use pure ripe seasonal fruits and berries and pure cream, without all the additives of candies and cookies that go into the commercial varieties today. Also, it’s a good way to preserve berries if I’ve been tempted to stop at a nearby farm where you can pick your own—and I inevitably pick more than I can eat up.

Crisps and crumbles—they are one and the same—were always a favorite in our family, and I miss having them on a regular basis. But I found it’s very easy to make just one portion in a small casserole dish (I use an onion-soup bowl).

Preparing a fine dish of Moroccan couscous used to be a labor of love—steaming, sifting , and fluffing up the little pearl granules made from semolina durum wheat all required quite a lot of time. But now we get a precooked couscous that takes minutes to prepare. It may not have quite the light finish of the old way, but it is a boon to a cook coming home at the end of a day and wanting to put an easy, well-balanced meal together. I remember Claudia Roden, years ago, introducing me to this North African grain product. We were cooking for a dinner party she was giving , working together in her comfortable kitchen, decorated with Middle Eastern tiles, at Wild Hatch, on the edge of Hampstead Heath in London. She had me fluffing the couscous, teaching me all the steps, as we gossiped and got to know each other better. It reminded me of her description—in her first, ground-breaking book, A Book of Middle Eastern Food—of the women in her extended family in Cairo, where she grew up, who would spend afternoons shaping and stuffing tempting mezze pastries and enjoying every moment. I’m afraid we’ve forgotten how cooking together gives that kind of pleasure. But here’s the easy formula for one serving of couscous.

There’s nothing like knowing you have stashed away in your freezer good tomato sauce made from sweet San Marzano canned tomatoes. It comes in handy in so many ways. I usually make 3 cups of thick sauce, to freeze in 1-cup containers. You can easily double or triple that amount if you’re feeling ambitious and have enough freezer space.

This is a sauce to have on hand at all times. It keeps well in the refrigerator for at least a week if you film the top of it with olive oil (and refilm after you have dipped into it and taken some from the jar), and it keeps its bloom for a couple of months frozen. It’s a good idea to freeze it in an ice tray, and then store the cubes in plastic storage bags. That way, you easily can get at just the amount you need.

It is so easy to make a vinaigrette, the classic French salad dressing, that I can’t fathom why so many people living alone go out and buy bottled dressings. Not only do they pay more, but the dressing never tastes as fresh, and you can’t vary the seasonings as you wish. So I beg you to make your own vinaigrette as part of your cooking life. The amounts I’m giving will be enough to dress two or three small salads, but you can double or triple the quantities if you’re an avid salad consumer and want enough dressing to see you through the week. Just refrigerate the extra in a jar, tightly sealed.

This is ideal to make when you’ve bought too much watermelon.