One Great . . . it's-over soup

Cleaning out my purse on Friday, I found two hors d'oeuvre toothpicks, the kind with the frilly plastic tops. That says a lot about my life in the last two weeks, both in the lead-up to the DNC and the actual convention itself.

It sounds glamorous to say I was on party coverage. Reality? I was picking up dinner based on which fast-food line was on the way home at 9 at night, or grabbing what I could from cold appetizers and limp buffets.

My soul is screaming for something simple, soulful and nutritious. I'm craving the chance to get back in the kitchen. Alas, it's still not to be: My book, "Pecans: A Savor the South Cookbook," comes out Monday. So I'm hitting the road right behind the departing conventioners, on my way to the Southern Independent Booksellers Assocation convention in Naples, Fla.

If I had a chance to cook this weekend? I'd aim for something like this.

Noodle Soup With Kale and White Beans

From "Fine Cooking: Make It Tonight," by the editors of Fine Cooking magazine (Taunton, $17.95).

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 cup cappellini pasta, broken into short lengths
2 quarts reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 small bunch of kale, ribs removed, leaved roughly chopped (about 6 cups)
1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add carrots and onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft and just golden-brown, about 10 minutes. Scrape the vegetables in a bowl and set aside.

Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil in the pot over medium-high heat. Add pasta and cook, stirring often, until dark bolden brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the broth and stir, scraping the bottom of the pot to release any stuck-on pasta.

Return the carrots and onion and add the kale, beans, lime juice, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the kale, carrots and pasta are tender, 8 to 10 minutes.

Remove from the heat, stir in the cilantro and season to taste with more lime juice, salt and pepper before serving.

Sit down and enjoy the quiet of a peaceful evening.

Yield: 6 servings.

One Great . . . tomato sauce

The tomato season is winding down, but it's not over yet. Around here, we usually have tomatoes well into September.

My friends at the Washington Post held a contest recently for readers' best recipes using tomatoes. (Man, I hate those guys - such good stories.)

One of the finalist recipes was this handy little thing called Tomato Butter, sent in by Nan Fuhrman of Seneca, Md. She uses it as a cracker spread, but I bet you could a bunch of uses, including a sandwich spread.

Tomato Butter

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 large sweet onion, diced
2 pounds dark, pulpy tomatoes, stem ends sliced off and seeds squeezed out
1 teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon liquid smoke

Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low and cook until the onion is soft, stirring a few times, about 10 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, paprika, brown sugar and salt. Cook, uncovered, until mixture thickens to the consistency of jam, stirring often and using a wooden spoon to break up large pieces of tomato, about 30 minutes.

Transfer to a blender. Remove center from blender jar and cover with a towel to contain splashes. Puree until smooth. Strain if desired, then stir in liquid smoke and blend again on low speed. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate. Keeps about a week, covered.

Makes about 1 cup.

One Great . . . green herb sauce

A lot of cookbooks cross my desk, many of them from restaurants I've never heard of until I open the book. That was the case with a very hyperactive book called "Leon: Naturally Fast Food," by Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent of the London-based restaurant chain Leon.

Flipping through all the pictures and drawings and quirky lists, though, I found a lot that lives up to the promise of the title: Fast ideas for quick meals, mostly in the healthful vein.

One recipe that caught my eye was for a green herb sauce that would be just the thing in the late summer. It's very adaptable: change out the herbs for basil or tarragon or whatever you have around. Serve it on grilled meat or oven-roasted fish, spoon it over vegetables, use it as a salad dressing, or spread it on a sandwich.

While you use it, you could ponder who Leon was. I went all though the book trying to answer that question and never quite figured it out.


Leon's Green Sauce

From "Leon: Naturally6 Fast Food," by Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent (Conran/Octopus, $29.99).

A large handful of fresh mint
A large handful of flat-leaf parsley
A large handful of cilantro
1 tablespoon capers
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
4 anchovy filets
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Put all the ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. It should be runny but substantial. Transfer to a sealable jar and refrigerate.

Yield: About 1 1/2 cups.

One Great . . . Easy Corn Gratin

This has been the summer for corn tricks: There's that video of the guy shaking microwave corn from the husk - I never have gotten that one to work - and the trick about cooking corn in the cooler.

I just saw another trick that should have occurred to me but never had: If you're cutting kernels from the cobs, you'll make less mess if you cut the cob in half, making two shorter pieces. Your knife blade makes a shorter trip down the cob and the cob is closer to the plate. Both of those seem to keep kernels from flying all over the counter.

That trick helped when I came across this easy recipe from the Washington Post. It's a homey, simple corn gratin that uses pesto, milk and instant flour (AKA Wondra) to make an easy sauce. And it has a cornflake crust - how easy is that?

Quick Corn Gratin

Slightly adapted from the Washington Post.

About 4 ears corn
1 cup milk (nonfat works fine)
1/4 cup pesto (see note)
2 tablespoons instant-blending flour, such as Wondra
1/2 teaspoon each salt and freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese
1/2 cup cornflakes, coarsely crushed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the corn in the microwave for about 6 minutes. When cool enough to handle, strip off the husks and silks. Cut the ears in half (making 2 stubbier ears), then cut off the kernels. You should have 3 to 3 1/2 cups.

Place the corn kernels into a 2- to 3-quart gratin dish or ovenproof baking dish. Add the milk, pesto, flour, salt and pepper. Stir to mix well.

Combine the Gruyere and cornflakes. Spread on top of the corn mixture. Bake 45 minutes, until bubbling and top is lightly brown. Remove from oven and let stand 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

NOTE: You can use prepared or bottled pesto, but make sure it has some oil, because that's a part of making the sauce. I used Trader Joe's but it seemed a little dry, so I added a little more olive oil.

One Great . . . pan of dinner rolls

Perhaps in another life, I'll have time to bake bread more often. With two book projects and a fulltime job, I can't even find time to thaw frozen bread all that often.

So I was grateful to "Pioneer Woman" author/blogger/TV host Ree Drummond for a short cut that put fresh, warm dinner rolls at least a little closer to my actual life. Drummond's trick uses frozen dinner roll dough (aka Rhodes), melted butter and a cast-iron skillet.

Warming butter in the skillet creates a little proofing box, giving the frozen dough a jump start. While the recipe doesn't mention it, I also remember food-science tests several years ago that showed putting frozen food on metal makes the food thaw faster. So that might have something to do with it as well.

Whatever the reason, the result is a faster pan of rolls that's just the ticket when you have people coming over and you want something that's a step up from reheated rolls.

Buttered Rosemary Rolls

7 to 10 frozen, unbaked dinner rolls (depends on how many will fit in your skillet with plenty of room for rising; my 10-inch skillet holds 10)
2 to 3 tablespoons butter, divided
1 to 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh rosemary
Coarse or flaky sea salt

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a cast-iron skillet over medium-low heat. Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes. Place the rolls in the warm skillet with a little space between each. Cover with a dish towel and let stand 2 hours (it may take a little less time), until the rolls have risen and filled the skillet.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Melt the remaining butter and brush over the top of the rolls. Sprinkle with rosemary and coarse salt. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, until golden brown on top.

Remove from oven and serve warm.

One Great . . . very simple tomato thing

We wait all year for good tomatoes, and then we have so many, we wonder what to do with them all.

This dish can't help you with the big slicers. It's something for simple to do with small, one-bite tomatoes, like cherries or even Sungolds when you need to use up a pile of them. Even better: You can hang on to this and use it on grape tomatoes the rest of the year.

It's incredibly simple: You just roll the tomatoes in dried herbs and place them in the dry air of the refrigerator. When they dry, they have a crispy coating, great for popping in your mouth and noshing. Put out a plate of them as an appetizer, or add them to an antipasti or cheese platter. Or throw them in your lunch box instead of chips with your sandwich.

The recipe came from Elizabeth Karmel, who made a name for herself on the barbecue circuit and now is the executive chef of the very successful Hill Country barbecue and fried chicken restaurants in New York and Washington. Good for her on all counts.

Tumbled Tomatoes
From Elizabeth Karmel.

1 tablespoon herbs de Provence
1 teaspoon coarse or flaky sea salt
1/2 teaspoon dehydrated garlic or garlic powder
2 pints bite-size tomatoes, such as cherry or grape

Grind or crush the herbs de Provence, salt and garlic in a salt grinder or in a mortar with a pestle.

Wash the tomatoes in cold water, then drain but do not dry. In a large serving bowl, toss the tomatoes with the herb mixture until they are evenly coated.

Refrigerate the bowl, uncovered, until all the water is evaporated, at least 3 hours and up to overnight. Toss or "tumble" the tomatoes in the bowl occasionally, until the herb and salt mixture has formed a crust on the tomatoes. Serve chilled.

One Great . . . zucchini and eggplant dish

It was a typical Cook's Illustrated recipe, for an Italian vegetable stew called Ciambotta, flavored with a quickie pesto called pestata. Yes, it had long directions and a lengthy list of ingredients. But in my summer-packed kitchen, I thought I had them all - basil, eggplants, onions, potatoes, zucchini.

Except -- uh-oh -- no canned tomatoes, which is what was supposed to provide the liquid to turn it into a stew. And there was all that time hanging out in a hot kitchen. I wasn't crazy about that idea at the end of a long weekend.

Time to innovate. Ditch the potatoes, tomato paste and canned tomatoes. Keep the pestata, zucchini and the trick of pre-cooking the diced eggplant in the microwave to dry them out and give them a head start.

We ended up with a flavorful summer side dish, sort of a zippy and shorter version of ratatouille. It's definitely versatile. You could toss it with pasta for a vegetarian summer supper, or add some broth and turn it into a simple soup with bread on the side.

And more of those summer vegetables will find a home.

Short-Cut Ratatouille
Adapted (very adapted) from the May/June 2012 issue of Cook's Illustrated.

Pestata:
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves
6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 to 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Vegetables:
Eggplants (I used about 4 of the long, skinny ones; aim for enough to have 2 cups of peeled, diced eggplant)
About 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Cooking spray
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, diced
2 zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 large tomato, cored and diced, or several plum tomatoes, diced

Combine the basil, oregano, garlic and red pepper flakes in a food processor or blender. Pulse to chop it all. With motor running, drizzle in the olive oil to make a juicy sauce. Set aside.

Peel the eggplant and cut into 1/2-inch pieces. Toss with the salt. Spread a couple of coffee filters on a plate and spread the eggplant on the plate. Spritz with cooking spray and microwave for 8 minutes, stirring after 4 minutes. You want to soften the eggplant and let it start cooking.

Heat the 4 tablespoons olive oil in a large, nonstick skillet. Add the eggplant and the onion and saute, stirring often, for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the zucchini and continue cooking, stirring often, about 5 or 6 minutes, until everything is softening up. Stir in the tomato and cook another minute or two.

Stir in the pestata and saute quickly to finish, mixing everything together. Taste and add a little more salt if needed.

Makes about 4 servings.

One Great . . . gorgonzola salad

Once upon a time, when I was a very young lass in West Palm Beach, Fla., there was a steak restaurant called Manero's. Fancy place, expensive steaks. And, most of the time, completely out of my financial league.

But in those long-ago days, there were things called "dates," when a young girl might be taken out for a nice meal. And so, very occasionally, I got to go to Manero's.

I don't recall a thing about the steaks. I can't remember all that much about most of those dates. None made an impression until I met the one I married in another town, many miles and a few years away.

But Manero's Gorgonzola salad? Now, that made an impression. It was really the reason people went to the restaurant: The cheesiest, most garlicky salad, tossed tableside in wooden bowls. A few years ago, paddling around on food web sites, I found a recipe that the Miami Herald apparently had begged from the original owners. The trick turned out to be garlic oil, rubbed into the wooden bowl before mixing the salad.

Garlic and Gorgonzola Salad
If you can't find gorgonzola, you could use blue cheese. The original directions call for freezing the cheese for 24 hours, so it's very firm and shreds well.

1 clove garlic, peeled
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil, divided
1 head of iceberg lettuce (although romaine or something better would do)
1 green pepper, cored and diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 ripe tomatoes, cored and diced
Salt and pepper
4 ounces Gorgonzola or blue cheese
1/4 cup cider vinegar

Combine the garlic clove and 1/2 cup oil in a blender and puree. Rub a wooden salad bowl well with the garlic oil. Refrigerate any leftover oil.

Break lettuce into bite-size pieces and place in the treated salad bowl. Add the green peper, celery and tomato. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Grate cheese over the top of the salad. Whisk together the vinegarand remaining cup of oil. Pour over the salad and toss well.
Serve immediately.

Yield: 4 servings.

One Great . . . French potato salad

My grandmother's potato salad recipe is passed around with reverence in my family. It's very traditional, jazzed up with pickle juice and pimento, lots of mayonnaise and a major hit of Lawry's seasoned salt.

Too bad I have a son who hates mayonnaise. I didn't know this was even possible, so I blame an errant gene from his father's side. Still, having a mayo-challenged child forced me to explore the world of non-mayo potato salads. I ended up as a fan of the French potato salad.

I have no idea if it is actually French, but I know the combination of potato, herb and vinaigrette is a lot easier than traditional American potato salad. It also can handle all kinds of potatoes, from those red-skin potatoes that come in a mesh sack to the wonderful small Bintje potatoes I get at the farmers market in the summer. Even plain ol' Yukon Golds work. Just make sure you have lots of fresh herbs, and always dress the cooked potato slices while they're hot.

French-Style Potato Salad

2 pounds potatoes, preferably small (red-skin, Bintjes, fingerlings or Yukons)
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons sherry or white wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 to 4 tablespoons minced fresh herbs (flat-leaf parsley, basil, thyme leaves, chervil -- a mix of whatever you have)
4 to 6 green onions, diced white bulbs and sliced green tops (or 1/4 cup minced red onion or shallot)
1 stalk celery, diced

Scrub the potatoes, leaving the skins on. Cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Place in a pot and cover with water and 1 tablespoon salt. Bring to a boil and simmer about 10 minutes, until slices are just tender.

While potatoes are cooking, make the dressing: Whisk together the mustard and vinegar. Slowly drizzle in the oil, whisking steadily. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Drain the potato slices, saving 1/4 cup cooking water. Put the slices in a large bowl and pour the dressing over them. Stir together gently with a rubber spatula, adding a splash or two of the hot cooking water if it needs it. Stir in the green onion or other onions. Wait until just before serving to fold in the fresh herbs.

Makes 6 servings.

One Great . . . way to use zucchini

The calls and questions are coming in: What to do with all the zucchini. What with that rainy spring and all, zucchini seem to be growing to baseball-bat proportions overnight.

So a posting by food writer Regina Schrambling on www.epicurious.com's Epi Log quickly caught my attention Tuesday afternoon: A Turkish-inspired zucchini spread. Just the thing to serve with pita bread and a salad for a simple summer supper, or maybe dip up with crostini or pita chips. I showed it to my zucchini-growing co-worker and we both agreed it needed to be tried.

Luckily, I had everything but fresh dill, which was optional anyway. I even had Aleppo pepper (my spice cabinets overfloweth), but that's really pretty optional too. Otherwise, you just need Greek yogurt, a little mayo, walnuts and garlic. And zucchini. But that part shouldn't be hard.

Turkish Zucchini Spread

Adapted from food writer Regina Schrambling on www.epicurious.com

1 pound zucchini
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 cup (or less) plain Greek yogurt
3 cloves minced garlic
3/4 cup ground walnuts (see note)
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
A pinch of sea salt
About 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dillweed (optional)
1/2 teaspoon ground Aleppo pepper or coarsely ground black pepper

Grate the zucchini on the large holes of a box grater. (Schrambling suggested peeling a few strips off the zucchini, but I skipped that. Zucchini skin is so thin, there's no reason to peel it.) Heat about 2 tablespoons oil in a skillet over medium-high. Saute the zucchini for several minutes. Remove from heat and cool.

Place the zucchini in a bowl and mix with the yogurt, mayonnaise, garlic and ground walnuts. Season to taste with salt. To serve, spread it on a plate or small platter and sprinkle with fresh dillweed. Mix the pepper and 1 tablespoon olive oil, then drizzle over the top. Serve at room temperature.

NOTE: I ground the walnuts and the garlic together in a mortar and pestle, which worked great. It left the walnuts a little chunky, adding more texture. Or you could mince the garlic and pulse the walnuts in a food processor. One cup walnuts should yield about 3/4 cup ground walnuts.

One Great . . . arugula pesto

The basil is jumping up, but it's not knee-high yet. But arugula is living up to its name, rocket. Time to change up your pesto game.

We get so used to pesto made with basil and pine nuts that it's easy to forget you can make it with other things. I spotted an arugula version on www.seriouseats.com last week and started thinking how perfect that would be. Arugula is so peppery that it can be too much in a salad with more delicate greens. But it's just right when it's combined with garlic, Parmesan and walnuts.

What to do with it? Just for starters, I can think of tossing it with pasta, spreading it on grilled chicken, using it as the base for a salad of chilled, cooked green beans or topping grilled baguette slices for bruschetta.

Arugula Pesto
From www.seriouseats.com.

2 cups arugula leaves, packed (I discarded the heavier stems)
1/4 cup walnuts
4 cloves garlic
1/3 cup of olive oil or a little more if needed
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan
2 teaspoon lemon juice
About 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

Place the arugula, walnuts and garlic in a food processor and pulse to chop. With motor running, drizzle in olive oil to form a moist paste. Stir in Parmesan, lemon juice and salt. (You might want to skip pepper, since arugula is naturally pretty peppery.)

Cover with a thin film of oil and cover tightly to refrigerate. Keeps about 3 days refrigerated.

Makes about 1 cup.

One Great . . .grilled chicken trick

Why does summer feel busier than winter these days? More places to go, more recipes to try, more fresh food to snap up and cook.

I was looking for something simple when I saw an idea from French's mustard: Smear plain ol' yellow, ballpark mustard on chicken before you grill it. The mustard keeps the chicken moist and adds plenty of flavor.

Of course, like all grilled chicken recipes, keep on eye on the pieces and keep moving them around the grill so they don't get too dark. But a three-ingredient grilled chicken is just what we need.

Super Juicy Mustard-Rubbed Chicken

3 pounds frying chicken, cut into 8 pieces (or any combination of chicken pieces you like, particularly thighs and leg quarters)
1/2 cup yellow mustard
3 teaspoons Montreal Spice

Preheat gas grill to medium heat, or build a charcoal fire with coals on one side of the grill.

Coat the chicken on all sides with mustard and sprinkle with Montreal spice.

Place the chicken on the grill, skin side down. Grill about 30 minutes until juices run clear or a thermometer inserted in the thickest parts registers 160 degrees. Turn pieces often and move them to a cooler area on the grill if needed to keep them from burning.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

One Great . . . boiled peanut hummus

For a guy who was born in Canada, Hugh Acheson certainly makes a good Southerner. He chef/owns the restaurants Five And Ten and The National in Athens, Ga., and Empire State South in Atlanta; he shared a James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef: Southeast with Linton Hopkins, and his book "A New Turn in the South" won a Beard book award for its fresh takes on traditional Southern dishes and ingredients.

And, yes, he got known as "The Unibrow" in his appearances on "Top Chef" and "Top Chef Masters." (Oh-yeah 2: He also occasionally writes some pretty interesting blog posts, mostly on Southern cooking, at the Epicurious blog roll, Epi Log.)

Paging around looking for something to serve with cocktails, I came across this tasty and simple spread from "New Turn in the South." If you make your own boiled peanuts, green peanut season isn't until late summer. But there's a boiled peanut stand at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market, or you could use canned boiled peanuts in a pinch.

Tahini is sesame paste; it keeps forever in the refrigerator.

Boiled-Peanut Hummus

1 cup shelled boiled peanuts (almost exactly the amount you get in one of those little paper bags)
2 tablespoons tahini
1 medium clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Tiny pinch of cayenne
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt if needed
Dippers: Pita chips (particularly good), flatbreads, chips or raw vegetables

Combine the boiled peanuts, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, cumin and cayenne in a food processor and process on low or pulse. Drizzle in olive oil slowly with motor running. Add 2 tablespoons water and process again to thin to spreadable consistency. Season with salt to taste (taste first - the peanuts may be salty enough.)
Serve with dippers. Keeps a couple of days in the refrigerator.

Makes about 2 cups, maybe a little less.

PHOTO: Garden and Gun

One Great . . . salad dressing

We're coming into the season when salads get really great. Great lettuce, great cucumbers, great radishes, and great tomatoes getting closer.

So why glop it up with bottled salad dressings? If you're going for something creamy, it's easier and it tastes better to make your own. There are a reason classics like Green Goddess have been classics for decades. They have so much flavor, you don't need to use very much.

Green Goddess, for instance, isn't just incredible when you toss it with salad ingredients, you can do things like use it as a base for chicken or seafood salads. Try it with leftover grilled salmon.

I've tweaked this version a little over the years, particularly swapping convenient anchovy paste for anchovy fillets. Don't skip it, though -- a little bit packs a major hit of flavor that balances out the herbs and mayonnaise.

Green Goddess Dressing

1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley (mostly leaves but a few stems are OK)
1/4 cup minced fresh chives
2 tablespoons green onion tops, diced
1 1/2 teaspoons anchovy paste
1 teaspoon vinegar, preferably white wine or sherry
1/4 teaspoon minced garlic (about 1 small clove)

Place all the ingredients in a food processor. Puree until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 4 days. If it's too thick to toss with a salad, thin it with a little lemon juice or water if you like.

Yield: About 2 cups.

One Great . . . weekend brunch dish

When you're a food writer, food companies flood your desk like rice fields at harvest. Brochures, press releases - they even send rubber versions of foods to try for attention.

I ignore most of it, although I've been known to turn a rubber blueberry into a projectile on a Friday afternoon. Most of the recipes are about as interesting as a rubber blueberry. But flipping through a brochure from a group called Avocados From Mexico a couple of weeks ago, I had to stop and look at this one.

Steamed avocado? With an egg in the middle? It sounded too weird to be ignored. There's a good reason most recipes don't cook avocado, so the audacity of this begged to be tried.

The result: Slightly softened avocado with a little soft egg yolk makes a combination that's indulgent and surprisingly tasty. The original dish called for making a spicy tomato sauce, but I skipped that in favor of a little salsa from a jar.

It's a neat dish to keep around when you need a special breakfast. Just don't overcook the egg. Rubber isn't good for blueberries or eggs.

Avocado Poached Egg With Diablo Sauce Adapted from Avocados From Mexico.

1 large avocado, ripe but still slightly firm
2 medium eggs
Smoked paprika
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoon salsa, if desired (optional)

Bring about 1 inch of water to boil in a saucepan large enough to hold a steamer basket. Place the steamer basket in the pan (use a colander if you don't have a steamer).

Cut the avocado in half lengthwise and discard the pit. Leave the peel on, but cut a very thin sliver from the bottom of each half to make a flat bottom. If the hole where the pit was is small, use a spoon to make it just a little larger.

Place each avocado half peel-side down in the steamer. Crack an egg into each indentation.

Cover the pan and steam until the eggs are poached but still soft in the middle, about 5 or 6 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove each avocado half to a plate. Sprinkle the egg with a little paprika, salt and pepper. Serve with a little salsa and toast.

Yield: 2 servings.

One Great . . . asparagus salad topping

Do I run too many asparagus recipes in the spring? Guilty as charged. With no apologies: Asparagus is one of those things that tastes fabulous when it's fresh and disappointing when it's frozen or canned. When it's in season, you have to eat your fill because it won't be back in season for 11 months.

Still, eating your way through that much asparagus can get a little repetitive. I've worked my way through several cooking methods -- microwave-steaming, oven-roasting, pan-braising. But what I wanted recently was a new way to top it.

I found just what I wanted on www.seriouseats.com, which in turn adapted it from Jacques Pepin: A really easy dressing with chopped hard-cooked egg. I made it for an impromptu dinner party this weekend and it was tempting to skip the asparagus and eat the dressing with a spoon. (The sauce made a lot, though: You could half the sauce ingredients and only use one or two eggs.)

Asparagus With Dijon Mustard Sauce and Hard-Cooked Egg

3 eggs
2 bunches thick asparagus, bottom ends trimmed or snapped off (about 1 pound)
1 tablespoon minced chives (garnish; optional)
Sauce:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Pinch of salt and a few grinds of freshly ground black pepper

PLACE the eggs in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil. Cover, remove from heat and let stand 16 minutes. Remove eggs to a boil of ice water or rinse to cool. Peel and roughly chop.

COOK asparagus however you like (it works great with this microwave-steaming method from Alton Brown: www.obsbite.blogspot.com.

MIX mayonnaise, mustard, water and vinegar in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

ARRANGE asparagus spears on a platter or on salad plates. Spoon the sauce over them. Top with chopped egg and chives (if you're into garnishing).

YIELD: 4 servings.

PHOTO: Serious Eats.

One Great . . . bright green spring salad

When everything fresh and green starts pouring into the farmers markets, it's hard to resist an impulse buy. My bags were already full Saturday morning at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market when I spotted a pile of fava bean pods.

Favas aren't all that common around here, so when you see them, you better grab them. I filled a bag with several big handfuls and then started thinking about what to do with them.

I know to set aside time for favas. They're a strange bean and they take a little more work. First, you have to open the big pods, which can be as long as a wooden ruler, and free the fat beans. They'll have a strange, white-ish appearance. That's the outer skin in the bean. The real bean, as bright green as fresh grass, is inside that skin. To get to it, you drop the shelled beans in boiling water for 2 or 3 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water. Then you squeeze the white casing and the bright bean pops out.

With that much work, it's good to find a way to stretch your favas. I pulled cookbooks off the shelf and finally hit on this one: A very bright, very green salad from "The Food Matters Cookbook," by Mark Bittman.

As it turned out, I also had picked up asparagus and a couple of long stalks of garlic scapes that were so crisp and fresh, I could dice the stalks and use them like asparagus, too. The recipe didn't call for them, but sometimes you have to improvise. Spring is like that.

Fava Bean, Asparagus and Lemon Salad

2 lemons, well-washed
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1 pound fresh fava beans
1 pound asparagus, bottoms of stalks peeled or broken off, cut into 2-inch pieces
1/2 cup chopped, fresh mint

CHOP 1 whole lemon, peel and all (discard seeds and pointed ends). Place in a serving bowl with juice of 2nd lemon, salt and pepper and olive oil. Let stand while you prepare the vegetables.

SHELL the fava beans. Bring a small saucepan of salted water to boil. Add the favas and cook about 2 minutes. Remove from water with a slotted spoon. Drain in a colander and rinse with cold water. Squeeze each bean to remove from the skin. Add to the lemon and oil mixture.

RETURN water to boil and add asparagus. Cook until just tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and rinse, then add to bowl with the favas. Add the mint and toss well to mix. Refrigerate about 2 hours before serving.

YIELD: 4 servings.

One Great . . . shrimp dip recipe

When the new book "Farm Fresh Southern Cooking," by Tammy Algood arrived recently, I was expecting squash casseroles and green beans, not a chunky shrimp dip. But friends were coming over and I needed a substantial appetizer for noshing.

It certainly fit the bill. Easy to make, simple ingredients and plenty of flavor. My book club approved. Since it's chunky, serve it with scoop-shaped tortilla chips but include a small knife or spoon so people don't break their chips in the bowl.

Not For Wimps Shrimp Dip

From "Farm Fresh Southern Cooking," by Tmamy Algood (Thomas Nelson, $24.99).

2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon pickled jalapeno liquid
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
1 1/2 pounds cooked salad shrimp (I used a 12-ounce package of small shrimp, thawed)
3 stalks celery, minced
6 green onions, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped pickled jalapenos

Combine the cream cheese, mayonnaise, pepper liquid and mustard and beat with an electric mixer on low speed. Fold in the shrimp, celery, onions and peppers.

Transfer to a serving bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour (and up to 24 hours) before serving.

Serve chilled with hefty chips or crackers.

One Great . . . Skillet pasta for 2

There are cookbooks on cooking for one, but two is the neglected number. Yet cooking for two is just as difficult as cooking for one. There's not enough room for two of you to lean over the sink with a bowl of cereal.

I've been getting a taste of the two-ful myself this year and it is a dilemma. You still need to cook a meal, but even a recipe sized for four can get out of hand with leftovers. So I was ready for it when a new America's Test Kitchen book landed on my desk: "Cooking for Two 2012: The Year's Best Recipes Cut Down to Size."

I can't vouch for that "year's best recipes" part -- I don't recall getting a ballot for that one. But the book certainly has handy touches. My favorite is a list of the recipes broken down by the amount of the main ingredient. When you get stuck with half an avocado or part of a can of diced tomatoes, you can pick a way to use them.

For the most part, the recipes are simple but not too plain, like trimmed-down Pad Thai and easy grilled suppers. With a bunch of ham leftover from last week's Easter story, this one was just what I needed and easy enough to whip together on a weeknight.

Skillet Spaghetti Carbonara
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
6 ounces ham, sliced thin and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 1 1/4 cups)
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper
1/3 cup dry white wine
2 cups water (see note)
1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
6 ounces spaghetti, broken in half
1/4 cup heavy cream (or half-and-half)
1 large egg
1/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese (or Parmesan)
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley or basil (optional)

Melt butter in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the ham and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly brown, about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer ham to paper towel-lined plate; set aside.

Add garlic and 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper to now-empty skillet and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in wine and simmer until nearly evaporated, 2 to 4 minutes.

Stir in water, broth and pasta; increase heat to high and cook at a vigorous simmer, stirring often, until pasta is tender and liquid has almost disappeared, 12 to 15 minutes. (It will look like an impossible amount of liquid, but it will cook away. Adjust heat as necessary so that the pasta cooks through before the liquid cooks away.)

Whisk the cream, egg and cheese together in a small bowl. Remove the skillet from the heat, pour the egg mixture over it and toss to combine. Stir in the ham and season with salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with parsley or basil if using. Serve immediately.

NOTE: When I made this, I simplified it by using 3 1/2 cups broth rather than broth and water. And I used half-and-half instead of heavy cream. Both changes worked fine.

One Great . . . smashed potato recipe

There are recipes you see and you just know: "That is going to have a home in my life."

That was my reaction of the Crash Hot Potatoes in Ree Drummond's new "The Pioneer Woman Cooks" cookbook.

For one thing, roasted potatoes wedges are easy and reliable, but they're also a little boring. For another, several local farmers, including Dean Mullis of Laughing Owl, grow really bang-up small potatoes that would be great in this treatment. They usually don't show up until early summer, but this year, I'm afraid to predict anything. Better to be prepared.

Crash Hot Potatoes

From "The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier," by Ree Drummond (William Morrow).

A dozen whole new potatoes or small round potatoes, such as Bintjes, washed and unpeeled
3 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and rosemary or other herbs to taste

Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Add potatoes and cook until fork tender. (I test potatoes by sliding in a knife -- if the potato clings to the knife, they're not done.) Drain potatoes. Heat oven to 450 degrees.

Drizzle a roasting pan or baking sheet with olive oil. Place potatoes on the sheet in a single layer, leaving space between each one. With a potato masher, press down on each potato until it slightly mashes open. Rotate the potato masher 90 degrees and mash again. Brush the tops of each crushed potato generously with more olive oil.

Sprinkle the potatoes with kosher salt (or flaky sea salt), black pepper and chopped fresh rosemary (or thyme or chives).

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the craggy edges are browned.

Serves 4 (although the amounts are very adaptable.)



PHOTO: www.thepioneerwoman.com.