Nigella Lawson

This one of those traditional old school British desserts - which we call puddings - that really deserves to find favor on this side of the Atlantic too: with its rich breadcrumby custard base and meringue topping, a layer of jam between the two, this is a very aptly named dessert.

One of the most gratifying things for a home cook is to scrimmage a meal together out of leftovers. It’s enormously satisfying to ransack the fridge and use up what lies under plastic wrap or is lounging about in the vegetable drawer; it always provides a relaxed, unforced creativity. I certainly would never have thought of using horseradish as a dressing for a tomato salad if I hadn’t wanted to find a way to use up a horseradish root staring beseechingly at me every time I opened the fridge.

You can easily ask a butcher to butterfly the chicken for you, but it isn’t difficult to do at home and can be curiously pleasurable. Just sit the chicken, breast-side down, on a board and press down a little until you hear a gratifying crunch. With a good pair of kitchen scissors or poultry shears, cut along each side of the backbone. Remove the backbone, then flip the chicken over and press down on the breast, to flatten it a little. The marinade infuses the chicken overnight with a deep and musky saltiness, but not spikily so; intense though miso most definitely is, it works subtly, bringing its caramelly saltiness to the meat.

This is one of my favorite suppers, although there’s nothing that says you can’t serve this as a vegetable side as part of a more conventional meal.

This is a regular lunch or supper at casa mia.

I know this sounds like a Dr. Seuss recipe (only without the elastic scansion) but it is, as the Italians say, "sul serio," no joke. The green factor is not crucial, but since this came about because I happened upon some spinach-dyed stubby coils of trottole—the pasta shape named after its supposed resemblance (I don't see it) to a spinning top—it feels right to me. Serendipity is only part of the story: I have also always had a thing about pasta and blue cheese, both separately and in conjunction. This recipe is in many ways an evolution of the Pasta with Gorgonzola, Arugula & Pine Nuts in my Quick Collection app, and indeed you could make any sort of mishmash of the two. The major developments here are that I felt the need—or rather a fancy—to sprinkle the deep green of the pasta with the paler pistachios, and I add no cream or mascarpone (as I used to) since a little pasta-cooking water, whisked into the cheese, makes it as creamy as you could wish for. This is not a dietary stance, but because the starchy water doesn't mute the palate-rasping piquancy of the Gorgonzola.

I found this recipe for one of the world’s easiest but most delicious desserts in a rather fabulous book, by chef and “culinary philosopher” Gioacchino Scognamiglio, called Il Chichibio: Ovvero Poesia Della Cucina, which translates as “The Gallant: or the Poetry of Cooking” (and Chichibio, I should also tell you, was a rakish Venetian cook in Boccaccio’s Decameron). At Scognamiglio’s instigation, I went to great lengths to acquire a bottle of Elisir San Marzano, which has a peculiarly Italian, chocolate-coffee-herbal hit. Feel free to use coffee liqueur or rum or, better still, a mixture of the two in its place. This is a no-churn affair. You mix everything together, wodge it into a loaf pan, freeze, and you’re done. I like this with a few raspberries to tumble around and a chocolate sauce to Jackson Pollock over it.

I adore the deceptive plainness of gingerbread. It is definitively unfancy, and yet the flavor is so rich, and its deep-toned tang so subtle. Here the tang is a little more emphatic, as sour cream and licorice-evocative Guinness give heady lift, but still this is — for all the treacly sugar and pungent spices — gentle and cozy-making, though almost alarmingly addictive.

There are few sights as uplifting in the kitchen as a golden, bubbling grating coming out of the oven. It's strange to be saying this, but one of the reasons I love this particular gratin is that it isn't too creamy and rich. And the relative thinness of the wine and milk the potatoes and mushrooms are cooked in - relative to heavy cream, that is - is what allows you to cook this in such a hot oven and so quickly.

One year when I attempted a traditional Christmas cake, I did as required, at least to start off with. The requisite months before, I bought dried fruit, chopped and stirred and steeped the mixture in alcohol. When the time came to make the cake, I was so exhausted with seasonal demands I didn't have the energy left actually to make it. So now I have evolved an easier, process-leaner method. Well, when I say I have evolved it, this is no more than my take on an old boiled fruit cake.