Nut

The success of a dessert as simple as apple pie depends on using perfect ingredients: tart, flavorful apples like Sierra Beauty, good buttery pie dough, and just enough sugar to bring out the flavor of the apples. You can always make a double-crusted pie, but for something different, try this one with its crumb topping.

Crunch-crunch-crunch will end up as munch-munch-munch when this salad is served. Flavor is obviously crucial in food, and certainly this salad has flavor, but tactile sensation is also a very important factor in our food perception and appreciation. We want pasta al dente, celery crunchy, bread grilled. This salad has a lot of texture to enjoy.

The ingredients for the caramel will fit in a small saucepan, but make sure you use something larger—the molten sauce bubbles up quite a lot.

Muesli is my go-to breakfast. Pomegranate adds an appropriately seasonal touch.

These slice-and-bake shortbreads can be prepped and kept wrapped in the freezer for up to a month before baking. And guess what? No need to defrost before slicing and zipping them into the oven.

Lett prefers Hachiya persimmons for this fabulously simple dessert (they're the ones with the pointy shape). But don't use them until they're super soft and completely ripe; they taste unpleasantly tannic otherwise.

Sparkly candy canes and winking snowmen aren't for everyone. Salted Honey and Chocolate Bark is a sweet-and-salty confection that even the manliest of men would be pleased to nibble on—or make. No cookie cutters, sprinkles, or icing necessary.

A dairy-infused pork sausage stuffing infuses this turkey breast with richness and perfumes the meat with warm spices.

I have written a recipe for panettone dressing before: the sweet seasonal fruit bread was cubed, toasted, and mixed with Italian sausage; this is very different, not least because I see it not as an accompaniment to turkey (which has its own interior stuffing) but to be served, at parties or over cocktails, in small squares, like savory brownies. As ever, feel free to substitute the plainer pandoro if you wish, though I do think the rich fruitiness is part of this unconventional appetizer's charm.

Daniel Boulud always had a preference for classic French desserts, so I developed this recipe for the lunch menu when I was pastry chef at Daniel. The dessert itself is very simple: We bake an undocked, thick round of puff pastry, letting it puff up high, and serve it hot, filled with Orange-Scented Pastry Cream and topped with a buttery caramel sauce and a few Candied Pecans. The puff pastry rounds should be baked à la minute, never ahead of time, though the dough can be rolled out and cut in advance, and stored, covered, in the refrigerator for up to a day. Sometimes the best desserts are the simplest.

This remoulade is a classic French dish and makes perfect use of an under-used vegetable. Choose from capers, parsley or gherkins (or any combination of all three), to add flavour and a pretty hint of green. The celeriac will discolour and brown as soon as it is peeled and sliced, so either use it straight away or soak it in water with lemon juice added, for up to 1 hour before using.

"This is as good as it gets!" Alan exclaimed as he took his fourth forkful of this creation, followed by a fifth. Picture a warm, creamy, puffy bread pudding, straight from the oven, that tastes like it was made in a praline confectionery shop in New Orleans. You start with a loaf of challah, cut it into thick slices, and pour over a rich, creamy custard. Marble it with a buttery brown-sugar praline crunch filled with pecans and flavored with cinnamon. The secret is to refrigerate the pudding for several hours or overnight before baking; it's the long soak that makes this bread pudding the best you've ever tasted!

Moist and full of pure banana flavor.

We love banana bread, but not for days on end. This small loaf is perfect for a treat lasting a day or two. The paper towels prevent the natural build-up of steam from potentially dripping on the loaf and making the bread soggy.

I'll eat just about anything with "sticky" in the title, which prompted me to create a sticky energy bar my raw foodie friends and I can savor together. I've cast sesame seeds in a lead role here because I'm tired of seeing one of my favorite ingredients marginalized atop hamburger buns and everything bagels—they have a terrific earthy-nutty flavor and a delicate crunch that goes well with so many dishes. Moreover, their nutritional profile will leave you star-struck. Sesame
seeds are a very good source of manganese and copper and a good source of protein, calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, vitamin B1, zinc, and dietary fiber. Further, they contain two special types of fiber, sesamin and sesamolin, which are members of the lignans group and can lower "bad" cholesterol and help prevent high blood pressure. And did I mention chocolate? Namely, raw chocolate drizzle? Sesame seeds plus raw chocolate drizzle equals crazy good.

These protein "truffles" are so ridiculously easy that I feel somewhat silly adding them to this collection. Then again, my super-simple, silly recipes are often my most popular. They are certainly favorites in my repertoire, in large part because of their fast factor, but also because of their portability and candy-like appeal. Plus, they are endlessly customizable by varying the spices, extracts, and other add-ins, or by giving them a chic coating of chia seeds, cocoa powder, or chopped nuts. Who says pretty and power can’t go together?

Adding barley malt syrup offers a rounder, less-sweet note in this take on pecan pie. Look for it at health food stores.

Curry crust? Trust us: This lightly spiced crumb will win Best in Show. If you want to take it even further, add a teaspoon of toasted crushed cumin seeds, too.

Vegan Green beans, cashews, mint, carrot, cucumber, and lime shine through the pearly noodles in this pretty, uplifting dish. The noodles will seem undercooked at first, but they will soften as they absorb the marinade and the moisture from the other ingredients. If you cook them all the way, the finished dish will be mushy. • Rice noodles of various thickness can be purchased inexpensively in most Asian-themed grocery stores, some supermarkets, and online. Use medium-thin ones for this recipe. • You can freeze the unused coconut milk in an ice cube tray, then transfer the cubes to a heavy plastic zip-style bag for making this (or something else) in the future. Don't forget to label the bag. • This tastes best within a few hours of being assembled, so plan accordingly. • Make sure the cucumber is sweet.