Vegan

The perfect combination of sweet and tart, thinly sliced bread and butter pickles are the quintessential all-purpose sandwich toppers, delivering lots of big, punchy flavor in a small package. They make such a satisfyingly crunchy snack that—if you’re anything like me—you’ll soon graduate from layering them in sandwiches to munching them straight from the jar.

My dad’s crunchy, garlicky dills accompanied the majority of the sandwiches I ate as a child. They were perfectly crisp every time—that satisfying snapping sound accompanying each bite was one of the best things about them—a feat my dad achieved simply by using small, firm, freshly picked cucumbers. Try to pick cucumbers that are already short enough to fit easily in the jar, about 4 inches long for pint jars. Or, for unexpected shape, taste, and color, make them using round yellow lemon cucumbers cut into wedges.

Many Southerners keep a steady supply of no-fuss cucumber pickles like these in the fridge all through the summer. They’re great because you don’t even have to turn on the stove: just toss everything together, let it all marinate for a few hours, and you’re good to go. Mild and crunchy, they are sort of a cross between cucumber salad and dill pickles, meaning they’re perfect scattered over a simple green salad with Buttermilk Green Goddess Dressing (page 284), layered in Pimiento Cheese Burgers (page 187) or Pickled Jalapeño Meatloaf (page 191) sandwiches, or placed in a little dish and added to a relish tray.

I grew up eating most salads with Italian dressing or plain old oil and vinegar, which was the closest I came to vinaigrette. But now I can’t live without vinaigrettes; they’re so easy and flavorful. Here is one of my favorites, which I often make with the dregs from a jar of mustard that would otherwise have been thrown away.

This simple and refreshing salad is what I crave on especially hot summer days in North Carolina, when even the trees begin to droop and I can’t bear the thought of turning on the oven. That’s the only time to make it, since it’s also when the tomatoes and cucumbers are at their peak and growing like weeds. Have fun mixing and matching colors and shapes using the many varieties—both familiar and strange—that you’re apt to find at your local farmer’s market.

With their grassy flavor and creamy texture, pink-eyed peas subtly reinforce the sweet earthiness of roasted sweet potatoes. As always, fresh peas are best, but in the winter you can make this dish with frozen field peas or dried or canned navy beans.

Allowing the farmer’s market to determine the mix of beans in this filling salad gives new meaning to the traditional “three-bean salad.” Fresh beans are always a treat, but I make this dish year-round by using canned navy, garbanzo, or cannellini beans when fresh ones aren’t available. If using canned beans, just skip the blanching step and toss the beans with the herb vinaigrette.

Southerners just love beets—perhaps because beets are one of the rare vegetables that will grow in the South straight through spring and summer and all the way into the fall. But I like to make this jewel-toned salad best in the spring, when you can get multicolor carrots, like Yellowstones, Purple Dragons, Atomic Reds, and Yayas, and beets, like Boros, Bulls’ Bloods, and Candy Stripes.

Roasted vegetables are so easy and delicious—with nothing more than a drizzle of olive oil, a dash of sea salt, and a hot oven, the vegetables get all crispy and caramelized on the outside and soft in the middle. It’s a great dish for company, since it can be made ahead of time and reheated or served at room temperature. But even when you don’t have guests, cook enough for a crowd and use the leftovers in salads, sandwiches, quesadillas, or omelets. Most all vegetables are good for roasting, including turnips, beets, rutabagas, fennel, asparagus, corn, summer squash, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and all kinds of winter squash and pumpkins. Just make sure to wait to add quick-cooking vegetables until any slow-cooking vegetables are almost done.

You can buy lemon-flavored olive oil, but to ensure freshness, why not make your own? Like making vinaigrette, it’s so easy.

Can you tell I love rice? I can’t say which one of these recipes I prefer—the spicy, tomatoey red rice or the poblano and herb flavors in the green rice variation. They are both full of flavor and complement countless dishes. Serve either one with Jalapeño-roast Pork (p. 269), and your favorite spicy black beans or grilled fish, chicken, or shrimp.