Don't let the title fool you - this "pancake" is practically a souffle. Don't let the word "souffle" scare you - it's easy enough to make in the morning (although I do need at least one cup of coffee for strength). Sweet enough for dessert, but eggy enough to call it breakfast.

I love fried tomatoes (especially fried green tomatoes), but my results have been decidedly hit-or-miss. Three small things will make this my go-to recipe. First, the flour is mixed with an equal amount of breadcrumbs. I suspect this gives a much crunchier crust with less risk of burning. Second, the timing is about right (4 minutes per side over a medium burner).

And finally, topping the tomatoes with brown sugar at the end! What a delight, to add sweetness to the acidic tomato and lightly peppered dredge! (In fairness, my kid didn't like this... so I won't sugar his in future.)

Barely a recipe, more of a technique, but it went over gangbusters in my house. Bacon is topped with a layer of brown sugar and a crack of pepper before baking. I used substantially less brown sugar than pictured, which I think was right for a basic breakfast meat. On the other hand, in future I'll probably be more aggressive than I was with the pepper; the brown sugar gives a lot of cover before you get to "pepper bacon" territory.

This was a really pleasant and quick meal. I suspect it would be easier to brown the gnocchi if you waited a few minutes before adding the tomatoes. (Getting a good crust is key.)

My wife and I agreed that this would be a wonderful main course with a "side dish" of a couple slices of a flavorful spice-rubbed steak. (Using beef to cut the richness says a little bit about the buttery cheesy starchy home-style indulgence of this simple dish.)

Good recipe for the Thanksgiving leftover classic. I think it needs garlic. I don't know how they think this fits into a 3 quart casserole dish - it looked it would overflow mine, so I made it in my crock pot insert. (Which led to a discussion about which vessel would have the best crunchy bread-crumb topping to creamy noodle ratio - we think it might be 2 lasagna pans.)

I used this as a marinade for beef, and it was a big hit. I agree with kaye16; it's a little too salty. (I fixed it by adding yogurt and lemon but next time I'll just use less salt.)

The only complaint my family had is that I didn't reserve any of the marinade to use as a sauce, which would have been really nice. (My wife pointed out that I should reserve before marinading rather than trust my ability to heat a yogurt-based sauce without it breaking... which points out that this is in "make again soon" territory.)

There are lots of different recipes out there for tasso, but here's one you can make in a day. It's just a 4-6 hour cure and a 2-hour smoke. (I did an overnight cure, which turned into more like 14 hours before I got the pork on the smoke. It came out pretty salty; if I were going to do that again I'd probably shift the cure to equal amounts of sugar and salt.)

Anyway, this was a huge hit. Salty and spicy, meaty with a tender chew. I'm impressed that we had the self-control to not chow down on it before we got it in the freezer. But we're having all kinds of ideas for things we can use it in. I see jambalaya and etouffee and red beans and rice in my future. We're even thinking about how to use it on pizza (with all that salt it'll take a light hand and maybe some sweet ingredients as counterparts...)

A pleasant enough recipe for a crispy, hearty starch - almost like an Italianate hush puppy. The recipe makes a wealth of 2-bite balls, appropriate for appetizers or a side dish, not the baseball-size behemoths I've had on occasion.

I admit using leftover rice pilaf, not the called-for risotto, and my mixture was a wet mess almost impossible to work with. I added an additional half-cup or so of rice, which still didn't help; finally, I added bread crumbs to the mix (in addition to the bread crumb coating) and the mix started to hold together. I should try it with risotto instead of long-grain rice to see if it's a recipe problem or a changed-the-ingredients problem.

This may be my new go-to potato preparation. In fairness, I cheated quite a bit - using larger gold potatoes instead of new potatoes, and then (inspired by a different page on Pioneer Woman Cooks) microwaving them instead of boiling them. The end result was an amazing cross of creamy and crusty potato - almost like the top of a shepherd's pie. Obviously, your mileage will vary with a waxier or less cooked potato; probably a minute less in the microwave would have been closer to the recipe. Still, high marks for introducing me to a revelatory technique.

A delicious and complex treatment for pork. The mix of salt, sweet, and the acrid funkiness of fish sauce calls barbecue to mind. Brennan says this is the "Thai equivalent of ham" and I can easily see making a big roast of this and spreading it out over multiple dishes. (However, I used it as a treatment for pork chops, and while I'm afraid they came out a bit dry, they weren't at all tough and the flavor was delightful.)

Essentially, this is three recipes - how to make rice and lentils in your slow cooker, how to caramelize onions, and a yogurt-cucumber-mint sauce.

The rice and lentils part is amazingly easy. It serves as a nice base for the onions, which become the standout part of the dish. The rice and lentils also play nicely with the raita, but I felt like the mint and yogurt taste overwhelmed the onions.

A pleasant preparation of slowly braised ribs in a sweet Asian sauce. Ours completely fell apart; it wouldn't have been much work to pull the bones out of the pot and serve it like pulled pork. My wife enjoyed the subtle flavors, as did my young son; I thought it was OK but was hoping for bolder flavors. ("Soulful" is in the eye of the beholder.) I might add five-spice powder and up the garlic in future, to bring it more in the direction of Chinese-restaurant ribs.

I was underwhelmed by this stew of beef, zucchini, and tomato. I found it watery and lacking in flavor. Perhaps part of the problem is that it's a spring or summer stew which I made in November, and my taste buds were set for something heartier. Still, in future I think I'd increase the garlic and herbs, and brown (perhaps broil) the zucchini before adding it.

This is a pretty good chicken and rice soup. It is, unfortunately, a lackluster gumbo. With a dash of hot sauce and a sprinkle of file powder at the table, it was OK - again, good for soup, but just OK for gumbo.

I suppose it displays my prejudices when I say that the first problem with this chicken gumbo is that there's not enough pork in it. A smoked sausage would be very nice, or failing that, ham or at least double the bacon called for.

The real problem with the recipe, though, is that there's no depth of flavor, none of the body I associate with gumbo. I think it's the lack of a roux (though purists might say you don't use both roux and file). Overall, I may return to this recipe, but it needs tinkering to be what it claims to be.

My stock pot may never be used for making stock again, between this recipe and the ones in the Fagor pressure cooker manual. Why spend all that time and energy on the stovetop?

The long simmer produces a beautifully clear amber stock. There's also very little liquid lost in the slow cooker - unlike to stovetop or pressure cooker, the yield is darn near the amount of water you add. The recipe is chock-full of onion, leek, and carrot, and the stock has a strong vegetal sweetness. (If you prefer meatier stocks, you might cut these back a hair.)

I do have a quibble - my printing says to cover the turkey carcass with "4 inches" of water. I just can't see how that's possible in my (large) slow cooker for any turkey worthy of the name. Admittedly, today I'm making stock from the remains of Birdzilla, and I just barely got it into the pot. Extrapolating out to a more moderate-sized turkey, I still think it's a misprint.

In my opinion, this belongs in the "beans" section, not the "chili" section. But as a bean dish, it's rather good. The addition of evaporated milk at the end gives the sauce a richness which is very satisfying. (I suspect this is an addition which would improve many vegetarian chilis, if you're not going for vegan.)

I omitted the canned jalapeno and served it with hot sauce at the table; I found it needed the acidity of hot sauce as much as the heat. It was good with flatbread but next time I imagine I'll make rice as well.

I wonder if my slow cooker's "low" setting is higher than this cookbook expects. At 4 hours, this looked ready to eat, and at 5, the sauce was broken and the meat slightly dry. The herb flavor was nice; I reduced the amounts by about half because I was using dried herbs, not fresh, but next time I'd use more.

I'll definitely be coming back to this recipe, to try and work out the timing.

Something seems to be missing from this recipe. Perhaps a sauce or gravy. (I left out the black olives, because I find them boring; maybe green olives would work.) There just doesn't seem to be much flavor in it.

I also suspect there's a bad instruction in it - the corn meal mixture is stirred together with the beef and onions. I wonder if the textures would be more interesting if the corn meal were allowed to sit on top of the beef, like many of the tamale pies I've seen.

A pretty nice approach to a roast; once again with this book, I'm glad I turned the heat from "low" to "warm" about an hour early.

The apples are interesting. We used Fujis, which are probably too sweet for this dish, though their apple blossom perfume was captured well. With a sweet apple, a little goes a long way - it's almost a dessert topping. My son picked up on the brown sugar and ginger flavors and accused us of serving him sweet potatoes instead of apples. I'd like to try it again with a properly tart apple, but even so, I'd probably scale back the sugar.

My wife and I had the same reaction to this burger - it's a kick-ass mini-meatloaf. It's heady with parsley, capers, and onion, and had a great burger char on the outside. The recommendation to use a coarse grind for burger meat is a good one - it makes the meat distinctly more beefy, although I feel like I lost some classic American "burger-ness". I found it could do with a little more salt and spice - but a squeeze of lemon juice and a shot of hot sauce definitely makes it a recipe to return to.

A pretty good technique for using leftover roast - minced, mixed with shredded root vegetables, and braised into a hearty sauce (suggested for Yorkshire puddings but fine for noodles or rice). And while it does take an hour, there's not a ton of work involved if you use a food processor. I feel like it misses an herbal note - maybe thyme or even parsley to green it up a bit.

Very nice way to use up the end of a roast, sweet and savory. It's easy enough to be a weeknight dinner, especially if you let the food processor handle the chopping and mincing. I think I went too heavy on the mashed potatoes, but it was awfully good... maybe it's served differently in the UK than in the US.

I'd never considered stir-fry as a British dish, but this quick and satisfying preparation is exactly that. It's next to the page about using "cheaper cuts", but this was a nice way to put a dent in a leftover leg of lamb. (A different kind of frugality, I suppose.)

The cooking liquid can be either white wine or meat broth. I picked white wine, and I think the acidity helped cut the oiliness of the dish.

Not a dish I see myself buying lamb to make, but certainly a dish I'll put into the rotation to use up leftovers.

Nice loaf of bread. Mixed up particularly wet, which was odd for our house and weather; ended up adding a lot of flour to make it workable and a longer bake time to get it fully cooked.

Excellent shortcakes. Just the right amount of sweetness while still having a good bit of biscuit texture to them. I let the dough get too wet and it was hard to work with, but that's just something to watch for next time.

Most of my ratatouille recipes are built in a skillet or pot. In this one, the vegetables are roasted first and then covered with tomato sauce. The result is that the eggplants, peppers and zucchini hold their shape and individual flavors better.

We just ate it as a side dish; serving over pasta or rice would also be nice.

These were fine, but nothing to write home about. I had trouble with the extra moisture from the pumpkin throwing the cook time off; my first batch was definitely underdone and even the more done ones were more moist than fluffy. I found them undersweetened, although maybe that's intentional because they were about right with syrup and candied pumpkin seeds.

The recipe also makes an enormous batch, so I'll be finding out how well they reheat.

I'm giving this a slightly higher rating than I think it deserves, because I suspect I made an important (and negative) change to the recipe by using ricotta cheese instead of cottage cheese. Truth is, I don't like stuffed squash very much, and this only seemed average to me. I am glad I used the optional handfuls of raisins and chopped pecans; they added good texture and flavor. (The recipe says walnuts, but as far as I'm concerned, every recipe which calls for walnuts is better with pecans.) All in all, not a bad way to make stuffed squash, just not exceptional.

I didn't care for this at all. The curry struck me as sandy, which I blame on the ground coconut. It was also somewhat bitter and unbalanced toward the pungent side of cloves, cumin, and cayenne. My wife thought it showed promise for further experiments (like substituting coconut milk for coconut flakes). I'd start with a new recipe... so we'll average those opinions and call it a 2.

I feel like this is a recipe which shows its age badly. One of the things that struck me is that, in 1977, you probably couldn't get decent curry paste or powder in most supermarkets. In 2011, I'm quite sure I could make curried cauliflower that's just as good or better with off-the-shelf ingredients, and I live in the sticks.

I'm a fan of potatoes and cabbage, so this dish caught my eye. With cider vinegar and 3 forms of tart dairy (cottage cheese, yogurt, and sour cream), it's a very rich dish but with a refreshing zing.

I certainly enjoyed it, but my family thought it was only OK. They prefer colcannon, which has the benefit of being a little less work. But I think I'll be tinkering with my colcannon recipe to see if I can get a little acidity into it, thanks to this recipe.

This is the second recipe in Moosewood which I think could be simplified by making it in a large (very large!) oven-safe skillet, or doing the sauteeing in a dutch oven. No sense dirtying 3 pots when 2 would do!

We made this without the mushrooms, which were missed, but it made a nice somewhat spicy soup. I tend to find butternut squash soup too sweet, but the heat and lack of dairy in this one seemed to help.

A dish which my wife and Nora Ephron both call "reason enough to own this cookbook." A delicious stew of lamb with spring vegetables like peas and green beans, and of course the usual cast of root vegetable characters.

This is one of those recipes that makes you yell "Eureka!" in the kitchen. Or possibly "Look what I have created!" like Tom Hanks in Castaway. Or "I read your book!" like George C. Scott in Patton. (OK, that one might just be me.)

It's easy, it's delicious, it sums up why we still revere Saint Julia. It's even funny - I won't spoil the joke, but don't miss the prologue to the recipe.

It's just a baked custard with fruit on the bottom. Except for the fact that the flan is as silky as love, and the sweet egg and vanilla are the home of a childhood memory. It takes time, but so little effort, that I have to wonder why I haven't been making at least one a week.

I used the Lee Brothers brandied plums, instead of Julia's recipe, which worked just fine (and brought a bit of cinnamon to the mix). I forgot to swap in some of the plummed brandy for milk, which would have increased the fruit flavor.

An hour would have been a little too long in my oven; don't be afraid to start checking at 50 minutes or so.

With cream, Marsala, tarragon, and Swiss cheese, these are much sweeter than the "mushrooms stuffed with herb cream cheese" that I remember from family holidays. They are refined and delicious, if a tad oily, and play well with other foods. That said, they are more effort than the old family "open a container" recipe; it'll be a matter of personal preferences whether that effort pays off.

Fun treatment for chicken. We didn't serve it with the brown butter sauce, but instead heated up a little tomato sauce and made an ersatz chicken parmigiana.

Yup, it's blanched cauliflower. Though I must admit salting the water is a good step.

A terrific, simple breakfast course. Kind of an upscale egg mcmuffin, with goat cheese standing in for the saltiness of bacon. My wife hates olives, so we omit the olive paste and frequently use anchovy paste instead.

The garlic puree/marinade has some good flavors; we actually let it sit overnight and that seems like a good choice. I was pleasantly surprised that the temperature and cook time did not dry out the pork or burn the greens. Unfortunately, the water that's keeping things moist also seemed to keep them from browning.

Overall, I felt like this whole recipe needed a little more oomph. There's not nearly enough heat or acidity to the greens. The garlicky pork is nice, but I felt it wanted some brown sugar and maybe some cayenne. (Or maybe just a whole mess more garlic and oregano and a little more orange juice.)

I'd tinker with it some more; the pork did come out nicely. But it was underwhelming.

A fantastic dish for spring or early summer, this is a dish that's hearty without being heavy. It's a dish of little bites... a bit of salt from the pancetta, cubes of sweet potato which retain their shape, and a hit of freshness from the vinegary capers.

Seems like a promising recipe, even if I had something of a cooking fail. (I forgot to mix the brown sugar and spices with the lemon juice before pouring the whole mess over the sweet potatoes - so mine were kind of sweeter on one side and lemony on the other. Weird, but good enough.)

Sweet potatoes in my world are usually either baked in their jackets, or mashed, so this recipe of baked slices minimally spiced was a revelation. They maintain some structure and texture, and a good amount of clear sweet potato flavor.

They did hold pretty well overnight - I made these the night before Thanksgiving and served them on the day.

I only made the mushroom chutney; the chops look like a pretty basic preparation so there seems like no reason to doubt it. I really enjoyed the chutney, although I find the prunes are really the dominant flavor, with the earthiness of the mushrooms a distant second. It would be an excellent compliment for pork or chicken (or maybe even fish) - unfortunately, I served it with beef, and the flavors seemed to fight. I'm wondering if cutting the prunes way, way back would let the mushrooms and beef pairing work better.

One warning - the recipe says to use a 12" skillet, and I tried this in my 10", and just barely did everything fit. I also needed to cook it a lot longer than the recipe says to get the sauce to reduce. Seriously, use a 12" or bigger pan.

I don't think my attempt went quite right, but I'm giving this a good rating for promise. I initially thought the sauce was a little too minty - 8 springs of mint, at least from my garden, is powerful. But it's a pleasantly delicate sauce, not heavy like it looks.

I've found that steelhead trout can almost always stand in for salmon, so that's what I used for this recipe. It didn't quite work, and I don't know if that's because of the fish itself, or because I didn't char the skin hard enough, or what. It was good - what's wrong with a recipe that boils down to "salt, pepper, broil" - but not great. But I'm going to cheat my rating up because maybe that's cook's error.

As a rule, I trust people when they name a dish after a family member. They way I see it, any honorable person will bring their A game when they play under Gran's flag... and for that matter, I want to know if you're not honorable.

I'm here to report that the Lee Brothers are proper Southern boys who wouldn't let you think bad of dear old Gran. This is a fabulous marinade which I see becoming part of my regular rotation. The bourbon-soy combination makes for a smoky taste which you'd swear came from a barbecue, and then it reduces to a delicious pan sauce. It's clearly superior to any London broil I've had.

About halfway through dinner, I realized I was hungry for a crusty sandwich roll. I'm thinking this would be a fantastic sandwich au jus (perhaps with lettuce, caramelized onions, and maybe a bit of brie or mayo).

Light and refreshing, and easy to boot. The milk and mint flavor suggests a faint drizzle of chocolate sauce. Ours were silky almost to the point of lacking structural integrity, and took more than the stated 1.5 hours to set up; I suspect the answer in both cases is that our ramekins are deeper than they are wide. A different shape might set up firmer (or I might use the whole packet of gelatin powder next time).

I enjoyed the flavor of these fritters. The sweet potato base works nicely with the vegetal okra and pungent onion. The technique was a trick though... the process was easy enough but I'm still not sure if I was trying to get more of a potato pancake thickness or a hush puppy. (Presumably the answer is "in between.") Obviously, this affects the texture and cooking time. I probably will try again to see if I can get a more consistent product.

The dipping sauce is just a mix of buttermilk, sour cream, and a microplaned clove of garlic. I don't know why this isn't on the table every night.

One kitchen note - you're going to purge liquid out of the sweet potato and chop okra. You will get wet on this ride.

Take a dry sparkling wine (like a cava or a prosecco), and add a plum-infused brandy syrup. Crisp and refreshing, this is a drink which could play many parts - a summer cocktail, an aperitif or a dessert drink. The brandy, plum, and cinnamon, though, evoke Christmas. This is a drink that whispers "God bless us, every one." And it certainly helps the brandied plum recipe from the dessert section pay off.

I slapped a partial recipe together in a little bit of time before dinner, and it was pretty pleasant. Once the red wine actually penetrates the carrots and turnips, the sweet notes of all three become very interesting and complex. I'll definitely return to this following the recipe more closely (and allowing a more proper amount of time to marinade).

Exceptionally good technique for trout - perfectly done, wrapped in crispy bacon, and not a hint of sticking to the pan. I'll be returning to this many times. It also has a lovely mix of textures, with firm fish, crispy-chewy bacon, and shattering slivers of almonds.

The sauce didn't work perfectly for me. I think I misunderstood an instruction that the oil in the pan needed to be dumped and replaced with just butter, because mine came out very oily and perhaps not lemony enough. The flavors are there, but I didn't get them in the right balance.

My family and I love fried beet chips, but there's a tiny window of opportunity between soggy, not quite done chips and burned ones. (Frying red chips in a black cast iron pan doesn't help know where that window is.)

So we greeted this recipe with a little excitement. Unfortunately, I cut the beets on my mandolin at 3 mm, which turned out to be too wide. They were still tasty, but they were frankly chewy. Next time I'll go down to 1.5 mm (or maybe even to .75, which is way too thin for the deep fryer).

Use a liberal hand when brushing on the olive oil.

(Edit: Yup, 1.5 mm was better, and it's what most recipes call for, but it needs a little more time to get crispy. I'll do .75 mm next time.)

(Edit to the edit: .75 works really well, but they're done in under 15 minutes.)