Bean and Legume

During roundups, cowboys once saved any extra coffee for use in cooking, since water was sometimes scarce. The coffee powder in these beans is an adaptation of that. Add some hot buttered flour tortillas and a crisp salad alongside for a terrific meal.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Mrs. Alvin Schreiner and her mother, Mrs. Lackner, were old-time German cooks. Everything they made was a work of art. This pea soup recipe came from them and is one of our favorites. Do not omit the bacon fat; it is the secret ingredient.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Make a salad of rice tossed with diced jicama, red bell pepper, avocado and a vinaigrette dressing, and pass bowls of sour cream and shredded lettuce to accompany these Southwest-style meatless bean burgers. A lemon tart is a perfect finale.

Active time: 5 min Start to finish: 10 min

Active time: 50 min Start to finish: 1 1/2 hr

We've called for live lobsters in this recipe, but, to save time, you could use 1 pound (about 3 cups) cooked lobster meat from your fish market.

Jean-Yves Jaulin's Mojhettes au Jambon

A stunning vegetarian platter.

The easy tomato chutney is adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's cookbook From Curries to Kebabs. Make the chutney and combine it with the green beans about four hours before serving, which allows plenty of time for the beans to soak up the flavors.

Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 30 min

This rendition of the traditional southern side dish is served chilled.

Tuna is delicious when it is cooked like steak with a reduced wine gravy made in the pan. Add any fresh herbs you have on hand — chives, tarragon, basil, parsley, oregano. Here the steaks are accompanied by fragrant thyme-scented white beans. Wine for Cooking and to Drink This is a household dish, or more precisely a wine merchant's dish, hence the title. An obvious choice would be a California merlot, but if you are feeling more experimental, a red wine from a less familiar source like Connecticut, North Carolina, or Texas could also work well. Two such wines made from French-American hybrid grapes that would suit this dish and are worth a try are Chambourcin and Maréchal Foch.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

The mustard dressing is used both to marinate the lamb and to coat the salad. And don't let the anchovies in the dressing scare you off. They add depth of flavor, but not a fishy taste. Complete this dish with a chilled Beaujolais.

Hoppin' John is a traditional southern dish of black-eyed peas and salt pork served with rice. Here, it's a risotto dotted with black-eyed peas and flavored with bacon and pancetta. This is an unconventional method for making risotto — rather than slowly adding hot stock to the rice, Rollins adds it, unheated, in just 2 batches. This will allow you more time for preparing the chops that go along with it.