Weeknight Meals

Coating the rice with butter and oil keeps the grains from sticking together while they cook.

Wash the salad greens in a large bowl of cold water. Handle them gently to avoid bruising.

Steaming the carrots tenderizes them before baking. The honey really heats up; during baking, check once or twice so it doesn't burn the carrots.

This recipe is a fun alternative to the heavier dishes that tend to make an appearance at Super Bowl parties. A few variations can be made to this salad as well: Make it Buffalo style by tossing the chicken in a little hot sauce just after you've fried it. You can also vary the cheese (by using goat or Feta) and other salad ingredients (like lettuce type) according to taste. Freezing the cheese will make it firmer and much easier to grate.

Potatoes aren't a backbone starch in the South, but they're one vegetable, notes Miss Lewis, that is good in all seasons.

Almost every culture has an abiding, elemental hunger for greens, and in the American South, it's common to simmer a variety of them. Hopkins cooks his relatively quickly in a satiny béchamel. The nutty sweetness of the sauce rounds out the natural bitterness of the greens, thus lifting them into the realm of the spectacular. Think of this as a rough-around-the-edges version of creamed spinach, one with real backbone.

What gives this thick, voluptuous soup its deep-golden flavor and aroma is toasted dried summer-sweet Cope's corn. Chef Linton Hopkins embellishes the soup with tender, briny shrimp and foresty mushrooms, but it would also be delicious with crabmeat or bacon & or with nothing at all to distract you from its mysterious, soul-satisfying essence.

In keeping with the rest of the menu, this is no shy salad. The sweet and acidic vinaigrette unites with the salty bacon and, along with the lettuces, produces fireworks in the mouth.

"Grits love salt," says Peacock, and his creamy-white, almost milky grits, with yellow and black flecks of coarsely ground corn, demonstrate that it's not saltiness he's after, just perfectly balanced seasoning. Grits usually function as an accompaniment, like polenta or rice, but it's certainly easy to imagine eating a bowl of these on their own, with no more than a pat of butter.

This braised pork, absolutely falling apart from its lengthy cooking, would be a hit at any time of day. "Spoon it over creamy stone-ground grits or a hot, split spoon-bread muffin," Peacock suggests.

This rustic, satisfying spiced soup—a perfect dish to make ahead and reheat on busy weeknights—will help stave off even the fiercest midwinter chill.

We heart this dish. Pomegranate may protect your arteries against LDL ("bad") cholesterol.

This soup gets a rich, earthy flavor from dried porcini mushrooms, which are available in the produce section of many supermarkets and at Italian markets and specialty foods stores.

Mix in sautéed 1/2-inch cubes of butternut squash, if you like.