The Perfect Pantry®

Recipe for egg and cheese casserole with chayote squash and green chiles

Your holiday weekend guests haven't gone home yet? Same here. They need a good meal before facing the inevitable traffic jams and airport delays. I don't have the heart to feed them one more leftover turkey sandwich, so I'm fortifying my guests for their journeys with an easy energy-laden, protein-rich egg and cheese casserole filled with chayote squash and green chiles. (Or, leftover roasted potatoes and green chiles. Or squash and green chiles. If you still have turkey from Thanksgiving, chop it up and throw that in. Use what you've got.) Chayote is a mild-flavored, green-skinned squash that looks like a pear, and tastes like a patty-pan. Peel and cube it, and give it a quick pre-cook with the other vegetables. This casserole comes together in minutes, and bakes for half an hour, which gives you just enough time to make coffee and toast.

Recipe for baked egg with bacon, spinach and mushrooms

Every morning for nearly 40 years, my father woke my mother by serving her juice and coffee in bed. Every day, even on school days and work days, on holidays and on nothing-special days. Breakfast in bed, however, only occurred on birthdays and their anniversary. For breakfast in bed, who wouldn't love a baked egg with bacon, spinach and mushrooms, and a bit of cheese? This recipe makes two servings, which means you and your sweetie can have breakfast in bed together. You can double or triple or make dozens at a time; pour the egg filling into ramekins, and refrigerate until ready to bake. Then, let the eggs come to room temperature while you preheat the oven. These eggs will wow a crowd, or one special someone. What a way to start the day.

Recipe for lemon-dill egg salad

Eggs, Miracle Whip, black pepper: that's been my absolutely-perfect egg salad formula for decades. Until now. I can't explain what drove me out of my comfort zone last weekend, but I woke up with a need to have not just any egg salad, but this one. I put some eggs on to boil, padded out into the herb garden in my pajamas to harvest dill and parsley, and zested the single lemon sitting on the counter top. A few more ingredients from the pantry brought everything together, and voila! New and improved, absolutely-perfect lemon-dill egg salad. I'm planning to make this my favorite for the next few decades. It's that good.

Black bean, green chile and tomato frittata recipe

Guess who's coming to dinner? I love to be spontaneous, especially after a long day of testing and photographing recipes, and no matter who drops by for dinner, I can always depend on a quick and easy frittata to fill the gaps in a meal of experiments that didn't work perfectly. (Don't get me wrong; I feed those recipe failures to my friends, too, but I always like to have one proven good dish on the menu so my friends will come back.) A frittata is a crustless quiche, and this Mexican-inspired version relies on staples I always have in my pantry: canned black beans, canned green chiles, grated cheese and eggs.