The Perfect Pantry®

Recipe for breakfast quesadilla with smoked salmon and brie

My maternal grandma, the one who taught me to make brisket and applesauce, lived the last years of her life in the Cardozo Hotel in Miami Beach, long before Gloria Estefan bought it, long before nightclubs, long before South Beach became... well, South Beach. In those days, the area was a magnet for snowbirds from New York, many of Eastern European background, who would come to Florida for the winter. A few blocks from the Cardozo, Wolfie's Delicatessen catered to the New Yorkers. The restaurant, which closed a decade ago, was kosher-style, not kosher, so while my grandmother didn't eat there, the rest of our family did. One of my favorite Wolfie's dishes, scrambled eggs with lox and onions, inspired this quesadilla with smoked salmon and brie, plus scallions and a little bit of creamed cheese. A cultural mash-up, somewhat like Miami itself, this is really a creamy and slightly salty frittata cloaked in a cheese quesadilla. Serve it with or without the tortilla and brie wrapping; it's perfect for brunch or a weekend lunch.

Recipe for cod cakes with red pepper, tarragon and yogurt remoulade

Here in coastal New England, we pride ourselves on fierce regional loyalty: to baked beans, clam chowder and stuffies, Del's frozen lemonade, and the Red Sox, our perennially heartbreaking baseball team. We also love our cod, the local white fish spawned in the cold water of the North Atlantic. Fishing boats bring cod to market all year long, which makes cod cakes a popular appetizer on restaurant menus. You can make them at home for a fraction of the price; serve minis for a dinner party appetizer, or larger ones for a light lunch or dinner entree. If cod is expensive or hard to find in your area, substitute salmon or crab meat. To make this really quick and easy, whip up a batch of the remoulade a day or two in advance.

Recipe for roasted shrimp po' boy sandwich with Greek yogurt cole slaw and remoulade sauce

New Orleans' gifts to the world include jazz, Mardi Gras and two famous sandwiches: the muffuletta, layered with meat and cheese and pickled olive salad; and the po' boy. Clovis and Benjamin Martin, brothers who opened a restaurant on St. Claude Avenue in the 1920s, are credited with inventing the po' boy. When streetcar drivers went on strike in 1929, the Martins created an inexpensive sandwich of gravy and roast beef scraps on French bread; according to local legend, when one of the unemployed drivers came to get a sandwich, the cry would go up in the kitchen that "Here comes another poor boy." The sandwich became known as a poor boy, shortened to po' boy, and these days it's most often filled with fried shrimp or oysters. I tasted my first po' boy many years ago in New Orleans, as is only proper. More recently, at a farmers market in Atlanta, I treated myself to a fried shrimp po' boy (oh so good), dripping with remoulade sauce and sweet cole slaw. This recipe really cuts the calories -- roasted shrimp instead of fried, and judicious use of nonfat Greek yogurt -- while still letting the good times roll in your mouth.

Recipe for seafood pie

One thing I learned from years of teaching kids' cooking classes: kids like to cook more adventurous food than burgers and spaghetti and PB&J sandwiches. Ingredient, a magazine for children, knows this, too. I took out a subscription for our ten-year-old granddaughter, Sabina, and one for myself. This recipe, originally published as Catch of the Day Pie, caught my eye. Like most kids and young-at-hearts, I love anything that comes to my table in an individual baking dish, like a gift just for me. Though I followed the recipe for the most part, I did swap corn for carrots (I never liked peas and carrots together), leeks for onions, and langoustine tails from Trader Joe's for shrimp. I used cod, because it's our local New England fish and because I love it. If I'd had salmon, I might have used that instead, or in addition to the white fish. Use what looks good at your fish market. You don't need to go "fancy" with a pastry bag -- you can spread the mashed potato topping with a spoon -- and your kids will have a great time piping a design, or maybe their names, on top.