No-Cook

Treat yourself once in a while to homemade mayonnaise prepared in a food processor. This simple version is delicious and light—and it takes about 5 minutes to whip up. It will keep about a week, but mine usually vanishes before that, particularly if I use some of it to make the Mediterranean Pistou Sauce that follows.

This is ideal to make when you’ve bought too much watermelon.

Salsa is Sandy’s condiment of choice. (Well, that and pickled jalapeños!) This recipe is one of her absolute favorites and provides her with a little taste of home. She typically adds this salsa to her morning eggs (she’s spicy that way) or serves it as a flavorful dip to sit alongside a big pile of tortilla chips. If you like a really hot salsa, leave in some of the jalapeño seeds.

It’s bananas how good this dessert is! Seriously, it doesn’t get much better than this. A creamy peanut butter topping covers layers of fresh bananas and a tasty vanilla-wafer crust. Drizzled with a rich chocolate sauce, we think it’s the best in the bunch!

When a recipe calls for just a bit of fresh basil, don’t let the rest go to waste—in fact, buy a little extra (three bunches total) and make a delicious pesto. It’s easy!

Some simply don’t have the patience to wait the weeks necessary for sauerkraut to ferment, but we prefer this old-school way of preparing it. The wait was actually a big part of the fun when Crystal was a kid (apparently there wasn’t much to do in the North Georgia mountains).

Brussels sprouts are one of those things my mom made once when I was a kid. My sister—the perfect middle child—ate hers right up while my little brother and I sat there frowning at them. I think I was almost thirty years old before I gave Brussels sprouts a second shot. Now they’re one of my favorite vegetables, and this dish is my special take on coleslaw.

This is one of my best recipes (if I do say so myself!) and it’s become one of my mom’s favorites, too. People will say, “What is this?” and then, “Who knew you could eat raw asparagus?” It’s simple and unique and, I promise, it will make you a rock star with your guests.

Donuts are still new enough to me that I see ideas for toppings in just about everything. Fleshing out odd pairings is one of my favorite pastimes. It’s that type of excitement you can pursue for days and weeks and months and then, right when you think you’re out of ideas, something genius comes along that makes all the effort entirely worth it. Here are several of BabyCakes NYC’s most popular donut toppings. Some require Vanilla Icing to get them to adhere to the donut. In every case, I find it is easiest to put the mixture in a wide bowl so that dunking the cakes isn’t too much of a fuss.

Donuts are still new enough to me that I see ideas for toppings in just about everything. Fleshing out odd pairings is one of my favorite pastimes. It’s that type of excitement you can pursue for days and weeks and months and then, right when you think you’re out of ideas, something genius comes along that makes all the effort entirely worth it. Here are several of BabyCakes NYC’s most popular donut toppings. Some require Vanilla Icing to get them to adhere to the donut. In every case, I find it is easiest to put the mixture in a wide bowl so that dunking the cakes isn’t too much of a fuss.

You may as well commit this recipe to memory because I guarantee you will return to it when you’re looking for that little something extra to add to recipes in this book and beyond. You’ll use it to dunk donuts, drizzle it on Wonder Buns, even slather it on pancakes.

Creamy, light, and sweet—you’ll want to smother this all over pretty much everything. Way overeager one ambitious morning, I even tried it in a cup of coffee. Please do not do that. It is, however, perfect on just about anything else.

For those of us who prefer to sweeten with agave, this glaze, which can also moonlight as a dipping sauce, is a godsend. You’ll need to store it at room temperature to prevent it from getting too thick.

Serve this immediately; it is not a beverage that can sit around.

Making your own tomato-based sauce to dip your cheese straws into or to spread on your pizza is super-easy. At the bakery, we usually toss something together with whatever spare veggies and tidbits we have lying around. The foundation, however, goes a little something like this.

You’ll notice in a minute that this recipe does not call for the Sugar-Sweetened Chocolate Dipping Sauce (page 123), even though it might harden up in the freezer a little better than the alternative. Instead, I turn to the agave-sweetened version because, to my mind, there’s no sense in rolling a perfectly nutritious snack in vegan sugar when an agave-sweetened option offers an equally excellent alternative.

A tangerine, sometimes called “kid glove orange” because of the way its loose skin will slip off, has such a sweet, bright flavor when at its peak around November. This salad is fine-looking with light variegated shades of green set with vivid sections of citrus and golden challah croutons dusted with tarragon.