American

These are equally good with either ground pork or ground lamb.

This homespun dessert features a cinnamon-scented cake with a ribbon of chocolate cake running through it.

Serve the crisp warm, topped with vanilla ice cream.

Jack's in San Francisco offers this nice, old-fashioned salad.

Maple syrup is one of New England's unique gifts to the culinary world. The natural sweetener is a wonderful complement to all kinds of ingredients but is especially good when teamed with pears, which are plentiful in fall. Here they're partnered in a cobbler, an old-fashioned dessert of fruit baked with a biscuit topping. Make sure to pass whipped cream flavored with the delicate syrup.

Apple orchards of all kinds can be found throughout the middle of the United States. Interestingly, Red Delicious apples are a heartland original, first discovered in 1872 in Peru, Iowa. They are celebrated here (with their sweeter yellow cousin, the Golden Delicious) in a double-crust pie that's truly a "Delicious" closing to the Thanksgiving feast.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Not much goes better with fried chicken than braised mustard greens or turnip greens, hot biscuits and sweet pickles. For a perfect dessert, serve squares of warm gingerbread with whipped cream. This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

The term panéed means "panfried" in the New Orleans culinary lexicon. This recipe is from that city's Gabrielle Restaurant.

A colorful addition to any appetizer platter, this snappy dish makes a nice lunch when eaten on its own with some crusty bread on the side.

Even better over rice. Top it with sour cream and grated cheddar cheese.

Using orange juice instead of water in the crust enhances the fruit flavors in the filling. To prevent the dough from sticking, lightly flour the work surface and the dough, sprinkling with more flour as needed; also, roll just to the edges of the dough, not over them, rotating the dough often.

The instructions given here are for a standard 22-inch Weber kettle barbecue. Grilling times and vent adjustments will vary with different types of barbecues.

The chef bakes individual tarts in small cast-iron pans, but he suggests that the home cook make one large tart. He serves each tart with a scoop of his own vanilla-bean ice cream and a "barber pole" of dark and white chocolates.

You can make this tender corn bread a day ahead.