Ina Garten

This is a great last-minute dinner.

When I was growing up, my mother served a lot of canned vegetables, but the one thing she always made from scratch was acorn squash, which she roasted with butter and maple syrup. When I revisited her old method, I found it was just as good as I remembered. The sweet squash filled with a big puddle of melted butter and sweet syrup is so irresistible!

This just might be my all-time favorite dessert. It's the simple essence of sweet apples and crisp pastry with no distractions. We've all collected several similar recipes over the years, but this is the best one I've ever made. If I need to make it even faster, I use defrosted frozen puff pastry instead of making the crust (see note), but you'll want to eat it an hour or two after it comes out of the oven.

My friend Myriam Richard-Delorme in Paris is a great cook and she gave me this recipe. All you do is put a leg of lamb in a roasting pan with lots of cut-up tomatoes, onions, garlic, rosemary—and then pour honey over it to caramelize the lamb and tomatoes while they roast. Everything cooks in one pan and a few hours later I have the most succulent roast lamb, plus the tomatoes and pan juices become the vegetable and the sauce. OMG is it fabulous!

There are so many variations on mashed potatoes—but this combination of potatoes and basil is a marriage made in heaven. Creamy potatoes and the fresh peppery basil really complement each other, and the Parmesan doesn't hurt, either. Everyone asks for seconds!

This recipe is inspired by a cranberry pie from Sarah Chase's book Cold Weather Cooking. My friend Barbara Liberman calls it "easy cake"—I call it delicious. When cranberries are in season, serve it with vanilla ice cream and your friends will love you.

This is really a fun dessert. Form this into a mold and serve it with a cookie on the side. If you don't have time to prepare the mango sorbet, Häagen-Dazs makes a good one, and believe me, your friends will have just as much fun. The good news is that you can make this ahead of time. I serve it with fresh raspberries and raspberry sauce.

I didn't grow up eating pork, so I was pleased to find out how lean and flavorful it was when I made this roast loin of pork. I cooked it the way I cook lots of meats — roasted with carrots, potatoes, and fennel. It's important to let meat rest after it's cooked; you'll find that all meats become juicier and more tender after 15 to 20 minutes. The rub on this comes from my dear friend Anna Pump and her wonderful Loaves and Fishes Cookbook.