Favorite Non Tricky Recipes

I have a special affection for recipes that are not tricky, that turn out perfectly on the first try. Mine:

Banana Bread … I posted the recipe here before
Willy’s Crisp … Wonderful fresh fruit crisp, so easy, so delicious
Marcella Hazan’s Roasted Chicken with 2 Lemons … you roast breast side down in the beginning. Also her recipe for Bolognese and Basil Pesto. (I was showing someone how to make this; she’d never used a Cuisinart before. She measured out the 2 packed cups of basil leaves and was grating the Romano and Parm cheeses. My back was turned and I didn’t realize she hadn’t read through the recipe and had thrown everything into the Cuisinart. You’re instructed to mix in the cheeses by hand later. It was impossible to remove so we just zapped it all together. To my surprise, it tasted just fine … I couldn’t tell any difference from my normal practice!)

What are your favorite No-Fail Recipes?

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Does PB&J count?

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One-bowl banana bread from Epi (Aunt Holly’s…) – so easy, and very adaptable (less or more bananas, eggless, GF, and so on), my young nephew even made it on his own after I sent him the recipe (joke is, I don’t eat banana bread)

Alice Medrich’s best cocoa brownies – all pantry ingredients, half fits in a loaf pan

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Scalloped potatoes:
Butter, potatoes, milk, gruyere/cheddar/ parm/Romano, pepper, sometimes nutmeg or thyme

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Although Kenji Alt Lopez goes deep into everything, this dish: Pasta Genovese (pasta with pesto, potatoes, and green beans) is ultra simple and delivers hugely:

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That’s Daniel Gritzer’s! He has a lot of good recipes on SE which seem to frequently get attributed to Kenji. :joy:

This is as simple as it gets and perfect every time with whatever protein you like or no protein at all. If the green beans aren’t slender I like to cook them first before anything else gets added, though. Or if I use a different vegetable like broccoli.

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