"Don't give me any turkey leftovers. All I want is some of your mother's vegetable salad." I hear similar requests after every holiday dinner. Alas, the vegetable salad recipe has more than five ingredients, so it doesn't belong on this page. You'll find the recipe in The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook, edited by Kate White.

By Cook or by Crook, the first of my Five-Ingredient Mysteries, includes eight recipes, two of them perfect for a Thanksgiving dinner: Just Small Potatoes and Easier-than-Pie Apple Crisp. Here are those two recipes and an easy herb stuffing recipe.  
 
Do you have a favorite  holiday recipe? Please mention it in a comment.

Just Small Potatoes
Serves 6
Preheat oven to 375 degrees

6 medium to large potatoes
¼ cup flour
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
¼ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons melted butter

Pour the melted butter into a glass baking pan (13 x 9 x 2 inches). Combine the flour, cheese, and salt in a plastic bag. Peel the spuds and cut each into eight pieces. Dip ‘em in cold water, throw ‘em into the plastic bag a few at a time, and shake. When the pieces are coated, plunk those babies in the pan, flat side down, nestled in a single layer. Bake for an hour, turning them after half an hour to brown another side.

You can serve them in the baking pan and add parsley sprigs for garnish. 
Serves 6.​

Easier-Than-Pie Apple Crisp 
Serves 6-8 
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

5 cups thinly sliced, peeled apples (about 5 medium or 3 large apples)
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1/2 cup softened (not melted) butter
[Optional: cinnamon sprinkles]

Put the sliced apples in a shallow, square baking pan (8 or 9 inches) and, if desired, sprinkle generously with cinnamon. Cover the pan with foil and bake the apples for 20 minutes.

Mix together the flour, sugar, and nuts. Mash the softened butter into the mixture with a fork if you’re finicky, and with your fingers if you’re not. When the apples have baked for 20 minutes, cover them with the crumb mixture. 

Bake uncovered for 30 minutes or until the topping is golden brown. 

Cool the apple crisp for at least 30 minutes. Serve it warm or cold, by itself or with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Herb Stuffing
Serves 10-12

As the designated holiday dinner makers in our family for the last 25 years, we've experimented with different types of stuffing, starting from scratch or using various stuffing mixes. We've settled on a 5-ingredient one as the favorite, a modified version of the recipe on the Pepperidge Farm® Herb Seasoned Classic Stuffing package.  

1 stick of butter
2 cups of chopped onions (approximately 2 large onions) 
2 cups chopped celery (4-6 celery stalks)
2 cups boiling water (or low-salt chicken broth)
1 14-ounce package of Pepperidge Farm® Herb Seasoned Classic Stuffing

Melt half the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Sauté the onions for five minutes or until tender. Add the celery and cook for another 3 minutes. Melt the remaining butter in the skillet with the vegetables. Stir in the stuffing mix. Add hot water or broth slowly, mixing it with the stuffing until moist, using less liquid if you prefer stuffing on the dry side.

Stove-top stuffing: Cover the skillet, remove it from the heat, and let it stand five minutes. Fluff the stuffing with a fork and serve.
Casserole stuffing: Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spoon the stuffing into a 2-quart casserole. Bake 30 minutes or until hot. 
For in-bird stuffing: Loosely spoon the mixture into the turkey or chicken cavity before putting the bird in the oven. Don't overfill the cavity. A stuffed bird takes longer to cook than an unstuffed one. Put any remaining stuffing in a casserole dish and bake it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Now that I’m writing the Five-Ingredient Mysteries, friends give me cookbooks to plump out my collection of low-ingredient recipes. Here are three favorite books you might consider as gifts this season for yourself or someone else.

If you have a favorite cookbook with recipes requiring few ingredients, please leave a comment and share your find. Here's why I like these three books. 

Book #2 in the Five-Ingredient Mystery series has a mouth-watering cover . . .  with a missing ingredient. 

The first book in the series had a cover image that set the style for future covers: the five ingredients needed for a dish in the forefront. This book's title made it clear what dish's ingredients would have to appear on the cover.   

When my editor asked me to suggest images for the cover, I proposed the tureen with the series name on it and the bay view.  I also listed five chowder ingredients to depict. For whatever reason, possibly aesthetic, one of the ingredients doesn't appear on the cover. 

Any chowder cooks reading this? What other ingredient would you put in your chowder that's not shown here?

I used to spend hours awake in bed at night. My visit to a sleep specialist changed that.  


In addition to the usual good advice to cut down on caffeine after noon and on alcohol at night, he offered five suggestions that I hadn't heard before and that really helped me break  the habit of sleeplessness.