Nothing beats chocolate chip cookies still warm from the oven, freshly baked shortcake, or a perfect apple pie cooling on the windowsill. 250 Treasured Country Desserts is packed with tried-and-true recipes for the homey treats you've loved all your life, with practical tips on how to make gingery ginger snaps, clean-cut brownies, dreamily frosted layer cakes, and much more. You'll turn to this reliable guide again and again for sweet, satisfying dessert classics.

Nothing tastes better than the seasonal bounty of local farms. Everyone loves the spring-is-here excitement of peas and asparagus and the summer sweetness of tomatoes and corn. Now it's time to give the hearty, long-lasting bounty of the autumn garden its due. Whether these vegetables are eaten straight from the garden, out of a well-tended root cellar, or straight from the market, their flavors reward the home cook, and their nutritional benefits pack a powerful punch. Sweet winter squashes, robust hardy greens, jewel-toned root vegetables, and potatoes of every variety are the staples that make eating locally so delicious and satisfying during the cold months of late autumn and winter. These cold-weather treasures work wonderfully well in soups (Celery Root Bisque, Creamy Leek and Root Vegetable Soup, Portuguese Kale Soup) and baked entrees (White Lasagna with Winter Squash, Chicken Pot Pie with Root Vegetables, Winter Vegetable Pot Roast), but they also shine in winter salads. Warm Goat Cheese and Beet Salad; Endive, Pear, and Walnut Salad; and Thai Cabbage Salad can be the centerpieces of light winter dinners or delicious preludes to the main event. With this collection of more than 250 recipes, veteran cookbook author and gardening enthusiast Andrea Chesman deliciously demonstrates how locavores in all parts of North America can eat seasonal produce year-round. Whether they're eaten in soups or salads, side dishes or entrees, root-cellar vegetables can be a delicious part of every cooks winter kitchen. Recipes include: Split Pea Soup with Winter VegetablesÊ Roasted Beet and Blue Cheese SaladÊ Deep-Fried Root Vegetable Chips with Garlic AioliÊ SautŽed Brussels Sprouts with CranberriesÊ Cashew CarrotsÊ Braised Collards with BaconÊ Deep-Fried Onion RingsÊ Root Vegetable Bread PuddingÊ White Lasagna with Winter SquashÊ Ravioli with Smoky GreensÊ Winter Vegetable Lamb

We may love the dazzling caramel cages, gold leaf, and apricot coulis of restaurant desserts, but when we're in our own kitchens, a blueberry pie is more likely to fill the bill. For birthdays, a tall devil's food cake is still just the right thing. And during those precious weeks when fresh strawberries are available, who wants anything fancier than strawberry shortcake? Gingerbread cheers a friend home with the flu, and creamy rice pudding soothes the soul after a hard week at work. Here are more than 100 truly great American recipes that no home baker should be without: chocolate layer cakes and blueberry pie, cherry cobbler and apple pandowdy, lemon meringue and chocolate cream pie, baked custard and Indian pudding, chocolate chip cookies and gingerbread men, butterscotch pudding and baked apple dumplings. Enhanced with delightful anecdotes and historical tidbits culled from three centuries of cookery and housekeeping books, MOM'S BEST DESSERTS is a cookbook collector's dream.