Baked Potatoes with Bacon, Black Beans, and Sour Cream

Oven-ready in just 20 minutes, these whole-grain donuts are much lighter in calories and sugar than the typical sour cream cake donut. Topped with a touch of glaze and nutty pecans, these delightful bites are a truly satisfying breakfast treat.

This comes together in about the time it takes to order takeout, and is miles more nuanced than your average Chinese restaurant's sweet and sour sauce. Ketchup, soy sauce, sugar, and rice or cider vinegar are boiled together with water (though pineapple juice makes for a tasty tropical twist), and thickened to the perfect dipping consistency with a little cornstarch slurry. Serve this with egg rolls, wontons, rangoons, and whatever other fried foods you want to perk up. Feel free to add some heat to the sauce with minced ginger, garlic, or chiles (or all three).

Sunset magazine food editor Margo True has learned the rights and wrongs of mashed potatoes from a reliable source—her mother. Here, she demonstrates the wrong way (undercooking waxy potatoes, skimping on the cream, or, horror of all horrors, employing a food processor to mash) and the right way (using russet or Yukon Gold potatoes, cooking them as long as possible, drying them over heat before adding lots of cream, and topping with herbs). This approach elevates mashed potatoes to their rightful status as much more than a side dish. (Click here for Margo's mashed potatoes recipe.)

Put jackfruit bacon on your pork bacon or use it as a smoky, salty sub.