Add a Pinch: Easier, Faster, Fresher Southern Classics

Blogger Stone of Add a Pinch compiles recipes that have descended to her from relatives, such as Grandmother Earlene’s creamed corn and biscuits and Aunt Lulu Belle’s lemon meringue pie, which has an unusual, intriguing departure from convention in its cup of sour cream. Recipes tend toward the simple, like add-and-go slow cooker pot roast; a number call for boneless skinless chicken breasts, but grandmother’s Sunday roasted chicken and streamlined Southern buttermilk fried chicken are both cooked on the bone. Stone shows how a Southern cook balances traditional with modern, making her own cream of chicken soup to be deployed instead of the canned version. Vegetables include the gratifyingly regional, such as butter beans, okra, and collard greens, in approachable preparations, and a classic condiment whose time might finally have arrived: suitable-for-canning, authentic chow chow. (Mar.)