Keep holiday cooking simple with these easy dishes

Appetizers

Sally Swift: I have a little bit of an ax to grind with appetizers. People feel like they have to give so much for an appetizer. An appetizer is meant to whet our appetites, not fulfill us. Smaller can be better. Simple things work really, really well.

Try a nice, beautiful bowl of sweet and salty nuts, maybe with a little spice added to them.

Recipe: Candied Walnuts Photo: esimpraim / Flickr

I love pickled vegetables. The Kitchn had a great idea for a modern relish tray that they did with all pickled vegetables, which I think feels really fresh and new.

I have just recently been pickling mushrooms, which I absolutely love. Those enoki mushrooms look almost like they are from a fairy tale; they are the most beautiful things. I make a very, very simple brine with vinegar, salt, sugar and water. I add a little lemon grass. I crush black pepper so that you get big chunks of black pepper with every bite of those sweet, gorgeous, little mushrooms. I've been eating them a bit obsessively, I have to admit, on Triscuits smeared with cream cheese. It is just delicious.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper: You know what is great too, which I don't think people think of, is pickled fruit. It's a wonderful contrast -- sweet, tart and great with drinks. Cubes of melon and grapes are fabulous pickled.

SS: They do grapes in the South. They are tricky too -- they look like olives, so you are fooling people.

LRK: One strategy I found that helps a lot is wherever possible, buy pre-cut vegetables. You can now buy butternut squash and sweet potatoes in cubes.

Take that butternut squash, toss it with a little olive oil, allspice, black pepper, lemon and brown sugar, and slow roast it for maybe an hour. Do that a day ahead. Serve it on picks at room temperature. It's fabulous.

SS: The idea of having things at room temperature -- Europeans do this all the time. They serve a ton of things at room temperature. In fact, many, many things taste better at room temperature instead of when they are served piping hot. Almost any vegetable that you roast is wonderful at room temperature.

LRK: Mustard-Glazed Red Cabbage is almost a sweet-sour treatment of cabbage. It's inexpensive to do, you do it a day ahead, you serve it at room temperature.

Main course
 

Recipe: Homemade Ricotta Gnocchi with Saffron Tomato Sauce Photo: Ellen Silverman

LRK: There are so many baked main courses that are really good at room temperature. There's a really fabulous-looking Crispy Feta-Stuffed Phyllo Torte that is done in a bundt pan. It is a celebration. It takes a little work, but you do that work early in the day or the day before. It's wonderful, and people think you have spent hours in the kitchen.

SS: We got that idea from Melissa Clark at The New York Times. That is a party dish. You drizzle each piece with honey. It really is magnificent.

LRK: There is a leg of lamb you roast really slowly, with honey and spices. At every place you have Moroccan spices, so you have little dishes or little piles of different spices. You also have lettuce leaves. What people do is they take the sliced lamb, they spice it the way they want it, they roll it up in the lettuce, they have a very simple sauce that's freshly made. Everybody feasts. It's a wonderful meal; it takes a long time to eat; everybody is engaged.

To accompany it, do grilled portobello mushrooms topped with garlic and arugula. That will be great for people who prefer not to eat meat. Then you can have side dishes if you want.

For a group, there is just no question what pasta I would serve. It is the simplest and most luxurious pasta I can serve. It's perfect for holidays like Christmas Eve. I would serve the true fettuccine Alfredo -- there is no such thing as an Alfredo sauce.

You boil the pasta, you have a big pan and you melt a stick of butter for every pound of pasta. You put the hot pasta right into that melted butter, toss it with a ton of Parmesan cheese, ground black pepper and a bit of salt. Do not add cream because the Italians will ask you never to come back. That's it. It is so fabulous you won't believe it.

SS: The other thing that has become a total tradition in my house is making this gnocchi with ricotta cheese. This dish is so kid friendly. My daughter started making it with me when she was about 6 years old. The dough is so malleable it is like playing with Play-Doh. It is delicious, easy and it is served with a really simple red sauce. It is an absolute must-have on Christmas for us. It's really a fun, fun thing to do with kids.

To toast
 

Photo: iStock / Thinkstock

SS: 2013 was one of the best years for prosecco ever. I'm sure there will be a bottle of 2013 on our table.

The problem is that most proseccos aren't vintage dated, but the better ones are. If you march into your wine store and ask for a 2013, see what they pull out for you. It's well worth it.

LRK: My splurge wine is going to be a sparkling wine, Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut Rose. It's pink, it's bubbly, it's really delicious. It's around $20 a bottle, but for me, it tastes like bubbly that is much more expensive.

Easy holiday recipes

• Candied Walnuts

• Sichuan-Inspired Pickled Vegetables

• Pickled Mushrooms with Black Pepper and Lemon Grass

• Pickled Grapes with Rosemary and Chiles

• Mustard-Glazed Red Cabbage

• Crispy Feta-Stuffed Phyllo Torte

• Leg of Lamb with Honey and Moroccan Table Spices

• Hot Spiced Portobello Grill with Fresh Arugula and Parmigiano Shavings

• Homemade Ricotta Gnocchi with Saffron Tomato Sauce