French

You’ve heard of one-pot dinners? These are one-sheet-pan dinners, which means easier cleanup with the added bonus of concentrated, roasted flavors. Here I use a traditional salade Nicoise as the starting point for a pan of roasted potatoes, green beans, and fish. Ham, squash, and apples are gratifying flavors of a New England autumn, and roasted chicken with fennel, bell peppers, and herbes de Provence gives you a little detour toward the south of France (if you shut your eyes tight and stand by the warm oven!).

Parmigiano-Reggiano adds salty, nutty richness to this ratatouille, which rivals the best oven versions. To speed preparation, feel free to skip the first step of salting and rinsing the eggplant and zucchini (this process draws off any bitter juices). Instead, just remove any particularly seedy and brown parts of the eggplant, or use smaller Japanese eggplants (which also do not need to be peeled). For pizzazz, add chickpeas and pitted, chopped oil-cured black olives.

Provencal picnic -Celebrate Bastille Day with a menu to enjoy en plein air.

The mildly spicy piment d'Espelette Mayonnaise is France's very own chili powder. It's available at specialty foods stores and from zingermans.com.

This subtly spicy mayo is great on fish and sandwiches—and on fries, too.

This gratin of sliced potatoes baked with cream and milk is a French classic. Some versions contain grated cheese, but this one does not. You can also blanch the potatoes first, which we skip here. Slice the potatoes very thinly, either on a hand-held slicing gadget or fancy mandoline. Food-processor feed tubes are so narrow that potatoes must be halved or quartered lengthwise first, which will taste fine in the finished gratin, but it won’t look as elegant in the dish. Layer the potatoes with milk, cream, salt, and pepper. Not much to it.

This batter is very adaptable: If you want savory crêpes, simply omit the sugar. For flavored crêpes, replace the vanilla with a flavored extract such as almond, a liquor like rum or brandy, or a flavored liquor such as Kirsch or Amaretto.

Crêpes freeze well—you can make a big batch and stack them, separated by sheets of waxed paper, in a tightly sealed container or plastic bag. Stored this way, they'll keep for several months. Allow them to defrost at room temperature, then reheat as described in the do-ahead instructions below.

What are crepes? View definition.

This makes a flat omelet that can be eaten hot or at room temperature, cut into wedges.

With so many places to dine al fresco in and around Boston, the question is not where to picnic, but what to tuck into the basket. In the heat, mayonnaise dressing makes everyone nervous, but potato salad is a must. This French potato salad calls for mustard instead of mayo; a vinaigrette adds a piquant touch to the potatoes, here tossed with freshly picked green beans. When the potatoes are tender, toss them quickly with red onion, white wine, and vinegar. As they cool, the potatoes absorb the zippy marinade.