The good ole boneless, skinless chicken breast.

In millions of households across America, this versatile ingredient is eternally present in the refrigerator or freezer. I would venture to guess that there are more recipes involving chicken than any other meat on Earth.

Why, then, do we sometimes find ourselves coming home from work, changing our clothes and heading for the kitchen, where we stare in uninspired boredom at a package of chicken breasts? “Well,” we think, “I could marinate this and grill it. But I always do that.”

Despite its great popularity, I have always found chicken to be in need of some jazzing up. Which shouldn’t always mean slicing it and tossing it in a stir-fry, a fajita or a pasta dish. Or breading and frying, or stuffing, or crock-potting.

I want ideas for a quick dish involving whole boneless, skinless chicken dishes. That’s why I was excited to see a recipe for chicken breasts with mushroom-sage sauce on Simply Recipes (see below). That sounds like a topping with enough flavor to overcome the taste of plain chicken.

When you’re staring at a package of chicken breasts and you don’t want to spend an hour on prep and cooking, what is your go-to topper?

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Geez, I’ve been slacking on the cookbook contests. It’s been weeks since I last gave away a decent cookbook.

This time around, in honor of mid-summer, I think I’ll offer up Martha Hall Foose’s “Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook.”

I love this book because the first time I cracked it open, I was greeted by a huge picture of brown beans cooked with green beans and a big, glistening ham hock. My grandmother always used pinto beans to mix with canned green beans. It was one of my favorite country side dishes (green beans are also wonderful cooked with tiny new potatoes).

In “Screen Doors,” Foose doesn’t just stick to the old standards like fried chicken and collard greens. Her recipes for stuffed sweet onions, sweet potato dumplings, cornbread crusted white chili and root beer-glazed ham made me want to shut down this computer and go home to cook.

Below the jump, I’ll share a recipe for her Tallahatchie Tomatoes, a zesty casserole dish that she recommends as an atypical offering for Sunday brunch.

Want to win this book? Be the first person who e-mails me a picture of your tomato plants, whether they look good or not, at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com.

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It’s another one of those National Food Days. Except this one makes a whole lot of sense: It’s National Egg Salad Week! What else are you going to do with all those leftover hard-boiled eggs you dyed for Easter?

When I was a kid, I got a hard-boiled egg in my lunch every day for a week after Easter. And I dutifully peeled it, sprinkled salt on it and ate it along with my sandwich. But I’ll bet it would’ve been a whole lot tastier blended with mayonnaise and salt and papper.

Better yet, why not spice up your salad a little bit with curry powder or horseradish? I’ve attached three egg salad recipes below the jump. One is for old-fashioned egg salad, one for curried egg salad and one for bacon-horseradish egg salad.

How do you jazz up your egg salad?

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