The first recipe in this month’s “Country Kitchen” is called One Great Salad.

If you want to know the truth, though, you could add the words “One Great” to any of the other recipes that follow, and you’d be hitting it right on the money.

The recipes are from Alta Hughes of Jackson County.

Alta is no stranger to Alfa Farmers members. The Pisgah resident is active in her county Federation and, on the state level, is highly involved in the State Women’s Committee.

Alta also is a frequent contestant in various statewide Federation cooking competitions. She was a county finalist in this year’s Heritage Cooking Contest, with an original two-in-one zucchini bread recipe. In 1995, her original Tender Loin Delight won first place in the Alabama Pork Producers’ statewide pork cookoff.

Alta enjoys cooking, but it isn’t pleasure alone that leads her to the kitchen on a regular basis.

“I look at cooking as a `necessary hobby,’ ” she says. “It’s something I have to do, but I like it.”

Alta’s husband, Frank, president of the Jackson County Farmers Federation, works part time as a school bus driver but first and foremost is a farmer. He and the Hughes’ youngest child, Mack, farm about 1,000 acres of row crops and pasture land.

The Hugheses have two other children, a son and a daughter, and five of the world’s greatest grandchildren.

For the past 17 or so years, in addition to her life as a farm wife, Alta has worked full time with the child nutrition program at the school in Pisgah. In any spare time, she’s an avid painter.

“I’m beginning to start thinking about retiring, and then I’m going to spend a lot more time painting,” says Alta, who has sold several of her acrylic paintings.

Following are some of the Hughes family’s favorite recipes, including several that are ideal for the upcoming holiday season.