Recessed cans are a lousy way to light up counter tops, but they can be OK way for lighting what's in the cabinets when the door is open.
The issue with using them for countertops is that where ever YOU are, you're casting a shadow on your work.
Under-cabinet thin T4 or T5 linear fluorescents tend to work better on countertops than point-sources like halogens & LEDs since they don't cast multiple & sharp-edged hand shadows on the work. Mounted under the front edge of the cabinet, but facing the wall (not pointed toward the room) puts a line of diffuse light over the work for soft edged shadows and a large amount of backscatter off the wall to fill in those shadows:
_______cabinet_________|
|--<--<--<--<--| T5 light|
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wall
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|_______________counter top__________
With the light facing the wall, not the room it introduces no glare to the room, but still offers a pleasant background glow when the downlighting is off.
If you have 12" or more above the cabinets, T5 or T8 linear UP-lighting counteracts the glare factor of recessed downlights by lowering the contrast between the downlight and the ceiling. With lighter-brighter ceiling paint it offers better overall (shadow & glare free!) ambient lighting than recessed cans ever could. (They're 1.5-2x the efficiency of the best compact fluorescents or self-ballasted LEDs too, if you care about that stuff.) Dimmable ballasts are nice too, to be able to set the ambient light level where you want it (lower for kitchen-dining, higher for cleaning & food prep).
Recessed lights and downlighting in general are WAY overdone. It's better to do a 60/40 or 70/30 of UPLIGHTING/downlighting for setting ambient light levels. Done right, you get better visual efficacy at lower ambient lighting, since your pupils aren't constricting in the glare, forcing your brain to work overtime to discern the objects in the inevitable shadows cast by downlighting.
Keep your recessed cans & halogen spots as accent lighting (up, down, or sideways directed). They're sub-optimal for ambient lighting at normal residential ceiling heights due to the glare & shadow factor (at 15-20' ceilings or higher it's a different story.)