A delicious pesto made with spinach, basil, parmesan cheese and lemon zest. Simple, yet so scrumptious you won't be able to keep it to yourself!

This delicious butter is good for steaks or just to put on toast.

This sopa seca, or dry soup, from Mexico, made with the skinny, short noodles called fideos, is cooked pilaf style. The result is a soft noodle dish that is sort of an elaborate, spicy version of spaghetti with tomato sauce. Broiled or seared Roma tomatoes are my preference for the sauce, but in ..

This ragout is on my menu when I’m ready for spring but it’s not altogether ready for me. In this transitional dish, the peas and asparagus are the link to spring, but the rest of the vegetables—carrots, rainbow chard, mushrooms—hang back a bit, still in winter. As this is not a hefty stew, ..

Seasonally speaking, winter squash and eggplant may not sound like a match. But the first winter squash comes into season while the eggplant is far from finished, so in fact they overlap quite nicely. Add tofu and dried shiitake mushrooms and you have a deep-flavored autumn stew that happens to be ..

Simultaneously homey and special, this ragout has proven to more than one person that Brussels sprouts are good. While the recipe is made easier by using sliced onions, it becomes more special if you include pearl onions, cipollini, or whole shallots, peeled first and cooked in place of the yellow ..

In northern New Mexico, the porcini appear just as the tomatoes do, in the rainy season of late summer, and a dish that brings them together makes good culinary sense. As good as they are, though, our wild mushrooms don’t seem to have the intensity that Italian porcini possess, so I always include ..

Golden, puffed, and ever so tender, the gratin is based on the recipe for semolina gnocchi but uses whole eggs instead of just the yolks, making it more like a pudding-soufflé—and more protein—dense. Since the gratin is on the rich side, I’ve made the braised vegetables the main element in ..

A saffron rice timbale surrounded with this braised fennel makes a handsome centerpiece for a meal. The timbales are easily formed. Just pack the hot rice into a ramekin, then turn it onto the plate—a simple gesture that provides focus for a main dish. With a substitute for the butter, this dish ..

Bollito misto refers to an Italian way of cooking meats, but it’s a great concept for vegetables, too. While "boiled mixed vegetables" could sound a bit depressing, a panoply of produce in its season is forever beautiful, its perfume sweet and clean. Plus, this is the least taxing and ..