March 2010

In this pretty soup, sweet fresh peas are enhanced with a bit of mint.

This dish is best with short molded pasta, such as fusilli, campanelle, or orecchiette. Prepare the cauliflower for roasting after you put the garlic in the oven; this way, both should finish roasting at about the same time.

This wonderfully aromatic chicken dish is short on prep and big on flavor. It's also a great dish to make ahead the day before and reheat -- it's even tastier after the flavors meld. Serve with rice and a green salad on the side.

I had some organic sweet potatoes left from Eva’s farm share, and decided to layer them with an Indian-spiced chickpea mash. The flavors were inspired by Nigella Lawson’s Sweet Potato and Chickpea Curry.

There is a wonderful Sardinian flatbread known as carta musica — sheet music, because it is nearly impossibly thin — that I never thought of making. Something about its ethereal nature made me assume (idiotically, as it happens) that it would be too difficult.

The most efficient way to bake these cookies is to portion and bake half of the dough. While the first batch is in the oven, the remaining dough can be prepared for baking. Avoid using a nonstick skillet to brown the butter. The dark color of the nonstick coating makes it difficult to gauge when the butter is sufficiently browned. Use fresh brown sugar, as older (read: harder and drier) brown sugar will make the cookies too dry.

Our classic shrimp scampi makes for a dinner that is simple yet satisfying, especially when paired with a basic rice pilaf and a Caesar salad. Be sure to enjoy a few, chewy brown sugar cookies for a sweet conclusion. Cayenne pepper replaces ground black pepper in this recipe, but use it sparingly, only to give the faintest hint of spiciness.

If you like, olive oil can be substituted for the butter depending on what you are serving with the pilaf. Soaking the rice overnight in water results in more tender, separate grains. If you'd like to try it, add enough water to cover the rice by 1 inch after the rinsing process in step 1, then cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it stand at room temperature 8 to 24 hours; reduce the amount of water to cook the rice to 2 cups. For the most evenly cooked rice, use a wide-bottomed saucepan with a tight-fitting lid.

This simple side dish pairs your favorite greens with tahini, lemon juice and garlic.

This traditional sweet is believed to have originated in Sichuan, where walnut trees from Persia were first planted in China. As with many Chinese foods, the walnut is imbued with symbolic meaning: it is believed to benefit the mind because the shelled nut looks like a brain lobe. Brain food or not, the walnut was a deliciously significant sweet long ago in Sichuan and western China. Reminiscent of halvah, mashed walnuts encased in a thin, flaky dough and covered with sugar syrup is a famed tea-time dish and just one of many Sichuan creations based on walnuts.