A few weeks ago, after I bemoaned feeling uninspired by the current between-season vegetables, one of you told me I would love the Adventure Bowl at Life Alive , a small-chain of organic cafés in the Boston area. I looked at the menu online and immediately thought of my friend Gena and her book, Power Plates , which is filled with similar* fare: plates and bowls of vegetables, grains, beans, pulses, nuts, spices and herbs, often dressed in some sort of bright, tangy sauce....

This chocolate cake, made with buttermilk and oil — no butter — and exclusively cocoa — no melted chocolate — is incredibly light and moist and stays this way for days. It’s an Ina Garten recipe, one she begged for from a friend, the grandson of Beatty, after taking one bite. It has become a family favorite — a real crowd pleaser with adults and children alike. Earlier this month, upon realizing that I had officially become my mother, not only in my preferences, but also in how I impose my preferences on others — dark meat chicken , cakes without frosting — I decided it might be wise to branch out a bit, to bake a cake with not one but two layers and to guild it not with a delicate dusting of powdered sugar but with a slathering of silky frosting....

As you might recall, one of my favorite pastimes is staring at the wall of prepared salads at the Honest Weight Food Coop in Albany. Last March I obsessed over their cilantro-lime chickpeas , and I’ve since discovered many others, including the vegan kale Caesar and the Thai tofu salad. Most recently it’s been their “Sumi” salad, an addictive mix of cabbage, scallions, sesame seeds, and almonds. It’s fresh and satisfying, tasting sweet not spicy, the dressing flavored heavily with sesame oil....

Is it sick that shortly after dinner, often when I’m still full, I start looking forward to breakfast? It is a little, isn’t it? Well, this isn’t any old breakfast. It’s a little something called Teddie’s Apple Cake, a treat my mother introduced me to, one I know you’ll all also enjoy. The recipe for Teddie’s Apple Cake first appeared in The New York Times in 1973, and Amanda Hesser republished the recipe in 2007....

These homemade fries emerge from the oven with crispy edges and light, creamy centers thanks to a simple trick and baking method. Read on to learn the secret to making exceptional oven fries at home. As someone who loves fries but refuses to deep fry at home, I was intrigued when I first read about America’s Test Kitchen’s method for making oven fries. The ATK method calls for soaking the cut potatoes in hot water for 10 minutes before baking them....

Made with a mix of chickpeas and red lentils, this vegan soup comes together quickly, has great texture, and is oh-so-tasty! My neighbor Sandra—of Pasta Puttanesca and Moosewood Tomato Salsa lore— introduced me to another keeper: COOKIE + Kate’s lentil soup , a popular vegan recipe, which Sandra confesses she makes with chicken stock. I love Sandra. After devouring the quart of soup she brought to us during the blizzard, I set to work making a batch of my own, and I’ve made it twice more since: once mostly as written, but with chicken stock in place of the vegetable stock, and once with all water, which kept it vegan....

It’s always nice when dead easy produces damn delicious. This little marinade — equal parts Worcestershire sauce and olive oil combined with a healthy sprinkling of lemon pepper — is a good one to have on hand this time of year. While you’re busy scraping off your grill grates, refueling your propane tank, perusing your various grill-time-cooking guides, worry not about how you’re going to add flavor to those steaks....

This egg salad sandwich has become a staple not only for its deliciousness but also for the ease in which it comes together. A stovetop steaming method makes for eggs that peel like a dream. And a simple dressing — celery, scallions, mayonnaise, and pickle juice — makes for fast assembly. This post is about egg salad and about my recent gratitude for it. But before we get there: An Ode to the Scallion....

Made with just 6 ingredients, these eggplant meatballs are roasted not fried, making the process wonderfully hands-off. Simmered in sweet, fresh tomato sauce and served alongside ricotta and toasty bread, these meatless balls make a delicious and summery vegetarian meal. A few weeks ago, my daughter and I dined at a local restaurant whose menu featured eggplant meatballs with Hazan tomato sauce and housemade ricotta . I ordered them, loved them, and began experimenting with various recipes in the days that followed....

A hit with adults and children alike, these light and fluffy one-bowl buttermilk pancakes have become a weekend staple. The batter comes together in no time, and the recipe yields a ton. What’s more, the pancakes freeze beautifully! 🥞🥞🥞🥞🥞 Confession: Pancakes have never been my forte. For about a year now, however, I’ve had success with The Kitchn’s lofty buttermilk pancakes, which call for a peculiar trick: you separate the egg yolks from the whites; then you incorporate the yolks into the batter before the whites....

Sarah Copeland, author of The Newly Wed Cookbook and Feast , has a new book out: Every Day is Saturday . It’s filled with recipes and strategies for cooking every day of the week, the goal being to keep that weekend-cook mentality going strong all week long. I have made one and only one recipe, but it’s a good one: The Only Green Sauce You Need. It’s a mix of herbs, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and something with body: avocado, miso, nuts or tahini....

This butternut squash pasta sauce, the recipe for which hails from the November 2006 Gourmet, tastes rich and creamy, but it’s actually incredibly light, a simple purée of simmered butternut squash, onion, sage, water, and a little olive oil or butter for richness. The original recipe calls for a cup of parmesan, but I find I can get away with using much less — the sauce is super flavorful without it or with a handful tossed in just before serving....

I need to be better at remembering this: every March, when I fall into a cooking rut and find myself eating the same thing — beans! — over and over again, the best way to find a little inspiration is to get out. Anywhere: restaurants, a friend’s house, or even, well, the grocery store. I have mentioned the Honest Weight Food Co-op before — it’s where I stock up on all of my muesli ingredients — and while I typically give their bulk food section the most attention, I’ve recently discovered their prepared-food aisle, a battery of salads and slaws, grains and legumes, vegetables and fruits, tofu and curries, an array of textures and colors, each clamshell as enticing as the next....

Step 1. Marry someone strong who will do all the heavy lifting in the project. Step 2. Download Lynn Gillespie’s e-book Cinder Block Gardens for $19.95. Read the book. Step 3. Make a list and head to Home Depot, Lowe’s or your local garden shop. A pickup truck is handy for this trip. The supplies weigh in total almost 1500 pounds. Basic supplies include: • 24 cinder blocks ($0.79 each) • 2 bales 3....

Before heading out of town last weekend, I made a pan of Joanne Chang’s baked eggs. If you are unfamiliar, Joanne Chang is the founder of Flour , a bakery and cafe in Boston (now with 9 locations), which serves a beloved egg sandwich. Unlike traditional egg sandwiches, which typically feature fried or scrambled eggs, Joanne’s calls for a pre-baked egg, made from a mixture of beaten eggs and half-and-half, baked at 300ºF in a covered pan set in a water bath....

This post outlines how to build a sourdough starter from scratch simply and quickly. In less than a week, with minimal effort, you will have a bubbly, active starter on your hands to use in all your favorite sourdough recipes. A sourdough starter is a fermented mixture of flour and water that contains wild yeast and bacteria . It both leavens and flavors sourdough bread. How? It’s time for a science lesson....

Soft and squishy, slightly sweet, these no-knead buttermilk pull-apart rolls resemble Parker House rolls in texture and taste. So easy and delicious! Know this: any bread recipe you love can be mixed a day ahead of time and stashed in the fridge to rise. Or, if you like making rolls, you can make your recipe up to the point where you shape the rolls and stick them in the baking pan, at which point you can stick the pan in the fridge....

This one-pan roast chicken and shallots is completely delicious, requires no browning, and emerges from the oven with burnished skin and meat falling off the bone in just about 45 minutes. The best part? The shallots, which caramelize in the oven and melt into the sauce, infusing it with sweetness. Though the 15 shallots nearly make this a one-pan wonder, I serve it with a kale salad and, of course, bread for sopping....

This is one of my favorite meals: roasted roasted cauliflower, drizzled with schug, piled over a lemony yogurt sauce. Here, you roast cauliflower and onions with olive oil and a mix of spies (cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, and cayenne). The combination of the charred vegetables with the creamy yogurt sauce and herby schug is irresistible! A few weeks ago, I wrote about Joshua McFadden’s twice roasted carrots , one of many delicious vegetable dishes I had made from his cookbook, Six Seasons ....

Last week, while scrolling through emails on my phone, I came across a subject heading from Tasting Table that gave me pause: Never Grill a Burger Again. Did I dare make this vision a reality? How could I not? I’ve always considered burgers one of the hardest things to get right, and this post offered a path to burger domination. I followed the tutorial nearly to a T, and Ben, completely unaware of the experiments I had been conducting, declared it the best burger he’s ever eaten....