I discovered a truly fantastic version of baked ziti in 2017 when I started cooking from Colu Henry’s Back Pocket Pasta. Big, hearty, family-style pastas are a great love of mine, but my baked ziti attempts were always just so-so. I struggled with overall cohesiveness, and the ricotta mixture always tended to bake up a little drier than I hoped. Colu’s...

I’ve roasted cauliflower a thousand different ways, but this version, from Around Our Table by Sara Forte, quickly became a weeknight staple after the first time I tried it. A big head of cauliflower is cut into florets that are tossed with a spiced oil and roasted in a hot oven. Red onions and bits of dates are introduced along the way and the whole...

The next time you have blackberries on hand, please make this recipe. It doesn’t lake long, and you are left with enough sweet & spicy, chile-infused blackberry syrup to keep your taste buds tingling for a good stretch. I clipped the recipe out of an issue of Gourmet Magazine years ago, September 2007, and enjoy it  every year when berries are in...

There are a number of cookbooks this spring I’m wildly excited about and this exceptional vegan chili is from one of them. It is from Jess Damuck’s Health Nut: A Feel-Good Cookbook and I’ve been making it regularly ever since I saw an early version of the book last year. I’ll talk a bit more about the cookbook down below, but we’ll jump into the chili...

One of my favorite cornmeal recipes is Marion Cunningham’s Custard-Filled Cornbread from The Breakfast Book. My neighbor in San Francisco brought it to a Halloween potluck (to much fanfare), and it occurred to me it was the same cornbread Molly writes about in A Homemade Life. Everyone in my family now loves this cornbread, and it has shown up at many...

I know a lot of people make vegetable pot pies with store-bought puff pastry, but over the years I’ve come to believe a homemade pie crust is, by far, the superior way to go. It makes the whole pot pie endeavor worth it. These pies are rustic and creamy, often lovingly constructed. A great pie crust lends butter-kissed backbone and structure. A flaky,...