As much as I love eating out at fancy restaurants and watching TV shows like Top Chef, the cooking that is closest to my heart is home cooking — dishes that are humble and maybe a little homely, but feel like the food equivalent of a warm hug. This gingery chicken stir-fry is home cooking at its best: quick and simple to prepare, with a punch of flavor that manages to be both exciting and deeply comforting. Make it once and you may never call for Thai take-out again.

Food just tastes better outside, doesn't it? The first hint of warmer weather and you'll find us outside come mealtimes: on a porch, on a front stoop, on a park bench, wherever we can find a sunny spot to sit back and enjoy a meal al fresco. With Memorial Day next week, we feel the outdoor eating season is officially open. Here are ten of our favorite seasonal salads to pack up and take on a picnic.

Earlier today I showed you my vegetarian dinner party, where for the main course I served a creamy watercress soup with lemony-goat cheese dumplings. If you're looking for other festive vegetarian main dishes to serve at a party, here are a few ideas. From corn and black bean tostadas to asparagus risotto, you can get as fancy or laid-back as you want.

It's been unbelievably sunny and warm in Seattle, and last week we were invited over to a friend's for a backyard barbecue. These friends were house-sitting for a couple that owned a fancy grill and we made great burgers, grilled asparagus and a simple salad. It was almost enough to make us want to buy our own barbecue this summer — but not quite.

Living alone or as a couple can prove to be a challenge come dinner time. When a recipe serves six but there's only two of you, it can be a bore to eat the same thing several days in a row. This is why I wanted to write a recipe today that was the perfect size: a hearty dinner salad just for two.

When Cambria asked Faith and myself for some help coming up with a main course for her Spring Vegetarian Dinner Party for Six, at first we couldn't decide. Faith thought it should be creamy and green. Cambria wanted a vegetarian dish that wasn't just another platter of pasta. I advocated for something satisfying and hearty, but still light enough for a spring meal. The final vote was unanimous: a pureed soup of peppery spring watercress served with warm goat cheese dumplings. Done and done. This recipe is a winner.

Hello! Erin from The Forest Feast here, bringing you the second recipe in my series of Farmers Market Feasts for the month of May. There is a fantastic little seasonal farmers market that recently began down the road from me in the mountains. I try to go every week, and I've been getting to know the farmers, which is fun! This week I picked up some green garlic and fresh basil to make a creamy avocado pesto.

A green salad may sound too light to serve as a main dinner dish, but it can become quite substantial and filling when rounded out with other ingredients like avocado, cheese, a little meat, or some grilled vegetables. These 10 salads all make satisfying dinners, particularly if you want to keep things light and easy. Another tip? Bring your salad outside and enjoy the warm weather with a glass of rosé or white wine!

While I love oatmeal and eat it for breakfast for months and months out of the year, right around this time in the season I look for something else. The mornings are warmer and sunny, and I long for something that feels a little less substantial, isn't as predictable, and doesn't remind me of cold weather wake-ups. Lately the answer is polenta. 

One of the most exciting sections of the upcoming Kitchn Cookbook is the up-close-and-personal tours of ten kitchens. This week I revisited several of our subjects to do follow-up interviews. Bridget, who lives on New York's Upper West Side, has been an empty nester for over ten years and she's great at cooking for one. I asked her for some of her favorite homemade-for-one dishes and she immediately told me about a chicken dish with red onions and lemon that her daughter Zoe taught her. "There's something about red onions," she said, "I think they have drugs in them."