It's always tempting to eat pesto by the spoonful. It's so very fresh and so very green. And those flavors of basil, pine nut, parmesan, garlic, and olive oil just play so very nicely together. Spread it on sandwiches, toss it with pasta, or yes, treat yourself a single happy spoonful, but definitely absolutely positively make pesto any chance you get. More

Green curry with coconut milk is one of my favorite Thai dishes. It's sweet, rich, and spicy, a great dish for those of us who believe that hot and spicy food is a great way to cool off in the summertime! Making curry from scratch used to seem a daunting prospect for a weeknight supper, but a Thai friend gave me this easy recipe for restaurant-style green curry that only calls for a handful of ingredients. This is a dish you can put on the table in just about half an hour, thanks to a good brand of green curry paste, and it turns out a silky smooth coconut curry sauce with tender chicken, green zucchini, and glowing heat. More

Among the other flamboyantly garnished and highly aromatic plates being handed around the table, this one seemed rather plain jane. An unassuming bowl of slippery noodles sprinkled with what looked like crispy pork and crushed peanuts? But one bite was all it took: it was love at first spicy-tangy-sweet forkful. More

We all have our family cooking lore: famed recipes that get passed down from generation to generation, and others that just get lost somewhere in between. Either a selfish cook doesn't share his closely-guarded secret, or a recipe doesn't get written down until it is too late. And then there's the cherished recipe that fails—perhaps it lacks a key ingredient or important step. These chocolate peanut clusters? They only lacked one thing. My Nana. More

Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Schneider of MPR's The Splendid Table are two of my most favorite and trusted cooks, so I was excited to discover this video of the two of them cooking together. (Well, actually Lynne is mostly holding a microphone but her questions and comments are spot-on as usual.) At first I wasn't so sure about the subject matter: a recipe for a homemade garlic herb salt. Do I really need another flavored salt in my pantry? Turns out the answer is yes! More

I'm lucky enough to live in an area where even modest neighborhood cafes get their produce from local farms and change their menus often to reflect whatever their farmers are harvesting that week. I recently had my first taste of sweet summer corn at one such cafe, in a dish that combined chunks of shaved corn with tangy little cherry tomatoes and a creamy cilantro dressing. Sweet, crunchy and bursting with pure summer flavor, it was so good I knew I had to recreate it. In my kitchen somewhere along the way the combination transformed into a crispy, black-bean-speckled tostada — no complaints here. More

My favorite I'm-dining-alone-at-home-tonight meal is a classic dish that's quick, thrifty and elegant. The basic setup is simple: A cheese omelet with some buttered toast and a glass of dry Alsatian chablis. If I'm feeling like I need some vegetables, I might add a few spears of roasted broccoli or asparagus (if it's in season) or a sliced tomato sprinkled with chives and a few drops of balsamic. Served on a pretty plate and perhaps taken out to the garden if the weather permits, this meal nourishes, refreshes and delights on many levels. More

I must confess that weeknight dinners can be a major struggle in my house, which probably seems contradictory coming from someone who writes about food! It's true that my refrigerator is often filled with an eclectic group of ingredients—most of which cannot be transformed into any sort of suitable meal. I often find myself scavenging the pantry for anything I can pass off as adequate, and trust me when I tell you that a starving girl + Nutella does not equal dinner.
More

A package of instant ramen is perhaps the biggest cliché item in the solo cook's cupboard. It often symbolizes depression or extreme indifference, the meal one cooks when one has hit rock bottom. Of course, none of this is necessarily true. Ramen can be delicious and good for you as well as a quick, fun thing to make. Read on for a review of the three ways a single diner can approach instant ramen. More

Sometimes the simplest ingredients, combined in the simplest of ways, have the power to stop time, erase your woes, and transport you to a place of nirvana-like bliss. Such is the power of the margherita pizza. Fresh tomato sauce, chewy mozzarella cheese, a sprinkling of basil on a crispy crust? I wouldn't be surprised if you started levitating. More