Elizabeth Stark

Here's the solution to your overflowing produce drawer.

From a caprese frittata to a high-protein yogurt bowl.

It's time to switch it up.

It's what's for dinner tonight.

Prepare to fall in love with the green goddess dressing.

One smart step makes this frittata particularly delicious.

Cold weather conjures memories of my mom’s creamy potato soup, with its tiny pools of melted butter and black pepper flecks on the surface. It was rich and sating, but also simple and balanced. That simplicity and balance was front and center as I invented my own take on my mom’s recipe. A cache of lemons on my countertop presented the chance to push the envelope. I wanted a soup that was creamy, sure, but also tangy and vivid.

Laura Wright’s The First Mess Cookbook weaves together approachable plant-based recipes, relatable real food stories, and sumptuous imagery. Recipes run the gamut from nourishing weeknight dinners to beautiful statement desserts, but through it all, Laura brings readers along – explaining ingredients and techniques, and sharing inspiration with the same thoughtful yet laid-back style evident on The First Mess blog. Like many home cooks, I learned to cook from cookbooks.

Produce variety drops off the cliff in winter. But as seasonal vegetables dwindle to a hardy few, citrus diversity explodes. Year-round stalwarts like lemons, limes, and Valencia oranges are joined by seasonal favorites like tangerines, mandarins, Cara Caras, blood oranges, and grapefruit. Working the dizzying array of winter citrus into dishes both savory and sweet is an excellent way to keep your winter kitchen from growing dull.

I’ve seldom met a cake I didn’t like, so it’s hard to pick a favorite, but if I absolutely had to, this olive oil cornmeal cake would be it. I’ve long preferred olive oil cakes for their wonderfully tender crumb and depth of flavor, and that goes doubly so for the toothsome texture of this cornmeal-flecked version.

A staple of Chinese-American takeout, orange chicken typically features lightly breaded chicken doused in a sticky-sweet orange sauce. Craving the bright flavors of traditional orange chicken, but not necessarily all the steps, I reimagined the classic recipe as a super-quick (yet more wholesome) weeknight stir-fry. Instead of a sticky sauce with added sugar, my recipe harnesses the natural sweetness of a peak-season navel orange.

If summer is a season full of discovery, color, and unexpected flavors, winter can feel like a parade of nearly identical gnarled roots and fibrous greens. To combat culinary monotony, I rely on two strategies: Buy all the citrus, and splurge on fresh herbs. From grapefruit to mandarins, a vivid tropical fruit is soul-soothing. As for the herbs, I find they’re a nice way to play up otherwise repetitive flavors and make cold weather recipes sing.

Winter produce can start to feel tired almost as soon as winter fully sets in. But roasted vegetable boredom usually leads me to experimentation and, if I’m lucky, occasional breakthroughs, like these roasted carrots with orange. Storage carrots — dense and super orange compared to their younger counterparts with leaves still attached — are an affordable winter staple.

Spring’s earliest produce can bring both elation and puzzlement. After months of lumpy storage vegetables and produce shipped from afar, verdant greens and tender roots are a welcome shift. But spring’s first offerings aren’t for the faint of heart – from spicy radishes to punchy greens to pungent alliums, early spring produce can prove tough to tame.

Grain salads are one of my year-round staples, made with a changing array of vegetables and flavors to suit the season. In spring, I use them to highlight the effortless flavor and simplicity that comes with fresh ingredients. Here, chewy grains of farro set off the earthy sweetness of fresh peas and shoots, and meld wonderfully with creamy bits of herbed Capricho de Cabra goat cheese, mint leaves, and a savory champagne vinaigrette. The season for fresh peas is brief, so seize the moment.

Produce seasons ebb and flow in familiar ways. Ramps at the farmers market hail winter’s end, and the first July tomato marks the advent of high summer. Even as home cooks have reacquainted themselves with produce seasons, cheese seasons remain mysterious. Learning how cheeses change with the seasons is key to developing a deeper appreciation. Just as fruits and vegetables come into and fade out of season, the grasses, wildflowers, and legumes cows, sheep, and goats eat do the same.

A simple pan sauce can elevate even the most basic meals. Here, a creamy Alfredo-style sauce with Pecorino cheese makes a sublime meal of linguine, asparagus, and shrimp. Besides playing the delicious green-ness of asparagus against the buttery notes in the shrimp and cream sauce, I love this dish for how quickly it comes together. The asparagus and shrimp are sautéed until tender and the creamy sauce is thrown together right in the pan while the pasta cooks.

The minute I get my hands on the first radishes of spring, I’m off to enjoy them sliced with lots of butter and judicious pinches of flaky sea salt. As the season continues and the bounty begins to pile up, I start looking beyond raw preparations and sauté or roast my radishes instead. Radishes cook up beautifully; their affinity for butter and sea salt is just as apparent in the skillet.

Tiny sweet red beets and vibrant orange young carrots — each with a shock of fresh greens — are among spring’s most colorful arrivals. This salad makes the best of both, combining tender beets, quick-roasted carrots, and tangy beet greens. A creamy ranch-style dressing made with Greek yogurt, green onions, and herbs brings it all together for a salad that’s both fresh and hearty. This method of cooking beets are one of my go-to preparations.

A central tenet of complementary flavors is “what grows together goes together,” and I find this is especially true of spring produce with its array of crisp, verdant vegetables and their delightfully pungent flavors.