Next time you’re at the grocery store or farmers market and spot some super-ripe tomatoes, snatch them up quickly for this vinaigrette. You need half a pound of those juicy gems to make this dressing. My favorite part is squeezing them over a strainer — you end up with a pool of the finest, freshest tomato juice.

There’s been a jar of Thai green curry paste lurking in the back of my pantry for ages. Ages. Resolved to use it, I even brought it with me when I moved from Iowa back to New York. So when I opened up Nigella Lawson’s new book, “Simply Nigella,” and discovered this cheery dish that prominently features green Thai curry paste, I knew this is what this jar was waiting for.

Cumin is a spice that makes friends easily. Its earthy, warm flavor shows off just how well it pairs with a number of ingredients including blackberries, corn, and smoky grilled chicken. When you feel like dinner has lost some of its flair, this is the dish to add to the rotation. The corn in this salad isn’t cooked, so it’s worth waiting until the first crop of the season rears its head. Your patience will be worth every sweet and starchy bite.

Smoke itself can be one of the best accomplices in a recipe featuring corn, mostly because corn doesn’t shrink in its presence. Rather than being masked by the assertive flavors of the flame, the sweetness of corn is amplified. Now take those sweet and smoky flavors and use them as a backbone for this salsa, which we highly recommend you use as the condiment of choice this summer. Scooping it up with chips is only the beginning.

Sometimes an end-of-summer sunset can feel bittersweet. You know the number of sunsets is dwindling, yet the beauty of it never wears off. Much like those sunsets, this punch brings together bitter and sweet flavors with a combination of Campari and pineapple juice for a big pitcher cocktail that looks and tastes like those bittersweet sunsets themselves.

When I first met Amy Halloran, she was cooking pancakes on a griddle she brought to someone else’s house. After I tasted her pancakes, which were thin, tender, and sweet with the taste for fresh flour, I knew why her name was synonymous with pancakes. Her genuine passion for the pancake has been a lifelong affair. The years of study, measuring, mixing, and flipping have resulted in the best pancakes I’ve ever eaten.

Here’s a cake that stopped me in my tracks — and it was very specifically because it contained eggplant. I’m a big believer in eggplant’s chameleon ability — after all, I’ve seen it transformed into jerky, bolognese, bacon, and my favorite, roses — but a cake seemed like a bit of a stretch.

Unlike traditional samosas, these are made with puff pastry for a buttery, flaky crunch. The filling, however, is very much full of South Indian ingredients and flavors.

Make them ahead, make them now; these sweet potatoes with sour cream are versatile and more delicious than you can possibly imagine.

Soups, veggie dishes, and one fragrant curry.

A creamy bowl of macaroni and cheese, a juicy burger, and gooey slices of pizza — delicious, sure, but eat too much and that heavy feeling will start to weigh you down. So how do we enjoy comfort food without the feeling of indulgence? Up the veggies and swap in healthier ingredients. Here are 16 lighter takes on classic comfort food — with a healthy twist.

If you made me choose a favorite cookie from Dorie Greenspan, I’d have to plead the Fifth. There are far too many delights to choose from — beginning with those classic, chocolatey World Peace Cookies to these Jammers. But if I had to pick a favorite Dorie Greenspan cookie story, this one would be it. Because these cookies — made with a vanilla sablé dough, topped with thick jam, surrounded by tender, crumbly streusel — came to Dorie in a dream.

According to Dorie, there are three ways to bake a better blondie.

This cookie is pretty much the epitome of what a Dorie Greenspan cookie is: steeped in expert technique, enhanced with a bit of French baking wisdom, and full of all the whimsy and wonder baking can offer. Because at first this may seem like a pretty old-school coconut macaroon, with the eggs, coconut, and sugar, but the technique makes them unique. The dough for these cookies takes a turn on the stove for a stunning result: Cookies that have a tender, chewy core and crackling, crispy crust.

Dorie’s new cookbook, perfectly titled Dorie’s Cookies, is truly a treasure trove of cookie recipes. Perfect for the astute beginner or intrepid pro, it has a fair share of recipes to appeal to any and all bakers. But for someone like me, who comes to baking with a bit of a groan at the thought of all that measuring, there are also stories to help get me in the baking spirit.

Perfect for Christmas, Hanukkah, and all the days in between, these morsels are spun together from melted chocolate, a bit of butter, crushed matzo cookies, and plump raisins.

What better duo to illustrate the ease of simple-yet-sublime summer desserts than berries and cream? Here, sun-kissed raspberries are enveloped in whipped coconut milk in a modern twist on the traditional British fool. And despite its classification as a vegan dessert, it’s every bit as luxurious — and light — as its dairy-filled counterpart. This dessert comes to us from Yossy Arefi, the creator behind Apt 2B Baking Co.

I suppose one could make the case that dressing a fruit salad is a bit like gilding the lily, especially when the fruit is at the height of season. To that argument I say, a little extra bling never hurt anybody! In this fruit salad from Yossy Arefi, the bling comes in the form of sweet-tart lemon-vanilla bean syrup. Beyond the syrup (which you can use to jazz up sparkling water or a cocktail), this fruit salad is all about using what you like, what looks good, and what smells good.

Don’t think pineapple is the only fruit that gets to have all the fun when it comes to upside-down cakes. Here, a sparkling combination of inky sweet blackberries and tender nectarines gives a classic yellow cake a jewel-toned finish. If you’re due to bring a summery dessert to an office party or barbecue, you’ll want to save this recipe for just that. We’re nominating this cake from Yossy Arefi of Apt. 2B Baking Co. “the official cake of summer.

Strawberries don’t have to work very hard to earn a place as one of our favorite berries of summer. They are the first to arrive, tend to be the most affordable, and really know how to work the spotlight with very little help. So when you’re ready to take your fresh munching to the next level, make this slab pie dreamed up by cookbook author Yossy Arefi.

Our goal for ringing in the new year? Do it with a flash of color, vibrant flavor, heat, soulfulness, and, of course, sparkle. And no food said that for me this year like the creations coming out of Asha Gomez’s kitchen. Last year year, the chef and restaurateur became a cookbook author and published one of the year’s most celebrated cookbooks: My Two Souths.

Chungah Rhee, author of the blog Damn Delicious, has been creating recipes and taking photos of food for five years, all with the goal of helping people figure out what to make for dinner. The blog began as a way to track the recipes she was making, but quickly gained a following on Pinterest, thanks to her short ingredient lists, popular dishes, and bright photography.

I’ve been thinking about my life a few years ago, when the worries were fewer and the tofu was plentiful. After eating at a slew of wonderful vegetable-centric restaurants in New York City recently, a wave a nostalgia for the vegetarian years of my life has risen to the surface. I’m thinking about the cookbooks that inspired me but also the recipes and meals I still make even though I now eat meat. Some food and flavors stick with you.

When’s the last time a recipe stopped you in your tracks? It’s been a long time for me. That might be in part because it’s the medium I work in most often and I’m finding myself a little fatigued, or maybe it’s because sometimes recipes — even though they help you get dinner on the table — feel starved of a story. A perplexing conundrum, given their very intention is to feed us — and often in ways beyond just the meal they provide.

Are you planning on bringing a dish to Thanksgiving this year? Something that will make a splash at Friendsgiving or at your in-laws’ house? Look no further. We’ve pulled together a few of our crowd-pleasing sides and apps to ensure your contribution to the Thanksgiving spread is an absolute win.

We’re at the holiday interlude, that all-too-short period of time between the big festive meals of Thanksgiving and Christmas, which means it’s the perfect time to take a break from all the ripping and running, and stock up on refreshing smoothie recipes. Mix up any one of these colorful blends the next time you need a recharge, a quick hit of veggies, or something sweet and satisfying to sip on between all that holiday shopping.

You’ve got to hand it to the skillet — it’s probably the most overworked, under-appreciated tool in the kitchen. It takes us from crowd-pleasing brunch recipes like chipotle chilaquiles to a dessert of cookie butter-swirled brownies without missing a beat. It goes from the oven to stove to tabletop without complaint, and it’s usually a breeze to clean. Cast iron, stainless steel, and even nonstick — here are 10 times we were thankful for our skillets this past year.

As the first meal of the day, breakfast holds a lot of power in swaying the way we start our mornings. Even if you’re more likely to grab a cup of coffee and rush out the door than sit down to a full spread of eggs and the works, there’s always a middle ground that delivers flavor, convenience, and a little delight. These recipes are either quick enough to whip up on an average weekday morning or can be made in advance over the weekend or on a quiet weeknight.