Oatmeal is one of the healthiest breakfasts you can eat, and I usually like to keep the toppings pretty simple. But once in a while, why not make it just a little indulgent? Adding rich espresso and cocoa powder – and just a few nuts and chocolate chips on top – combines my morning bowl of oatmeal with my favorite winter drink, the mocha. The espresso and cocoa powder give the oatmeal lots of rich flavor, and a few chocolate chips on top just puts it over the top.

Spicy, salty, crispy, crunchy. Plantain chips are just what we want in a snack, and this baked version is one we could happily munch on practically every day. The key to the perfect crunch? It’s all about picking the right plantains. Our first attempts at plantain chips were somewhat disastrous. Most of them burned and no amount of oil could keep them from sticking to the pan and falling apart when we tried to pry them off. Turns out, we were using the wrong plantains.

Are you feeling the heat yet? It’s not even June, and we are in desperate need of a cool, refreshing drink. Strawberry sangria is light, sweet and usually effervescent – exactly what we want to sip on right now.With strawberries in season, this is the perfect time to try one of these recipes. Not only are they tasty – they’re so pretty too! Most are made white wine and something sparkling – Pellegrino, lemon-lime soda, ginger ale.

We’ve had a string of cold and rainy spring days, so we’re craving something warm and comforting, yet still seasonal. Enter rapini – the bitter greens are a perfect match for white beans a little pasta in a dish that’s not the most beautiful, but is quite delicious.Rapini is nearing the end of its peak growing season in the northern hemisphere. We found beautiful bunches on opening day of one local Chicago farmers’ market.

Pudding – the dessert many of us grew up on – has made a big comeback as a trendy treat. If the occasion calls for something a bit more impressive, we have the perfect fancy pants solution – bake your pudding in a water bath and call it pots de crème.OK, so the recipe and process is a bit different, but pots de crème are quite similar to the puddings we all know and love.

It almost seems wrong pitting one type of recipe against another, but we realize that individual preferences can be quite strong when it comes to Irish soda bread. Did you grow up on the sweet Irish-American version? Are you a purist who sticks with flour, salt, baking soda and buttermilk? Or do you like to experiment with a few modern twists?Last year, Susie shared her mother’s recipe for a sweet soda bread filled with golden raisins and caraway seeds, dusted with sugar.

Top Chef Stephanie Izard is a little obsessed with goat. Perhaps it’s because her last name is a type of Pyrenees mountain goat in French. Or maybe she just finds it delicious. Stephanie stopped by the new Kenmore Studio in Chicago last night to make a batch of Salted Goat Caramel – a sweet/savory sauce that could be served with a variety of dishes. We’ve got the recipe below.

We highlighted several sophisticated citrus dessert recipes from Bon Appétit last week, but the Blood Orange Polenta Upside-Down Cake We did come across a few stumbling blocks with this recipe, but the results were pretty fantastic, so we think it’s worth trying.The first step of the recipe was the trickiest for us.

Yesterday, Kathryn covered the basics of chili making and a great many variations. Today, we’re highlighting a very specific vegetarian chili preparation – one that ended years of searching for that perfect meatless recipe. I’ve tried a great many recipes for vegetarian chili.

Yesterday, we showed you our favorite recipe for light and fluffy pancakes, and several of you shared some great tips and recipes of your own. Now that we have the basics out of the way, let’s move on to the fun stuff – the toppings. Pure maple syrup is never a bad choice, but we’ve grown to love this simple blueberry maple syrup recipe that’s made with just two ingredients. Can you guess what they are?Yep, it’s blueberries and maple syrup. No big mystery there!

Did you make Ivy Manning’s Apple Cornbread Dressing with veggie sausageWe aren’t usually fans of vegetarian “meat” products, but we took Ivy’s (and at least one commenter’s) advice and tried the sausages from Field Roast Grain Meat Co. in our stuffing. They were delicious! We used the Smoked Apple Sage variety – perfect flavors for Thanksgiving.

Inside these cheesecloth packages are homemade salami, flavored with red wine, herbs and spices. But the main ingredient isn’t meat – it’s figs! These have some aging to do and won’t be ready for another three weeks, but let’s take a peek, shall we?Our fig salami are still in the early stages of the aging process – in another three weeks or so, they will have lost a lot of their moisture and have a nice firm texture. That’s the plan, anyway!

Sweet corn is the perfect thing to eat right now – seasonal, fresh and perfect with almost nothing added to it. But just in case you’re ready for something new, let’s load it up with lots of rich and delicious toppings. What do you say? You may be familiar with elote, a Mexican sweet corn treat.

Our homemade pizza efforts have always been of the thin-crusted variety. Living in Chicago, if we have a taste for a deep-dish, we reach for the takeout menus. But The Paupered Chef blog has come up with a recipe that has us itching to make our own.More on that in a minute.

Now that we’ve got our ice cream makers churning away this month, we’re looking for fun ways to play with the results. Mochi ice cream balls have popped up everywhere from swanky restaurant dessert menus to the freezer case at Trader Joe’s.But why not make a batch of your own?

Now that we’ve learned a few tips for creating our own cocktails, we’ve been experimenting a bit. We’ve found one combination that’s super-simple and refreshing using Trader Joe’s Villa Italia Blood Orange Italian Soda. OK, so we didn’t exactly follow the fresh juice tip, but it’s still really tasty …Blood Orange Gin Fizz1 ounce gin Blood orange soda Lemon slices Fresh mint Muddle the mint and lemon slices in a glass.