Category: Recipes

Salsa Verde

This ubiquitous green sauce appears in a myriad of cuisines, menus, and dishes. Keeping the ingredients to three or four soft herbs allows for each one to come through, a touch of garlic makes it aromatic, and olive oil adds richness and helps bring out all the fresh flavors. I add a bit of spice…


Shrimp and Herb Fritters

A fabulous way to use lots of herbs and feed lots of people, these fritters are bound by breadcrumbs and eggs into dollar pancake-sized bites, delicious served as a tapa. They can be made with any combination of soft herbs that you like—cilantro, flat-leaf parsley, tarragon—as long as the ratios stay the same. Add different…


Easy Basil Ice Cream

Children will scream and adults will swoon over this ice cream’s green hue and sweet, fragrant flavor. You can make the vanilla ice cream base from scratch, or simply start with store-bought. It is fantastic served with berries, or just by itself in a pretty bowl. I love it frozen in a rectangular mold, inverted…


Frozen Limeade Is a Satisfying Summer Treat

For this recipe, we wanted a drinkable frozen treat like Del’s Frozen Lemonade. We found that the best way to create a slushy frozen drink texture was to freeze half of our limeade mixture in ice cube trays and then blend it with the rest of the chilled liquid. Blending solid cubes with some liquid…


Homemade Granola Bars Will Power the Kids Through Class, After-School Activities, and More

As the kids head back to school, these chewy granola bars are great to have on your baking menu. It’s a perfect make-ahead snack and travels well. A quick note: Don’t use quick, instant, or extra-thick rolled oats in this recipe. Rolled oats (also called old-fashioned or regular oats) are whole oats that have been…


A Summertime Steak Dinner

Corn, tomato, and basil scream summer, and simplicity makes this easy dinner recipe perfect for the season. Serve the grilled skirt steak and relish with salad greens for a quick and healthy dinner you’ll want to make over and over. Grilled Skirt Steak With Corn-Tomato Relish Active Time: 25 minutes Total Time: 25 minutes Serves…


For Better French Toast, ‘Lose’ the Bread

Fans of sweet breakfasts will love this pain perdu—the French version of, well, French toast—with a crisp, buttery outside and rich, custardy interior. Pain perdu roughly translates to “lost bread” (lost meaning day-old or stale bread that may have been thrown away). Because it’s a bit drier than its fresh counterpart, slightly stale bread is…


Corn Chowder Is Just Right for a Cool Summer Evening

Can you ever get enough corn in the summer months? I don’t think so. Once you locate a purveyor of fresh sweet corn, you may find yourself there more often than usual just to pick up a few extra ears. I have a farm stand nearby, and I can’t stop myself from picking up a…


Torta Di Verdure Coi Becchi (Swiss Chard Tart)

The sweet dessert torta coi becchi, made with Swiss chard, was born in Lucca, Tuscany thanks to locals’ knowledge and expertise about the many herbs that grow spontaneously throughout the area. Chard is categorized as a sweet herb, along with nettle and borage, opposed to bitter herbs such as dandelion or chicory. It is a…


Scarpaccia Viareggina (Sweet Zucchini Cake)

This thin, moist cake, filled with tender young zucchini and the unmistakable fragrance of basil, is a traditional cake from the coastal town of Viareggio in northern Tuscany. It was traditionally baked by old sailors with zucchini from their vegetable gardens. Now, come summertime, when zucchini flood market stalls and overtake backyard gardens, locals still…