Start to finish, this plush, flavorful olive oil cake can be on your table in under an hour, and you probably already have everything you need to bake it. Because this recipe is endlessly riffable (see “tips,” below for ideas), it’s easy to slot into your regular baking rotation and customize it based on the flavors you’re craving.

I spoon this comforting, sweet pudding into ramekins and serve it as a dessert, but you could also make it a breakfast splurge. You can serve it hot or cold.

Tom yum is a hot and sour soup from Thailand with lively notes of lemongrass, makrut lime leaves and galangal. There are many variations of this iconic soup, including tom kha (coconut milk and dominant galangal notes), tom yum pla (fish) and tom yum gai (chicken). This version is vegetarian, hence not traditional, but it is reminiscent of tom yum koong nam khon, a creamy version that uses canned evaporated milk. (Use coconut milk if you prefer). Tom yum is often moored by nam prik pao, a staple Thai chile paste of roasted chiles, shrimp paste and fish sauce, but in this recipe, a combination of soy sauce, lime, garlic and sambal oelek provides a similar umami kick. The addition of vermicelli and tofu is also unconventional, but it turns this soup into a hearty, quick and comforting weeknight dinner.

Sourdough bakers are always on the lookout for creative ways to put unfed starter to use. In the case of this pizza crust, the open crumb and distinctive hearty taste of sourdough are well suited to bold toppings and well-aged cheeses.

This is a rich, special-occasion cake that takes the traditional Southern coconut cake to another level, with ground toasted pecans in the batter and an easy-to-make Chantilly cream for frosting. It has become the signature dessert for Dolester Miles, who serves slices over a little puddle of crème anglaise at Chez Fonfon and Bottega, and sometimes at the Highlands Bar & Grill, the Birmingham, Ala., restaurants owned by Frank and Pardis Stitt. Assembly can be a challenge, so she suggests building the cake by stacking the delicate slabs of cake with filling in between each layer into a deep, round cake pan, then slipping it into the refrigerator for about an hour. The filling acts like a delicious glue. When the cake is inverted and unmolded, the edges have an even, professional appearance. —Kim Severson

From Martin Philip's book "Breaking Bread: A Baker's Journey Home"

Baked hard pretzels seasoned with lemon pepper, dill, and garlic powder. You will not be able to stop snacking on these!

You can use fresh or frozen strawberries in this versatile strawberry topping sauce. This topping is fresh, quick, & easy and gives desserts that little something extra!

This drinkable nutritional yeast dressing makes just about everything taste great. Keep a jar on hand and proceed to drizzle it on everything.

This classic lemon tart has a buttery, shortbread crust and a soft, dense lemon curd filling that barely holds its shape when you cut a slice. The textures should be a combination of crunchy and velvety; the flavor, sharp and tangy, with just enough sugar to take the edge off the citrus. This version has all of that, with one tweak for ease. Instead of making a traditional dough that needs to be shaped with a rolling pin, this one has a simple press-in-the-pan cookie crust made with melted butter. For a nutty-scented brown butter crust, let the butter cook until it turns golden. This tart is at its best when served on the day it’s baked, but it’s still delightful a day or two later (though the crust will lose some of its crispness). Store it in the refrigerator and serve it cold or at room temperature.

This buttery almond cake with lemon curd baked inside is like the ultimate citrus tart, without the heartbreak of pie crust. It's fancy enough to be served as a dinner party dessert, yet substantial enough to be served with Sunday brunch. (Bonus: you'll have several tablespoons of lemon curd left over. It's delicious on toast or pancakes.)

Roasted red peppers are a great addition to hummus and add additional health benefits, vitamin C and A and fiber (not to mention the beautiful color they add to hummus).

You don’t need a recipe for a party board, which is a fine dinner for a Wednesday night. You don’t even need a no-recipe recipe. You need only what cheese is in the refrigerator, sliced or wedged or cubed, along with cured meats — I like rolled mortadella, spread inside with a little mayonnaise and dotted with pickled jalapeño — and a little bread or pile of crackers. Maybe add to the board some cherry tomatoes, halved and tossed in olive oil and good vinegar with salt and pepper? You could stuff them with mozzarella, if you have the time. Or celery, cut into batons? Carrots, likewise? Raw or roasted peppers, sliced? The chef Gabrielle Hamilton calls the assemblage a snack tray. In the name of romance, she once stacked Pringles on one, with a ramekin of Castelvetrano olives. You could go with Jarlsberg, Triscuits and vodka sodas. Or smoked salmon, shaved asparagus, some crème fraîche with chives, dill and tarragon. A party board is what you make of it.

Use the recipe as a guide — if you don’t have leeks, onions are fine, though I don’t think leeks lend a special flavor to all stocks, so they are worth buying if you are headed to the store; if you don’t have thyme or tarragon, omit them; etc.

Best Brownie Recipe-you only need ONE bowl to make these fudgy, chewy, gooey, chocolaty brownies with shiny crackly tops! This easy homemade brownie recipe will be your GO TO! You will never buy a boxed brownie mix again!

I cooked up a pot of Thai purple sticky rice that had been lingering in the pantry, and then decided how I would turn it into a meal. It was too sticky to use for stir-fried rice so I made stir-fried vegetables and oven-baked tofu, and served up rice bowls topped with both. I thought it might be an altogether too purple meal, but it was quickly devoured, and we are all the more anti-oxidant rich because of the anthocyanins in the red and purple foods.

This sweet and sour mixture, colored purple and orange, is packed with flavenoids.

I can’t remember where I heard or read about massaging raw kale with olive oil and a little salt, but it is a very effective way to soften the leaves just a bit if you are not cooking the kale. This briny slaw gets its crunch from red cabbage and walnuts.

Plush baby potatoes braised in an aromatic gochujang broth form the heart of this satisfying, vegetable-packed stew. The spice-timid can lower the amount of gochujang, the Korean red-pepper paste, and heat seekers should feel free to add more to taste at the end. Canned white beans and dark-green Tuscan kale (also called lacinato or dinosaur kale), stewed with soy sauce and honey, create a deeply savory flavor that is reminiscent of South Korean gochujang jjigae, a camping favorite starring pantry staples, and dakdori tang, a gochujang-based chicken and potato stew.

This Spring recipe is a Vanilla And Bean favorite. Lemon Garlic Orzo with Roasted Vegetables is delicious served warm or chilled and makes a fabulous addition to a picnic, or potluck. Sub in season veggies like zucchini or eggplant for the asparagus when needed. Share with a Vegetarian Kale Caesar Salad to complete the meal! This recipe is vegetarian and easily vegan.

You can make this vibrant, near-instant, green soup with ingredients you tend to have on hand—and come out with something intensely flavored that you’ve never tasted before. It's all thanks to the great Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat author and teacher Samin Nosrat, and a fateful cleanse she embarked on in the desert. “The rules of the cleanse turned everything I’d learned about classical cooking upside down,” Samin wrote for The New York Times Magazine. “Without potatoes, flour, other starches, or dairy to lean on, I had to look elsewhere to thicken and enrich the soup.” The answer: nutty, smoky tahini.

This playful recipe borrows the flavors of sour cream and onion dip and reimagines them into a bright, punchy salad with a creamy dressing. Onion powder is used without restraint here, highlighting the virtues of the reliable pantry staple. Tossing the dressing with a mountain of crisp lettuce leaves tames its intensity and creates a well-balanced salad that makes the perfect accompaniment to any meal. If you like, garnish it with crushed potato chips right before serving for an additional pop of texture and a nod to its inspiration.

The lentils and mushrooms could hold their own, independently, as dependable side dishes, able to play to any menu lead from whole roasted sea bass to suckling pig. The bright, lemony, parsleyed brown-butter croutons, though, are what transforms an otherwise pleasant member of the cast to serious scene stealer.

This method for a beloved appetizer maximizes flavor by gently poaching shrimp in a deeply seasoned broth of salt, chile powder and celery seeds. Rather than wash away all the spices with a rinse or a plunge in an ice bath, you stop the cooking by pouring ice directly into the hot bath. For dipping, go for a classic cocktail sauce with the sharp brightness of lemon and horseradish, or a simple garlicky dill butter, which makes the shrimp taste somehow of lobster, or a comforting, warmly spiced honey mustard, because you always need a creamy option. Enjoy the plump shrimp with your favorite sauce — or all three.

Preserved lemon is a kitchen workhorse that easily moves to the bar. Here, it’s muddled with sugar and fresh lemon slices to release a light bitterness, harmonizing the sweet, the saline and the acidic. It appears once more, alongside olives and more fresh slices in the edible and fragrant garnish. While you can and should use both the preserved lemon rind and pulp (the pulp adds more welcome salinity and texture), use only the rind for the garnish. And, if you’d like to make this nonalcoholic drink alcoholic, add a splash of vodka, gin or, if you’re looking to triple down on the lemon flavors, limoncello.

This unfussy cake with a top layer of jammy strawberries is so gooey it’s best to serve the whole thing with a spoon. The batter comes together quickly with minimal effort, using basic pantry ingredients and a small handful of berries — frozen or fresh. If you’re using frozen, be sure to defrost them in the microwave first. Extract as much juice as possible from the fruit by macerating and mashing it, so that it lends the cake additional moisture while baking. Add a dash of freshly ground cardamom or ground ginger on top before baking it off, if you like, or some ribbons of fresh basil once it’s hot out of the oven. Whatever embellishments you decide on, burrowing warm spoonfuls of this cake beside scoops of vanilla ice cream is the most important thing.

Crispy cucumber and creamy avocado perform a delicate dance with earthy notes of sesame in this most simple of salads. Thin-skinned varieties such as Persian or English cucumbers work best, as they are almost seedless with a robust flesh that stays crisp. But don’t worry if you only have access to seedy cucumbers: Peel them if their skins are thick, then cut them in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds before slicing. No-cook and ready in a matter of minutes, this elegant salad can be dressed up according to your mood. It is a satisfying meal on its own, but it can also be served alongside cold soba noodles, or with brown rice and a fried or jammy egg on top.

This dish is a simple way to make use of a whole bunch of dill and transform an ordinary pot of plain rice. Naz Deravian, the author of “Bottom of the Pot: Persian Recipes and Stories” (Flatiron Books, 2018), uses a mix of fresh and dried dill here. The dried dill enhances the fragrance and also draws out the humidity from the fresh dill so the rice doesn’t turn mushy when steaming. This recipe uses a traditional Persian technique for cooking rice in which you boil the rice for several minutes over high heat, wrap the lid in a kitchen towel to catch the condensation, then steam the rice over low heat for several minutes more. Don't worry; it won't be overcooked. It will be fluffy perfection. Serve it with chicken or seafood, like this roasted dill salmon.

This tangy and creamy dip is the perfect appetizer for a warm summer evening outside, and it makes a nice condiment for grilled meats and veggies, too. Fresh green herbs brighten up the salty feta, and sumac gives it another layer of flavor and a gorgeous pop of color. Choose a feta in brine over vacuum-packed, if you’ve got the option. Feta varies a lot in salt content, so you won’t see a measured amount of salt here; just taste the dip and add a bit if you think it needs it.

Fill store-bought brioche buns with jammy, caramelized onions and melted Gruyère, for satisfying little sandwiches that make a perfect soup companion or a cozy, comforting meal. Caramelizing the onions takes some time but very little effort, and coaxing out the ingredient’s sweet side is well worth it. The butter used to caramelize the onions adds flavor, and the extra-virgin olive oil allows the onions to tolerate higher heat without burning. (However, if you find the onions are browning unevenly, turn the heat down to low.) Prepare a big batch of these balsamic caramelized onions ahead of time and lunch can be on your plate in 10 minutes.

Tangy-sweet and tender, lemon poppy seed muffins topped with a sweet lemon icing make for a special breakfast treat that tastes like it came from a bakery. Tangy-sweet and tender, lemon poppy seed muffins topped with a sweet lemon icing make for a special breakfast treat that tastes like it came from a bakery.

A cookie-like layer of craquelin amplifies the sweetness, crunch, and visual appeal of this classic treat.

This Homemade Italian Dressing is quick and easy to make, 1000X better than store bought, fresh and natural and is wonderfully versatile!It's a balanced tangy and zesty blend of olive oil, red wine vinegar, pantry herbs and spices and the best part – Parmesan Cheese!  This Italian Dressing recipe elevates and enlivens everything it touches from salads to vegetables and makes an excellent marinade for chicken, fish, pork and steak.  This Italian Dressing also keeps for 2-3 weeks in the refrigerator!

You can make this gingery, lightly sweet shrimp stew as tangy and spicy as you like by adjusting the amounts of chile and lime juice. Using full-fat coconut milk gives you the richest and most flavorful dish. But light coconut milk will also work, resulting in something brothier and more souplike. Be sure not to overcook the shrimp. As soon as they turn pink, they’re done.

You only need a handful of staple ingredients to make pâte à choux at home. This recipe is traditional and yields perfect results every time. Use it to make cream puffs, profiteroles, eclairs, and so much more.

Homemade coconut macaroons are sweet and moist with soft, chewy centers and crisp exteriors. They require only a few simple ingredients and are naturally gluten free!