We all know how hard our teachers work, right? When people say that being a parent is the toughest job in the world, I think they may not have given teaching a hard and close enough look. Let's show these teachers some love!

"Baking Your Teachers a Thank You "is...

My dad died Sunday. The words don't look right sitting on the page, they don't feel like they belong to me, they must have been written by someone else, someone with a dead father.

He was sick for six months. A long time. No, a short time. Kind of a...

Serves 8 to 10

For no apparent reason every year I think of posole as I face down the Thanksgiving leftovers, in particular the turkey carcass and the pile of leftover turkey meat. A warm, comforting soupey stew is always in order, and the chewy-soft texture and gentle flavor of...

I got a little touch of Thankgiving fever last week, and because I am not making the turkey this year, I felt compelled to make a pre-Thanksgiving bird. But not the whole bird, just the breast, which seemed a bit more manageable and less insane than roasting a whole bird...

Crostatas are like free-form pies, not baked in a pan, but rather on a baking sheet, with the dough folded up around the edges of the filling. They are rustic looking, absolutely beautiful, with the filling bubbling up from within the...

When you have a family of four, and the bulk of the people you invite over often come in groupings of 2 to 6, it's shockingly easy to go from "We're having a few people over for dinner" to "Holy crap, what am...

This is a stupidly clammy sauce, so full of clams, it should really be called clams with pasta. It's the monster truck rally of clam sauces. The clams in the shell are beautiful and whole and delicious, but the sauce is riddled...

Ladies and gentlemen, are you frustrated by unevenly cooked bacon? Are you embarrassed by bacon curled up into unseemly snarls? Are you tired of skidding around on a skating rink of grease in front of your stove as you suffer the splattering hot grease that comes out of the frying...

You will notice in the photo that there is a small pile of lobster perched atop the pasta. This is not our usual weeknight fare. This is the good fortune of making this dish post-Mother's Day, after we had brought cooked lobsters home for dinner as a treat. Uncharacteristically, there...

You've probably had a lot of chicken pass through your kitchen. You've also probably stood there staring listlessly at that package of chicken breasts, waiting for inspiration to strike. And you've probably all heard your family whine, "Chicken, again?"

Well, yes, chicken again because, grousing aside, it's simply one of...

The weather is getting warmer, and soon soup (or at least hot soup) season will be behind us for the foreseeable months. But I'm ready to let go just yet. Especially because soup is the single most brilliant way to use up what you have in your fridge. And it's...

Sometimes life calls for a filet, a tender, luxurious cut of meat that says "good job, laddie, you deserve a treat." This recipe calls for petite filets, a tidy, juicy shoulder cut of beef. You can often find them for a better price than the big loin filets, and they...

I was looking at a bunch of beautiful string beans that had been waiting patiently for me to decide what to do with them, and I got a weird craving for Nicoise salad. But that day, for that dinner, a salad was already in the works, and an appetizer was...

What's a fork-in-the-road dish? This is the idea that you can separate out some of whatever you are making and make a simpler version for picky eaters, then continue on your merry way and gussy up the rest of the dish with gutsier ingredients, herbs, seasonings, etc. to give it...

When you think meatballs, don't just think Italian. Ground meat is a ridiculously versatile blank canvas for so many kinds of dishes, so many different seasonings. These take on typically Chinese seasonings, and are poached instead of sauteed or baked, resulting in meatballs that are very reminiscent of the inside...

Having a Super Bowl get-together without dip is like watching a movie without popcorn. The point escapes me. This is a rich, hearty dip, almost a main course dip, if you will (and why wouldn't you). The milder version is gentle and creamy, and the zingier version has more chipotles...

Crostini are a pretty brilliant way to use up odds and ends that you might have in your fridge, and it doesn't take much to transform them into an elegant little appetizer. An avocado that's begging to be used (like TODAY) becomes a perfect partner for firm cannellini beans, and...

This is a modern riff on a Greek salad, with sultry, complex flavors, but perfectly straightforward steps. If you roast the tomatoes and lemons earlier in the day, the whole thing comes together quite quickly.

In place of the traditional cucumber, thin ribbons of raw zucchini provide delicate flavor...

My older son loves, loves, loves corn muffins, and it was his suggestion to create a Fork in the Road version with heat, since he also happens to like jalapenos -- as in he orders a side of jalapenos to snack on whenever he is in a place where such...

What's a fork-in-the-road dish? This is the idea that you can separate out some of whatever you are making and make a simpler version for picky eaters, then continue on your merry way and gussy up the rest of the dish with gutsier ingredients, herbs, seasonings, etc. to give it...