Tomato

When I was a kid and my mom made tomato soup, she would cut buttered toast into squares and float them on top of each bowl. My twist on Mom's toast is to make brown butter croutons, though when I'm really feeling feisty I go all the way and make grilled cheese croutons to float on the soup. To cut the bread for the brown butter croutons, take a 4-inch chunk of rustic bread (5 to 6 ounces) and cut off and discard the crusts using a serrated knife. Cut the bread into 4 slices, then cut the slices into 3/4- to 1-inch cubes.

This creamy soup, served in tiny cups and bright with chive oil, is easy to make and serve. Kids will like the little cups and the crazy green swirl. Adults will appreciate the healthfulness and the flavor.

Scallops only taste rich: A 4-ounce serving has just 78 calories, and the shellfish can cost less than a good cut of beef. Plus, they’re super easy to cook. See&151;and enjoy&151;for yourself!

Chickpeas make this hearty dish even more gratifying. A half cup of the high-fiber legumes daily can cut your consumption of fatty foods.

Chef Kris Wessel of Florida Cookery in Miami Beach, Florida, shared this recipe as part of a Palm Tree Christmas menu he created exclusively for Epicurious. Conch is typically sold cooked and frozen, so to make this salad, simply defrost the frozen conch and cut it into bite-size pieces. Look for conch that's white or off-white and not brown or yellow if you're buying it from your fishmonger, Wessel says. The lime juice and vinegar in the salad will further cook the conch slightly, like a ceviche.

The bell peppers in this dish work to keep your skin looking great. Their vitamin C helps build firming collagen and fends off damaging free radicals.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Mediterranean classics, check out the video classes.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Mediterranean classics, check out the video classes.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Mediterranean classics, check out the video classes.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Mediterranean classics, check out the video classes.

Cookbook author and cooking teacher James Peterson created this recipe exclusively for Epicurious. The repeated caramelization of the vegetables is the secret to the gravy's surprisingly rich flavor. For more of Peterson's gravy-making advice, including how to thicken with a roux and avoid lumps, see our Gravy Primer.

In Italy it is possible to find inexpensive Barolo wines that are perfect to cook with. Unfortunately, that is not the case in America. Because you don't want to pour a fifteen-dollar bottle of wine over a four-dollar piece of meat, I recommend cooking with a flavorful inexpensive red wine and reserving the Barolo to serve with dinner. For tender, flavorful meat, it is best to prepare this dish several hours or, even better, a full day ahead of time. Reheat it in the oven before serving with mashed potatoes or polenta. I begin this recipe by preparing a sacchétto di spezie, a little bag of herbs and spices.

Arab salad, chopped salad, Israeli salad—whatever you choose to call it, there is no escaping it. Wherever you go, a Jerusalemite is most likely to have a plate of freshly chopped vegetables—tomato, cucumber, and onion, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice—served next to whatever else they are having. It's a local affliction, quite seriously. Friends visiting us in London always complain of feeling they ate "unhealthily" because there wasn't a fresh salad served with every meal. There are plenty of unique variations on the chopped salad but one of the most popular is fattoush, an Arab salad that uses grilled or fried leftover pita. Other possible additions include peppers, radishes, lettuce, chile, mint, parsley, cilantro, allspice, cinnamon, and sumac. Each cook, each fmily, each community has their own variation. A small bone of contention is the size of the dice. Some advocate the tiniest of pieces, only 1/8 inch / 3 mm wide, others like them coarser, up to 3/4 inch / 2 cm wide. The one thing that there is no arguing over is that the key lies in the quality of the vegetables. They must be fresh, ripe, and flavorsome, with many hours in the sun behind them. This fabulous salad is probably Sami's mother's creation; Sami can't recall anyone else in the neighborhood making it. She called it fattoush, which is only true to the extent that it includes chopped vegetables and bread. She added a kind of homemade buttermilk and didn't fry her bread, which makes it terribly comforting. Try to get small cucumbers for this as for any other fresh salad. They are worlds apart from the large ones we normally get in most supermarkets. You can skip the fermentation stage and use only buttermilk instead of the combination of milk and yogurt.

"Sometimes I sit and watch baseball and eat pistachios out of the can, but they're better as a topper for pasta."

This recipe can easily be doubled to feed a larger group—and makes for great leftovers. For a lighter soup, omit the cream; or for a little decadence, add more cream or swirl in a little crème fraîche.

We love the frilly edges of olive oil-fried eggs. Serve them over chickpeas for a vegetarian main.

After we make a batch of this romesco sauce, we put it on things like eggs, grilled cheese, and turkey sandwiches. We find any excuse we can think of to dunk and cover stuff in the incredibly versatile and tasty romesco.

For her holiday party one year, my friend Elizabeth served a row of meat loaves that were presented on her finest China platters and had been stuffed with spinach and cheese. I loved that, and occasionally follow her lead for just a regular Tuesday night meal. To stuff, place half the meatloaf mixture in the loaf pan. Using a spoon, make a well down the length of the middle, then add thawed frozen spinach and mozzarella cheese into the well. Cover with remaining mixture and proceed as directed.