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Like any cultural cuisine, Mexican food is vast, varied, and dynamic. Each house, neighborhood, community, and region has its version, and the modern Mexican recipes shared by restaurateur and cookbook author Gabriela Cámara are no different. In both her cookbook and her restaurants, she celebrates local, sustainable agriculture. She believes the quality of the ingredients makes the dish, but that understanding how to balance a dish will make it sing....

Usually when a fragrant and ripe melon is ready to be sliced up, big pieces to nosh on are all I need for a sweet and nutritious treat. However, I’ve been venturing out and incorporating it to my smoothie routine. If you haven’t tried adding cantaloupes to drinks, you’ve been missing out. The fruit is naturally sweet, with honey notes. To add dimension to the smoothie, I add some tart plain Greek yogurt and bananas for creaminess....

The result is a cool coleslaw-like salad without the taste of cabbage. Yum! Sacramento chef Evie Lieb prepared this salad to go with the panko-crusted salmon in our recent cooking class. Two helpful tips are to 1) use a rubber mallet to help get the chef’s knife through the hard celery root, and 2) use a food processor, not a hand grater to do the grating. Celery root is hard to cut through, like butternut squash....

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Coffee Cake Recipe This coffee cake is light and fluffy, yet moist and delicious. It starts with a box mix, making it simple! It is so easy to do and I almost always have all the ingredients on hand. This is a pretty versatile dish, too — you can add things or take them away as you like. You can add chopped up apples to the crumb topping. Blueberries or shredded coconut make great additions, too!...

Homemade Fry Sauce If you walk into a restaurant in most states and ask for fry sauce, you are likely to get either a strange look, or a handful of ketchup packets. Trust me. I know from experience. And no, it’s not Thousand Island Dressing either. This fry sauce is so yummy and really easy to make, I can’t explain how just a few simple ingredients can take the potato world by storm, but they have and they do....

We also are blessed with a bounty of figs from the fig tree, with which my mother often makes a particularly wonderful fig jam (an easy recipe that cooks up in about 15 minutes, I recommend it!). So when I saw this recipe for an apple and gruyere grilled cheese panini with fig jam in my friend Kathy Strahs’ fabulous new cookbook, The Ultimate Panini Press Cookbook, I couldn’t wait to give it a go....

How to Build Hot Ham and Cheese Sliders The components of these sliders are minimal and straightforward, but each serves a specific and delicious purpose: Compound butter: This compound butter can be made with ingredients you likely already have in your fridge and pantry, and it takes these ham and cheese sliders from ordinary to superb. It not only flavors the sliders, it also helps them get perfectly golden brown and not dry....

I find that people either love it or hate it. Some people can’t resist it, and some people will leave the room if it’s on the table. One bite of pungent prepared horseradish is enough to clear out anyone’s sinuses, right? Horseradish is both easy to grow and easy to prepare! Plant a section of root in a sunny part of your yard, make sure it gets some water, and soon you’ll have more horseradish than you can use....

Life is busy, food doesn’t need to be complicated to taste delicious and feed your family. My children are polar opposites in tastes and personalities, which is why I try my best to find recipes I can either deconstruct to meet their palates or easily add on extra sides so that there’s something on the table that appeals to everyone. Beans are universally adored in my household. I also love them because they are affordable, healthy, and everyone eats them....

Each person left with a tin of assorted cookies, along with a slight sugar buzz. It was a marvelous way to meet new people in the neighborhood, as well as learn about new cookies that I wasn’t familiar with. And that’s exactly how I was introduced to the magical pfeffernusse. What Are Pfeffernusse Cookies? The executive director of the nonprofit, Rosie, grew up making pfeffernusse. Pfeffernusse cookies are a traditional German holiday cookie; the name translates to “peppernut....

Which brings me to okra, the poster child of vegetables with texture issues. “Eww, it’s slimy!” Yes. Yes, okra often suffers from slipperiness. But it all depends on how you prepare it. Cooked fresh into a pickle, like this, it’s not slimy. It’s crunchy. Okra Was Made for Pickling I am convinced that okra makes the best pickles ever. The inside of an okra pod is somewhat hollow, with tender seeds, but a lot of air....

Southwest Pasta Salad The delightfully flavorful Southwest Pasta Salad is sure to be a hit at your next summer barbecue. The dressing for the pasta is a mixture of ranch dressing and BBQ sauce which gives the pasta a rich and tangy flavor without overpowering the freshness of the vegetables in the salad. This is a very versatile salad. I like it because I can use my family’s favorite ranch dressing, our Buttermilk Ranch Dressing, and our favorite BBQ sauce, Sweet Baby Ray’s, to give it the flavors we like the most....

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You may be thinking, “Hmmm, sounds like a slightly alcoholic iced vanilla latte!” and you wouldn’t be far off. It’s buzzy and boozy! But as someone who doesn’t favor iced vanilla lattes (too sweet, not coffee-ey enough), but will happily sip on a White Russian any day of the week, I assure you there’s room for everyone at the White Russian table. What Does a White Russian Taste Like? The ingredients in a White Russian are vodka, heavy cream or whole milk, and Kahlúa – three ingredients that, when combined together, create a milky, dessert-like drink that can really only be described as delicious....

I want something that’s going to sustain them, and keep them from saying to me in ten minutes, “I’m still hungry!” Enter these almond butter date balls. A Kid-Friendly Afternoon Snack I love throwing a snack together quickly that keeps in the fridge for days. Bonus points if it can be made with ingredients I already have on hand. And double bonus if it’s relatively “healthy,” insofar as it’s not loaded with sugar....

Our basil got a late start but is now happily bursting out of the raised beds, requiring daily snipping. Those two—tomatoes and basil—such perfect partners in the garden, and on the plate. Here’s a quick and easy, kid-pleasing angel hair pasta dish we made recently with chopped canned clams and cherry tomatoes and basil from the garden. I say “kid pleasing” because my 16-year old nephew gobbled it up and came back for more....

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Not sure where I first heard of this variant on chicken salad, but I’ve been making it for years. Presumably it originated in the Caucasus Mountains, which is where the Circassians live. I’ve net yet met a Circassian, although I suspect they may be something like an Armenian. Or not. Who knows? What I do know is that there are plenty of recipes for this dish out there, but what ties them all together are walnuts, garlic, paprika and poached chicken....