Posted by popular demand, here's my recipe for battered fried mushrooms. This is actually less of a recipe than just a list of suggestions with quantities and steps. As with just about all of my recipes, feel free to adjust pretty much any of the ingredient ratios as, to be honest, I just threw everything together one very fun evening...

This chickpea salad is a pretty standard Mediterranean-type of salad which is very healthy and extremely easy to make...

This recipe is going to be the next breakfast comfort food- I'm sure of it! It's very simple but makes use of several of the best comfort and soul food ingredients we've got- collard greens, bacon, eggs...

Here's my recipe for Dark Chocolate Chip Cherry Walnut Cookies. These cookies are an explosion of flavor and texture and can be made either moist and chewy or crisp...

Ricotta doesn't get a lot of credit. Having eaten store-bought ricotta most of my life, I can understand why- its mostly flavorless and rather grainy. That being said, my mother can make a mean lasagna with the tub-variety stuff! The convenience of the grocery store, much as it does for other foods, disguises the fact that ricotta is actually very easy to make yourself and tastes far better if you do...

I don't use pork very much. It's a staple food here and abroad but, unless it's coated in sugary sauces, I've always found it to be too dry for my tastes. As much as I like those sugary sauces, you know deep down that they really aren't any good for you. They are almost universally filled with little more than food coloring, high-fructose corn syrup, salt, and "spices"....

This recipe is an amazingly easy Italian-inspired stir fry dish with a bit of a kick from the chilies. It's not overly spicy but rather just spicy enough to make you take your time when you enjoy it...

Ok- I like mustard. A lot. It is one of the extremely under-rated condiments which, given its ubiquity, seems surprising. Unlike most foods I'm fanatical about, I'm very happy to squeeze Plotchman's Yellow Mustard on my sandwich as I am to spread the fanciest mustard onto sauerbraten.
For those of you who may be new to the idea that products can be made, not just bought, homemade mustard is an excellent gateway project. It requires no cooking, easy to find ingredients, can be made in just a few minutes, and is infinitely extensible. The recipe here is for a basic spicy brown mustard. It has a slightly horseradish-y tasteand is fantastic with strong meats like ham...