French

This recipe provides a simple method for making delicious artisan bread with minimal effort, primarily requiring time for a long, slow rise. It involves mixing basic ingredients, letting the dough rest for many hours, then baking it in a preheated dutch oven to achieve a sweet interior and a perfect, crispy crust. The resulting versatile loaf is ideal for any meal, from breakfast to dinner.

Prep time: 15 minutes Cook time: 45 minutes

I am obsessed with vegetables! Every meal, I have this habit to have at least 10 different kinds of vegetables and with this quiche, it is very easy to manage that!

Prep time: 55 minutes Cook time: 45 minutes

These are perfect for a light and healthy summer dessert. They can be made using any kind of fresh fruit (go to the farmer's market to see what is in season!) and if you'd prefer a warm version of this, feel free to stew the fruit until soft. Apples, pears, nectarines, or peaches would be delicious for this and you could even add a bit of cinnamon for a bit more flavor. The lime tofu cream can be changed to a plain cream by decreasing the lime or lemon juice down to 1-2 tablespoons.

The Lemon Pastry Shell recipe comes from the Patricia Wells at Home in Provence cookbook and the tofu cream is adapted from a German tofu cookbook.

Cook time: 15 minutes

This is the first time ever that I successfully baked meringues. The trick is to bake them for a long time in low heat. I usually bake everything on 400 F. No wonder the meringues looked good from the outside but fell right into themselves when I took them out of the oven. This time around they were in the oven for 40 minutes on 300 F and were perfect!

Prep time: 2 minutes Cook time: 40 minutes

The blackberry bushes growing along the fence of my apartment complex are overflowing with ripe berries, so I froze half of the ones I picked, intending to keep them for use in smoothies and/or berry pies/crumbles in the fall. But when craving a cold dessert on a hot evening, I decided to try making a sorbet out of them. It was absolutely delicious!

Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time: 0 minutes

This can be used in any recipe instead of vanilla extract. White sugar provides the most neutral taste, but I prefer it with brown sugar (it's so good that I always eat a pinch on its own while baking...).

Prep time: 2 minutes Cook time: 2 minutes

The secret of this basic bread dough is that flour is added to the liquids, rather than the other way round, which is what most regular bread recipes call for. Adding flour into the liquid allows the gluten and fibers to absorb more water, and as a result you get a more pliable dough and a moister, less crumbly bread. In other words, your bread tastes better! We learned this technique through Patricia Wells' excellent book At Home in Provence. In our house we use freshly ground spelt flour, but any good quality bread flour will work. Be creative and try to add other grains than wheat or spelt. Just keep wheat or spelt to 50% or more to provide gluten which makes your bread springy.

Prep time: 21 minutes Cook time: 40 minutes