Spring

Here’s a tried-and-true winter roast, with a straightforward (and quick) preparation and a side of potatoes. You need only green beans to create a complete meal, but if you want to add another side dish, try the Swiss chard on page 249.

Rhubarb is a vegetable, although it is typically used in jams and desserts; its tart flavor makes it the perfect companion for fresh strawberries, or in this case, strawberry ice cream.

This pasta features a few flavors of the season—mint and peas—along with lemon and ever-popular salmon. It’s just the thing to hit the spot on a crisp spring evening.

Adding a bit of the pasta cooking water thins the goat cheese-and mustard-based sauce and helps it adhere to the fettuccine.

Rich and creamy, risotto is Italian-style comfort food. If you like, replace the wine with an equal amount of broth. Arborio rice makes the creamiest risotto, but you can substitute medium-or long-grain white rice.

Although it takes just minutes to put together, this savory tart makes an impressive main course. A simple green salad completes the meal. The tart is also a lovely addition to a buffet or a potluck.

The rhubarb sauce can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 1 week. Try it with chicken or drizzled over toasted bread or crackers topped with goat cheese. The cherries can be replaced with other dried fruit, such as golden raisins.

Add a slice of toast topped with melted cheese, and you have a light dinner or lunch. This recipe makes enough soup for eight people, but you can easily freeze the leftovers if serving fewer (directions for freezing are below).

Oh my gosh, this artichoke dip is so good! I know that everyone and their mom is making artichoke dip nowadays, but one bite of this and you’ll agree it’s something special. Even my mom, who doesn’t like the two main ingredients—cheese and artichokes—likes it. It’s actually a recipe I got from my cousin, with a couple of tweaks. She makes it for any get-together she has at her place and it’s always a hit.

This recipe is one of my personal favorites. Using milk instead of cream and cutting down on the Parmesan cheese makes a waistline-friendly alternative to alfredo sauce. I love lemon in just about anything, and together with the asparagus it makes for a light and refreshing pasta dish. The best part is how easy it is. You can do all of the other preparation in the time it takes to cook the pasta.

Quin-what?! Okay, so maybe you haven’t ever heard of quinoa (pronounced “KEEN-wa”), but this “wonder grain” (actually a seed) is deliciously nutty and chewy and exceptionally nutritious. This salad makes a great meal, and you can take any leftovers for lunch. What I like the best is that it’s a nice alternative to the standard pasta salad.

This is probably one of the easiest things you will ever make; plus, it gives you an opportunity to try new vegetables. If there are certain vegetables in season or on sale, just substitute those or include them along with the vegetables in the recipe.

Asparagus is often thought as a vegetable that requires delicate seasoning, but this hearty stir-fry proves that notion wrong. The sweet, heady sauce is essentially the same sauce called for in Water Spinach Stir-Fried with Garlic (page 179), but the addition of meaty shiitake mushrooms produces a more robust dish. Prepare this easy stir-fry during springtime when asparagus is at the height of its season, or substitute 1 1/4 pounds green beans or long beans other times of the year. Be sure to use high-quality dried mushrooms, and don’t skimp on the soaking time, or they won’t develop their naturally full flavor or velvety texture.

The joy of a chopped salad is that there is no need to compose each forkful to make sure you have the perfect bite—every uniformly sized morsel is already tossed and mixed together for a whole plate full of perfect bites. Green, almost grassy in flavor, asparagus is one of spring’s delights. Grilling enhances its flavor and imparts a pleasant bit of char to the salad. Briny olives, sharp cheddar cheese, and tender chickpeas add substance to the mix, while crispy bits of fried pita bread lend a salty crunch and additional texture. (We make our own pita chips at the restaurant, and the directions to do so are here, but you could certainly skip this step and use crumbles of your favorite bagged pita chips instead.) Slightly sweet, slightly tart, definitely delicious, this Meyer lemon dressing pops with whole grain mustard, lemon zest, and honey.

This fresh and satisfying salad gets its inspiration from two very different locales: the sweet and sour dressing is indebted to the Pennsylvania Dutch, while the fried green tomatoes come straight from the South. The brightly hued dressing is just the thing to enhance the interplay of tart green tomatoes; sweet, earthy beets; buttery fava beans; and tangy, creamy goat cheese. Green tomatoes and fava beans are two crops that I particularly look forward to seeing at the first farmers’ markets of spring, and this salad is a delicious way to celebrate the best of that season. If you can’t find fava beans, lima beans are a fair substitute.

When I brought this cake to a last-minute dinner, my hosts, Mary and Marshall Cunningham, loved it so much they begged me to take the remainder home. “Don’t leave it here,” they pleaded. “We’ll eat it. We’ll probably eat it for breakfast.” A simple vanilla cake with a layer of tart Key lime curd and a blanket of lightly sweetened whipped cream, Mary dubbed it “the perfect cake for spring or summer.”