Simple Cooking

Menudo is typically served on weekends (whether that means family reunions, dressed in your Sunday best—or as an ideal hangover cure). The earthiness of the hominy and smoky chiles makes this dish one you’ll crave for weekends to come. Dried snow mushrooms are easy to find online and at many East Asian grocery stores. Their frilly, honeycomb-like texture provides a similar look and bite to the pancita—a.k.a. beef stomach—used in traditional menudo, making this dish accessible to almost anyone. W.…

Rich, hearty black-eyed peas simmered in coconut milk get a boost of spice from habanero pepper and curry powder.

Sweet potato purée and banana bind the ingredients together (so you can skip the eggs), while adding a light, natural sweetness to the batter.

If you love the taste of ginger, this simple dessert is for you. It requires no baking or steaming and has only three ingredients: milk, sugar and ginger juice.

Bar cookies are always brilliant, but these bars are extra brilliant because salty Ritz crackers add balance to an otherwise strictly sweet treat.

With comforting notes of butterscotch and caramel, butter tarts are perfect when you want something small and sweet, and they require just a few basic pantry ingredients.

This pie dough is wonderfully versatile, and cookbook author Ken Haedrich uses it for both sweet and savory pies. It has great flavor, flaky texture, and is easy to handle.

These classic pignoli cookies gets their chewy texture from almond paste and egg whites and crunch from the pine nuts embedded in their crispy surface. 

This is a tres leches meets olive oil cake, lightened up with a chiffon base to help soak in all of the milk.

Simple, quick, and bursting with flavor, these beans are perfect on their own, with a slice of toast, or tossed into a salad.

Made with coconut sugar, these cookie sandwiches—filled with a whipped white chocolate, coconut, and rum ganache—have deep caramel and molasses notes.

Nothing quite beats a winter stew when the temperature begins to drop. This rich meatless dish and its thick tasty gravy really hits the spot. With tender oyster mushrooms, caramelized carrots and onions, as well as a good helping of red wine and miso for umami-packed flavors, this has quickly become one of my most popular recipes–somewhat beef bourguignon, but without the beef.

A popular sweet in Turkey, candied pumpkin requires few ingredients and a little time.

This easy peanut butter cookie recipe is streamlined for minimal fuss and they’re flourless, so those on a gluten-free diet can enjoy them too.

Nondairy butter and a flax “egg” make these easy cookies deliciously vegan—be sure to buy dairy-free chocolate and vegan sugar to keep them that way.

This whole roasted fish recipe is the perfect place to put the trinity of sumac, lime, and yogurt to work.

An easy spreadable blend of fresh goat cheese, horseradish, and heavy cream.

This tender, fragile shortbread is the result of a happy accident involving an extra egg yolk.

Inspired by chili crab, an aromatic and spicy Singaporean braise, this crab dip gets a little sweetness from tomato paste and dynamic flavor from shallots, garlic, and ginger.