Last time I was in Texas and I brought home a big ol’ head of cauliflower from the Kroger, Mom said, “Oh, I don’t like cooked cauliflower. I only like it raw.”  That was before I roasted it up and she couldn’t stop eating it right off of the cookie sheet.

So I knew this time I’d have little resistance from her.

Plus, cauliflower was on sale, and I was in need of taking a little break (albeit a tiny one) from the All Taco, All The Time Diet that I’d been on since I arrived (thank goodness for stretchy jeans).

Mom and I had this for dinner one night and I finished the rest over the next day or two, eating it straight from the fridge. It’s one of those things that can be made in less than a half-hour, which is always a good thing, and is healthy, sure, but the reason I make it – and like it so much – is because it tastes so good. As all things should be. Plus it’s pretty. Any other green leafy of your choice could be swapped out for the spinach (kale, Swiss chard, etc.), and the dressing can be made ahead of time, too.

Now that I’m back in Paris, I’m going to make this again. Hopefully, M. Choufleur-hater will come around — if not, just that much more for me.

Roasted Cauliflower, Spinach and Quinoa

Makes 4 to 6 servings

• 1 head of cauliflower, florets removed
• olive oil
• sea salt and pepper
• 1 cup/170 grams of quinoa (uncooked)
• 2 tablespoons of capers, rinsed
• a big handful of baby spinach
• a few fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
• 8 sundried tomatoes (in oil), chopped
• a handful of walnuts, toasted then roughly chopped
• a big pinch of red pepper flakes
• E-Z French vinaigrette (recipe follows)

1. Preheat your oven to 475°F/245°C and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Toss the cauliflower florets onto the cookie sheet, drizzle a bit of olive oil all over and mix it up with your hands. Salt, pepper and slide into the oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the cauliflower is browned.

2. Make your quinoa by putting 2 cups of salted water onto boil. When it boils, add the quinoa, turn off the heat, and cover. Let rest for 15 minutes or until the quinoa absorbs all of the water. Fluff.

3. Put your salad together by mixing the cauliflower with the quinoa, capers, spinach, sage, sundried tomatoes, walnuts, and red pepper flakes. Add a bit of the E-Z Dijon French vinaigrette to this and toss. Taste for seasonings and serve warm, room temperature, or cold.

E-Z French Vinaigrette

Makes ¾ cup

• ¼ cup/60 ml of sherry vinegar
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
• sea salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon of chopped fresh herbs (basil, thyme, chives)
• ½ cup/120 ml of olive oil

Put your sherry vinegar, minced shallot, mustard, a big pinch of salt and pepper, and herbs in a jam jar and shake until combined. Let rest for about 10 minutes — this softens the intensity of the shallots’ flavor and allows the salt to dissolve; then add the olive oil. Taste for seasonings.

I know, I know. A glass of something green that’s not a margarita? What on earth is going on over here?

Well, after sampling: the new 1921 creme de tequila (think tequila meets mocha milkshake and you’re close), served on the rocks with a generous splash of reposado at Steve and Steffie’s one night; super-strong margaritas made with jalapeño-infused tequila at Wild Salsa another; and plain ol’ garden variety margaritas at Lee Harvey’s with my best pal, a pistol-packin’ P.I. to ring in Christmas; and then, the super-strong ones at La Choza and Inn of the Anasazi while I was in Santa Fe, it was time for a new drink.

Hello, Mr. Pear-Cucumber Gingerman.

Now, please don’t worry. I’m not saying au revoir to tequila or anything crazy like that. Nosirrebob. I’m simply trying to find some kind of balance –even a smidgen–for the new year.

So last week I went out and bought a juicer and this is the first thing I made with it. I found some pretty Comice pears at Whole Foods and thought that they’d go quite nicely with some cucumber, spinach, and ginger…and I was totally right. It was so good that I made it again the next day.

Thing is, I’ve been wanting to buy a juicer since last summer, when I was in the throes of testing, testing, testing every single day…and now that I have, I wish I’d gotten one a long time ago. I spent so much of the last few months on such a caffeine + sugar supercharged buzz in order to get the cookbook finished, I just felt like I needed to mix things up a bit, and swap out a coffee or two each day with something green. Or orange. Or red. Just for fun.

Tequila — or what I now like to call “agave juice” — is for the weekends.

Pear-Cucumber Ginger Juice

Makes about 4 servings (appx 45 ounces/1200 ml)

• 1 lime, skin and pith removed
• 1 large cucumber, peeled
• 3 to 4 big handfuls of fresh baby spinach
• 2 fat pears, such as Comice, stems removed
• 1-inch piece of peeled ginger, left whole

Turn the motor on and add the lime and spinach to your juicer, turned to the lowest speed. After a few seconds, increase your speed a notch or two and add the cucumber. Finally, crank up the speed to high and add the pears and ginger…et voila!…you’ve got juice. Total time: about 30 seconds. (Seriously!)

Other than knowing that tacos and beer await on the other side of the Atlantic, here isn’t much about an 11-hour flight that I look forward to.

I am not one of those people who can easily fall asleep on airplanes; rather, I’m the one sitting in the dark, reading my book underneath a single beam of light while everyone else around me is dozing. I gave up on watching inflight movies awhile back, because they were too hard to see on the tiny monitors. My fancy headphones need to be either repaired or replaced; I can’t listen to music without constantly having to give the wires a jiggle.

However, there is one thing that I love about flying: the food.

Like any good road trip, an air trip isn’t complete without the right take-along snacks. Since there’s no pulling into the nearest DQ along the highway for a Butterfinger Blizzard, I’ve come up with a list of to-go treats to make the long haul more enjoyable:

1. Almonds.

2. Fruit & Form bars. I like the ones with les fruits rouges the best. They taste like crackers with homemade raspberry-blueberry jam.

3. Ritz crackers for salty cravings. They only come in small boxes in France, anyway, which makes them perfect for air travel.

4. Gaufres au miel. Waffles with honey. I discovered these oversize crunchy cookies when I first moved to France and ate an entire box on a train trip to Germany.

5. Something chocolate. I often pack a chocolate bar, but on this trip, I made my own chocolate-chocolate chip brownies, and cut them into tiny squares, so I wouldn’t eat it all at once.

6. Lunch. I always make a vegetarian something with quinoa, usually a salad with roasted veggies very much like these, but it all depends on what’s in season. The idea is to make something that’s easy to put together, and that’ll be filling, but not heavy. I always think about texture, color, and crunch and try to steer clear of anything that’ll be tricky to digest. This is the first time I’ve made this salad, and I was so happy with it, it’s going to become a regular — for trips and for staying home, too.

This may seem like a lot, and it sort of is…but I always end up sharing, which is part of the fun of eating, anyway. Wherever you happen to be.

Beet, Roasted Pumpkin and Avocado Salad

Makes 4 servings

• 2 medium beets
• about 1 pound/500 grams of whole pumpkin
• olive oil
• sea salt and pepper
• 1 cup/170 grams of quinoa
• 1 avocado
• a small handful of toasted sunflower seeds
• E-Z French vinaigrette (recipe follows)

1. Preheat your oven to 400°F/200°C.

2. Trim the ends off of the beets, give them a good rinse and dry, and wrap them with heavy duty foil. Put the foil-wrapped beets on a cookie sheet and slide them into the oven to bake for an hour, depending on the size of your beets. To check doneness, simply take them out of the oven, unwrap the foil – do this carefully so you don’t burn yourself — and slide a dinner knife into the beet. It’s done if it easily cuts through the beet. If it doesn’t, just wrap it back up, and put it back in the oven. When they’re done, let the beets completely cool in the foil before slicing – and don’t wear white when you do.

3. Turn the heat to broil, and line a cookie sheet with foil. Put the pumpkin on the cookie sheet, toss with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and slide into the oven. Cook until the pumpkin browns on the edges, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.

4. Cook your quinoa by putting two cups of salted water onto boil, and when it boils, add the 1 cup of quinoa. Turn of the heat, cover, and let rest for 15 minutes or until the quinoa absorbs all of the water. Fluff.

5. To assemble your salad, simply put the beets, pumpkin, quinoa, avocado, and sunflower seeds in a bowl and toss with some of the EZ Dijon Vinaigrette. Serve warm, cold, or at room temperature.

Advance Planning: Roast the beets and pumpkin ahead of time and simply assemble when you’re ready.

E-Z French Vinaigrette

Makes ¾ cup

• ¼ cup/60 ml of sherry vinegar
• 1 minced shallot
• 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
• sea salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh herbs (basil, thyme, chives)
• ½ cup/120 ml of  olive oil

Put your sherry vinegar, minced shallot, mustard, a big pinch of salt and pepper and herbs in a jam jar, and shake until combined. Let rest for about 10 minutes — this softens the intensity of the shallots’ flavor and allows the salt to dissolve, then add the olive oil. Taste for seasonings.

Poor carrots. Sold in plastic bags with cartoon bunnies in the U.S., and in France, tossed willy-nilly in awkward heaps next to the bins of celery and zucchini. Talk about no respect.

And more often than not, carrots are part of something else…a soup, a stock, a braise…rarely are they the star.

Although I’ve never understood the appeal of raw carrots (why snack on those silly things when there are cookies in the house?), I love them cooked. Here, with an easy, slow roast, carrots take on a whole different personality — tender on the inside and slightly firm outside, with a smoky bite from chipotle and a brightness of lime. Just fabulous.

And a perfect side for anything — chicken, beef, pork, lamb, or whatever else you’ve got cooking. These take no time at all to put together, and need no further assistance once they’re in the oven – just remember to set your oven timer for two hours while you go do something fun, like catch up on episodes of “Mad Men.”

Tex-Mexy in spirit and simple to make, these seemed like just the thing to post for our #Letslunch “Holiday Sides” day. Here’s what the rest of the gang has cooked up:

Cheryl’s Auntie Jane’s Potato Gratin at A Tiger in the Kitchen

Charissa‘s Coconut Date Balls at Zest Bakery

Eleanor‘s Easy Festive Stir-Fry at Wok Star

Emma‘s Mom’s Hot Crab Dip at Dreaming of Pots And Pans

Felicia‘s Chinese Butterfly Cookies at Burnt-Out Baker

Grace‘s Fruitcake at HapaMama

Joe‘s Maine Homestead Holiday Dishes at Joe Yonan

Linda‘s Baked Salad at Free Range Cookies

Linda‘s Trinidadian Baked Pastelles at Spicebox Travels

Lisa‘s Potato Latkes at Monday Morning Cooking Club

Lucy‘s “Not My Mama’s” Black-Eyed Peas & Greens at A Cook And Her Books

Maria‘s Grandma Dorothy’s Deviled Eggs at Maria’s Good Things

Patrick‘s Baby Pecan Pies at Patrick G. Lee

Rebecca‘s Grandmother Martha’s Potato Kugel at Grongar Blog

Renee‘s Cranberry Christmas Salsa at My Kitchen And I

Steff‘s Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecan Crumble at The Kitchen Trials

Victor‘s Roasted Parsnips, Carrots & Delicata Squash Tossed With Sauteed Mustard Greens at The Taste of Oregon

Lime-Chipotle Carrots

Makes 4 serivings

Adapted from a recipe in “The Essential New York Times Cookbook” by Amanda Hesser

• 1 pound of carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
• 1 of olive oil
• ½ cup of water
• juice of 2 limes
• zest of 1 lime
• a pinch of chipotle powder
• a pinch of cumin
• ¼ teaspoon of sea salt
• 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro

1. Preheat your oven to 300°F.

2. In a small casserole dish, toss your carrots with the olive oil, water, lime juice, zest, chipotle powder, cumin, and salt. Cover tightly with foil and slip into the oven and cook for 2 hours, until the carrots are fully cooked and a knife can easily be inserted into them. Sprinkle with cilantro before serving.

Forget about everything you know about eggplant. It is not hard to cook. You don’t have to do that whole salt-first, then wipe-it- off-before-you-do-anything-with-it thing. It is not bitter.

After many trials and mostly errors (too salty, too soggy, too messy), despite my love for this big nerdy nightshade, I gave up on making eggplant at home. But here in Paris, eggplant’s a staple and it’s available year-round, so I decided to give it another try…and just treat it the way that I do most of my veggies, and just give it drizzle of olive oil, some sea salt and pepper and pop it into a hot oven to roast. Which turned out to be one of the smartest ways to cook eggplant. Firm in the middle, crisp around the edges, and so yummy you’ll be tempted to eat them right off of the pan, like big eggplant potato chips, like I do.

I had two eggplants in my fridge’s crisper, leftover from a cover photo shoot for the cookbook (that’s cover photo shoot #4 if anyone’s counting), and I didn’t want them to go to waste. So I roasted them up. While the eggplant was cooking, I made a quick sundried tomato salsa, and made these easy little tartines for dinner.

Part eggplant Parmesan, part pizza, and part tartine, after one bite I decided that this is my new Favorite Thing.

Eggplant-Mozzarella Tartines

Makes 2

• 1 mediumish eggplant, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
• olive oil
• sea salt and pepper
• about 6 sundried tomatoes (in oil), drained
• about 6 kalamata olives, pitted
• 1 teaspoon of capers
• 2 fresh basil leaves, chopped, plus more for serving
• 2 slices of country-style bread
• about 4 tablespoons of ricotta
• about ½ of a 5.29-ounce/150 gram mozzarella ball

1. Preheat your oven to broil.

2. Brush some olive oil on both sides of your eggplant pieces and lay them out on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on top and slide this into the oven. Watch these carefully, because they’ll only take 5 to 10 minutes on the first side, and even less on the second (you’ll want to flip them over halfway). You’re going for a nice light brown — the eggplant should be slightly crisp (never soggy!) when done.

3. While the eggplant’s roasting, make your sundried tomato salsa: On your cutting board, roughly chop your sundried tomatoes, kalamata olives, capers, and basil, all together.

4. Assemble your tartines: Toast 2 pieces of bread, then smear a couple of tablespoons of ricotta on each one. Next, add half of the sundried tomato salsa on each tartine, then a couple of eggplant pieces. Tear off a piece of mozzarella and lay on top, then drizzle with olive oil. Slide into the oven, and let cook until the mozzarella’s bubbly. Serve immediately with more chopped basil.

It’s been such a crazy couple of months. Between getting the book finished, edited, and photos shot, I’ve been having a hard time getting back into a cooking groove. Or any groove at all. I’ve now postponed my trip home to Texas three times. I twisted my right ankle, then the left…in one week. This morning, I couldn’t get my coffee right. My whole life feels a bit off.

I spent the weekend baking cookies and in the midst of a sugar-induced high, I realized I had to do something…for myself. So I went to President Wilson Market on Saturday, found some beautiful spinach at one stand, picked up fresh goat cheese from my friend Sandy, came home and made this.

It’s an easy fall tart. I didn’t even use a tart pan as you can see…I just rolled it out free-form into sort of a rectangular shape, prebaked it, then layered the spinach, beets, and goat cheese on top and baked it for 30 minutes more.

The spinach prep takes a bit of time, but I think the washing and rinsing and removing of stems is rather like bean-shelling in that it can be a rather meditative, calming thing. Once I finished processing the spinach, I was so relaxed that I continued on with a bunch of Swiss chard, which I’ve now got in the fridge, washed, cooked, and ready to go.

I also made a balsamic reduction sauce to drizzle on top of the tart, which sounds fancy but it’s not (you just boil up the vinegar until it reduces by half and becomes syrupy), and turns out to be the perfect thing to contrast the tart’s earthiness.

It was just lovely, and I ended up eating far more than I’d planned. So while it will easily serve six, as I’ve noted below, it’ll also feed one very hungry me for dinner, with leftovers for the next day.

Spinach and Beet Tart

Makes 6 servings

• olive oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 pounds/500 grams of fresh spinach, washed and stems removed (or you may use frozen)
• a big pinch of garam masala
• a pinch of cayenne pepper
• sea salt and pepper
• about ½ teaspoon of lemon zest (or more to taste)
• 1 roasted beet, chopped (to save time, I bought the pre-roasted beets)
• about 2 ounces of fresh goat cheese
• a small handful of pine nuts, toasted
• 1 wheat-oatmeal tart crust, prebaked (recipe here)
• 1 cup of balsamic vinegar

1. Drizzle a bit of olive oil into your largest, deepest skillet, add the onion and garlic, and turn to the heat to medium-low. Cook until the onions soften and you can smell the garlic, which shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes, tops. Toss in your spinach (you may need to add more as the first bunch wilts, as I often do), mix together, and cover to help wilt the spinach. When all of the spinach is in the skillet, add your garam masala, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper, and lemon zest. Taste for seasonings and then dump all of this into a colander to drain. Let this cool completely.

2. Preheat your oven to 400°F/200°C. When the oven’s ready, just spread your spinach evenly on your prebaked crust, add the beets and goat cheese, and pop into the oven for 30 minutes.

3. While the tart’s warming through, make your balsamic reduction sauce by warming up the balsamic vinegar in a small saucepan and cooking it on low heat for about 15 minutes, or until it reduces by half and has the consistency of maple syrup.

4. When your tart’s done, pull it from the oven, sprinkle pine nuts all over, slice and serve with a spoonful of balsamic vinegar sauce on top.

Double-Duty: Balsamic reduction sauce is great on all sorts of things. I’ve put it on beef, lamb, salmon and other veggies, too (green beans, roasted pumpkin, carrots, etc.).

I love this lasagna so much I’ve already made it twice this month.

Inspired by a pizza that I had at Al Taglio, the Roman-style pizzeria in the 11th arrondisement that serves up pizza by the slice, I could hardly wait for fall and the pumpkins that come along with it. Who knew pumpkin and tomato sauce would be such great pals?

I don’t know how pumpkin became so relegated to the dessert cart. Its squash cousins – butternut, spaghetti, acorn, etc. – never had any trouble finding their way onto the savory menu. But for some reason, in the U.S. pumpkin became best known as something that you put in a pie. A muffin. Or — Mon Dieu! — a latte flavor at Starbucks.

In France and elsewhere, pumpkin shows up in savory dishes all over the place. In couscous, soups, or curries. Stuffed in ravioli or tossed into a salad.

Yes, carving a pumpkin is a fair amount of work, but with a serrated vegetable peeler and a sharp knife, you can break it down in no time.

This lasagne is basically a three-step process. I use no-boil noodles to save time. You can make this a day in advance and pop it in the fridge until you’re ready to cook it, as I often do. Although this makes a great weeknight dinner, it’s also impressive enough to make for a dinner party, which I plan to do soon.

I know. It’s almost Halloween. But the only pumpkins that I’m carving are for eating.

Pumpkin Lasagna with Sage

a 1-pound pumpkin (see note)

olive oil

sea salt and pepper

1 clove of garlic, minced

a pinch of red pepper flakes

a 14.5 ounce can of whole or diced tomatoes

1 teaspoon of brown sugar

6 fresh sage leaves, roughly torn, plus a few more for serving

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tablespoon of flour

1 cup/8 ounces of milk

a pinch of nutmeg

½ cup of grated Parmesan, plus more for serving

6 no-cook lasagne noodles

1. Preheat your oven to Broil, and line a couple of cookie sheets with either parchment paper or foil, for easy clean-up. Peel and thinly slice your pumpkin, lay the pieces out on the two cookie sheets, drizzle with olive oil (do this on both sides), and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Slide the pumpkin into the oven and roast until browned on the edges – this will only take about 15 minutes — then flip them over to the other side, so they’ll brown, too. Once both sides have cooked evenly, remove from the oven and let cool. Reduce the heat to 400 °F.

2. Make the tomato sauce. Drizzle a bit of olive oil in your saucepan and turn the heat to medium-low. Add the garlic and a pinch of red pepper flakes, stir it around, and when you can smell the garlic, go ahead and add the tomatoes and the brown sugar (this helps balance the acidity of the tomatoes). Let this cook, uncovered, on low heat for about 20 minutes, or until the sauce reduces and thickens.

3. Now put the 1 tablespoon of butter in another saucepan over low heat, and when it melts, slowly whisk in the flour; then ever so slowly, add the milk, a little at a time, continuing to whisk like crazy so the flour and butter doesn’t clump. Once I’ve added all of the milk, I like to swap out my whisk for a wooden spoon, and I just keep stirring until this mixture thickens. Add a pinch of salt, pepper and nutmeg, and taste.

4. Put a little olive oil in the bottom of a 8-inch-by-8-inch baking dish and spread it all around and up the sides. Layer your: lasagna noodles, roasted pumpkin, sage, a couple of tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce, a couple of tablespoonfuls of Bechamel sauce, one-third of the Parmesan, and some of the fresh sage. Repeat. Top with more lasagne noodles and thin layer of tomato sauce. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Serve with more fresh Parmesan (you can’t have too much), and more fresh sage.

Note: I usually buy a 2 or 3 pound pumpkin, and just make a purée out of what’s left and put it in the freezer.

Cowgirl Tip: If you can’t find pumpkin, just use butternut squash.

Advance Planning: You can assemble your lasagna ahead of time, and simply cover with foil and refrigerate until you’re ready to heat it up.

I had these beautiful, heirloom tomatoes in all sizes and colors leftover from the photo shoot – probably the last ones that I’ll see from Joel Thiebault’s summer crop — and couldn’t wait to do something with them. Problem was, though, the water heater in the kitchen broke, and without hot water, you can’t do dishes, and if you can’t do dishes, well, you really shouldn’t be in the kitchen messing things up. So I stayed away for a week, and the tomatoes just sat there, wondering where I’d gone, I’m sure, but getting even sweeter by the day.

I knew that I wanted to do a tomato something, but wasn’t sure what, but as luck would have it, I also had some buttermilk in the fridge – another leftover — and I figured I’d whip up some homemade ricotta, slice up some tomatoes, throw it into a tart shell, and call it dinner.

Now, you don’t have to make homemade ricotta, but it’s so easy, and super-fast to make, and tastes so much better than the stuff that you buy. We’re talking about a tart with three main ingredients, so why not take that extra 10 minutes and just make your own ricotta?

It really does make all the difference in the world. Plus, then you can call yourself a cheesemaker. People will be so impressed.

I’m always throwing arugula on top of whatever I can, so I put a handful on top of my tart slice (s), and drizzled a bit of that spicy olive oil that you buy for pizzas on top. It’s not jalapeño-hot, but there’s a nice, warm kick to it which isn’t too overpowering.

Of course, if you don’t have any more tomatoes, you can always do something else here – I’ve made this with eggplant, too, and plan to try it out with roasted pumpkin soon. It’s just a simple thing, this little tart. Play around as you wish.

Tomato and Homemade Ricotta Tart

Makes one 11-inch/28 cm tart

1 wheat-oatmeal tart crust, prebaked (recipe here)

1 cup of homemade ricotta (recipe below)

a few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves removed

olive oil

sea salt and pepper

about 1 pound of cherry tomatoes, halved (you may not need all of these)

a few handfuls of arugula, for serving (this is optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C.

2. Mix up your homemade ricotta with a little olive oil (1 to 2 tablespoons should do it – I use just enough to make the ricotta spreadable), some fresh thyme leaves and salt and pepper. Spread this all over the bottom of your prebaked tart shell, add the tomatoes, and finish with a light drizzle of olive oil and a few more fresh thyme leaves. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, or until the tomatoes are soft. Serve warm or cold, with a heap of arugula on each slice.

Homemade Ricotta

Makes about 2 cups

1 quart/4 cups of milk

1 cup of buttermilk

1 cup of cream

a big pinch of sea salt

1. Cut out a piece of cheesecloth and lay it in a colander, set over a medium-size bowl.

2. Put the milk, buttermilk, cream and salt in a large, heavy saucepan and turn the heat on medium-high. Stir every now and then so the milk doesn’t scorch on the bottom of the pan. When it boils, turn the heat to the lowest setting, and watch the curds come to the surface. With a slotted spoon, gently remove the curds and put them in the cheesecloth-lined colander nearby. They’ll continue to bubble up for about 5 minutes, then you can turn off the heat. Don’t squeeze your curds with the cheesecloth; rather, just let this drain for 15 minutes – and voila! – you’ve got ricotta. Remove the cheesecloth and put your ricotta in a plastic container and keep it in the fridge. It’s only good for about 2 days, so eat it quickly.

You’d think that the last thing that I’d do when I’m procrastinating, and just not ready to jump into the day’s mountain of work, is look at recipes and cookbooks, but that’s often what I do. I have piles — piles, I tell you! — of print-outs of new recipes to try, all over my desk, in baskets, stuck onto the fridge, and stuffed into cookbooks, too. They’re all over the place.

In my procrastination, the other day, I decided that I needed to clean up the mess on my desk before I started to work (another way of actually not working), and I found a recipe from Martha Rose Shulman in The New York Times, for Spicy Quinoa, Tomato and Cucumber Salad. So I put it aside. As I continued to straighten things up, I started thumbing through Yottam Ottolenghi’s vegetarian cookbook, “Plenty,” which I sometimes do for inspiration (another guilt-free procrastination technique) – and I saw Quinoa and Grilled Sourdough Bread Salad.

I stuffed the NYT recipe into the cookbook, and kept on.

The night before, I had a soggy baguette from all of the humidity and rain we’ve been having around here, and because I was feeling quite lazy, instead of slicing the bread into neat little cubes, I just tore it up and made croutons (which I will do from now on).

I love bread salads, and I’ve also been in the mood for grains lately, because it seems like my healthy eating habits left for vacation some time ago. So I combined these two recipes, tweaked them a bit, and made this salad for dinner the other night. I enlisted X to slice the cucumber while I chopped the tomatoes and sliced the onions, and it took no time at all.

We sat outside in the garden and ate nearly all of this, even though I think that it would actually serve four people just fine.

The vinaigrette is the key to turning this classic Tuscan salad into something completely different – the cilantro and spicy chile give it a bit of heat, which reminds me of home.

The flavors, I mean, y’all. Not those 30-something days of 100-degree heat. I miss Texas, but I don’t miss that nonsense.

Quinoa and Bread Salad

Makes 4 servings

INGREDIENTS

• ½ of a stale baguette
• olive oil
• sea salt and pepper
• 1 cup quinoa
• 2 large diced tomatoes
• 1 large cucumber, unpeeled
• ½ of a red onion, very thinly sliced
• about 3 tablespoons of fresh lime juice (I used the juice of 1 1/2 limes)
• 1 minced clove of garlic
• small handful of chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish
• 1 tablespoon of sherry vinegar
• 1 diced avocado

1. Preheat your oven to 400°F and tear up the baguette into bite-size pieces — this is my lazy, “rustic” way of making homemade croutons. Toss the croutons on a cookie sheet, drizzle with a bit of olive oil and add a big pinch of salt and pepper and slide into the oven for about 15 minutes, or until they’re nice and crispy. You can also do this in advance, or whenever you have stale bread, and just keep them in a plastic bag in the fridge.

2. Cook the quinoa. Put 2 cups of water onto boil with a pinch of salt and when it boils, add the quinoa, cover the pot, turn the heat down to a simmer, and set the timer for 10 minutes. Let the quinoa rest, lid on, until it soaks up the rest of the water, fluff, and let cool.

3. Slice your cucumber into rounds, and then quarter them. Toss them in a large bowl along with the tomatoes, and red onion slices.

4. Make your vinaigrette by putting the lime juice, minced garlic, sherry vinegar and a pinch of salt in a jam jar and giving it a good shake. Let rest 10 minutes or so, and then add the olive oil. Taste for seasonings.

5. Right before serving, add the croutons and quinoa to your veggies and toss with the vinaigrette. You might not need all of the quinoa or all of the vinaigrette — you can save the rest of the vinaigrette in the fridge, and pop the remaining quinoa in the freezer and simply thaw and use when you’re ready.

When X and I pulled in last Sunday night from our trip north, we were so worn out that we both probably could have gone to sleep without eating, but I wasn’t going to have any of that, so I opened the fridge to see what I had leftover from the week before.

This is the good thing about non-stop recipe testing – I’ve always got some interesting leftovers hanging around.

In this case, roasted red bell peppers and caramelized onions. This was going to be easy.

I warmed up the veggies while the pasta water bubbled away, and we ate dinner outside in the garden. No mosquitoes, no blistering heat. It was a perfect night, a lovely birthday dinner, and a wonderful end to a much-needed break.

And the pretty blue and white vintage serving plate? A 3 euro find at a brocante along the coast. Because it wouldn’t be a weekend away without a brocante, now would it?

Birthday Pasta

Makes two large servings

INGREDIENTS

2 large white or yellow onions

3 to 4 tablespoons of olive oil

2 roasted red bell peppers

1 minced clove of garlic

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

about ½ box of penne pasta

half of a ball of mozzarella, torn into bits

chopped flat-leaf parsley

Parmesan

1. Caramelize the onions by tossing them in a large skillet with the olive oil and letting them cook on low heat for about a half-hour. Stir them around every now and then, and when they’re a nice caramel color, they’re ready.

2. Go ahead and put your pasta water on to boil.

3. Add the minced garlic to the onions and cook for a couple of minutes. Then chop up the roasted red bell peppers in bite-size pieces, and toss them in.

4. Cook your pasta and add it to the veggies and toss. Taste. Add the bits of mozzarella, stir once or twice, and serve with some flat-leaf parsley and freshly grated Parmesan on top – whether it’s your birthday or not.