This corn soup is sweet and creamy with earthy aroma and delicate warming heat of charred green chili. Fresh corn and poblano pair perfectly here. Serve it with crunchy corn tortilla chips and fresh cilantro. Melt some cheese in it to add more depth and creaminess.

I finally made this soup for the first time and it proved my every expectation! The only modification to the original recipe was replacing yellow bell peppers with charred hatch. I also added 1/3 cup balled watermelon. Amazing! I highly recommend the cookbook, this cold soup, and Texas Hill Country in August!

Pkhali (ფხალი) is a signature Georgian appetizer. Its consistency is similar to pesto and tapenade. Pkhali’s main ingredients are cooked vegetables and walnuts mixed with traditional herbs and spices. Georgians are fond of greens. Many pkhali recipes include leaf cabbages/lettuces, chard/beetroot greens, or spinach. “Pkhali” is a Georgian name of chard. Follow my recipe to make this version of pkhali — full of umami and meat-like flavors, yet vegan.

Served buffet style, this preparation is perfect for parties. It is heathy and beautiful, light and bright, a meal you’ll be happy to share with friends and family! The variety of fresh, blanched, grilled, marinated, pickled, roasted, broiled vegetables and seafood could be endless — whatever is available, the best quality, and preferred by your guests.

Blanching is a must for herbs and vegetables to stop the enzyme action and to destroy any microorganisms present on the surface. Freezing only helps to remove extra moisture. Are there any other techniques to replace blanching benefits? Yes. There is heat-shocking.

The more varieties of different greens you mix, the better the taste. Adding arugula is highly recommended. Add sunflower and sweet pea sprouts/micro greens. This salad is not sweet. It is neither sour, nor it is salty. It tastes like a fountain of spring freshness!

Every time I taste this delicate and elegant dessert I can’t believe it is made of ordinary zucchini. Look at the color! The younger and smaller zucchinis you use, the higher the ratio of dark green skin and the more vivid green your soufflé is. Be patient. Just like other soufflés, this one needs to be cooled very slowly. You have to give it a lot of time to set by reducing the temperature gradually and by keeping it refrigerated for a few hours before reheating and serving.

The recipe below is a simple version of crepe stuffed with seasonal fruits. Most often I serve dessert crepes with apples + raisins + pecans + cinnamon + caramel + vanilla whipped cream + mint. During the season I switch to pears. Local strawberries are wonderful in May and and peaches — all the summer. Whipped cream can be flavored with spices or herbs. Replace heavy cream with piped favorite yogurt, low-sugar curds, or fresh fruit purees.

Do you know that almonds is a very important ingredient in British cuisine since Early Middle Ages? That almonds appear in almost every third recipe in Shakespeare’s time? That British loved to thicken soups with different nuts?
This soup features delightful sweet halftones of caramelized cauliflower and toasted almond slices. Creamy base, juicy fried florets, and crunchy nuts let you experience a variety of textures in every spoon.

A canelé is a classic French pastry made from the same ingredients as French crepes — eggs, milk, and sugar. The batter is the same thin. These two-bite pastries are famous for their unusual combination of textures. Long baking and high temperature turns the batter into a delicacy with crunchy caramelized crust outside and custardy sponge inside.