This is a glorified grilled cheese sandwich that is worth the effort. Many French cafes serve this sandwich as a quick lunch or snack, and since I love many things French I do the same. The creamy béchamel sauce is both inside the sandwich and on top which makes this the the richest sandwich you may ever eat!

This is one of my top five recipes in my Indian food collection! I know it looks intimidating when you read all the ingredients required, but it is worth it! I buy my spices at my local Indian grocery store, and if you make the investment, I promise you’ll make this recipe again and again.

If I had to choose my last meal it would be nachos. It is truly my favorite food. These potato nachos are a close second to the traditional tortilla chip nachos, and if you make these at a party you’ll be the hero. It sounds a bit strange to add so much salt to the water, but you must allow all the water to evaporate, giving the potatoes a salty coating. Cover them with your favorite nacho toppings and watch them disappear in minutes!

I first had this pasta dish at a little hotel and winery in Castellina in Chianti, Italy. It was nestled in the hills and there were tables set with white cloths under the canopies of fig trees. After ordering this dish and polishing the plate, I asked the chef if he would share the recipe.

I’ve eaten Wedge Salad at a lot of restaurants around the country, and I’m not sure I’ve ever had it as good as this recipe. Sometimes I make it with butter lettuce instead of iceberg, and it’s just as good. You might want to make a double batch of candied pecans because it’s too hard to save them all for the salad without snacking on them until they’re all gone. Trust me on this.

I’ve been making this egg casserole since long before I had children. I love it because it uses roasted green chiles, and it has no meat or bread.  There have been times I have added cooked sausage, and it was good, but I prefer the cheesy goodness with green chiles on their own. I have doubled and tripled this recipe many times to feed a crowd. It reheats really well for several days, and sometimes I freeze individual portions and pop them in the microwave whenever I need this to get my day started.

In northern India there are spicy delicacies alongside exquisitely rich vegetarian dishes. This masala dish is made with paneer, a cheese that has a very mild flavor, but doesn’t melt. When paneer is added to curries, it absorbs the rich flavors and adds a creamy texture to the dish.

I love making this rice! It is so full of good flavors, and is delicious on its own or served with meats or curries. If you can find mustard oil it adds a very nice depth of flavor to this dish.

In the heat of summer, sometimes the only relief is biting into a beautiful ripe tomato. I like to stuff them and bake until they’re juicy and blistered. You can fill them with just about any ground meats or vegetables, but I like to use rice or other grains mixed with a variety of roasted vegetables, cheese, and nuts.

I love orzo pasta! It looks like rice and tastes like pasta! This is a good way to use the veggies in your fridge that need somewhere to go. Just roast them up with olive oil, salt and pepper and toss them into the pasta with cheese and basil. I can eat this warm or cold, and it keeps in the fridge for several days. It’s perfect for a picnic or side dish at brunch. Let’s be honest, it’s perfect anytime.

In Indonesia sambals are sauces made from pounded chiles and other fresh ingredients like garlic and ginger. Sometimes they are cooked and sometimes they are left raw. Either way, they add a punch of flavor to any dish they are served with. One of my favorite sambals is made with mostly green ingredients, and I use it in many different ways. It’s delicious on its own with peanut crackers or raw vegetables, but it’s also tasty cooked into stews and roasted meats.

Some of my fondest memories of childhood were when I visited my grandmother, Mammaw. When my sisters and I spent the night at her house one of her favorite sayings was, “Is everybody happy?” She wasn’t much of a cook, but on special occasions she made a dessert called Mystery Pie.

Every summer the Hatch chiles from New Mexico hit the grocery stores and market stands in my hometown. I stock up on pounds and pounds of them, roast them over a hot flame, peel, and freeze. That way, I’ve got roasted green chiles at my disposal anytime I need them. 

In the port city of Essaouira, I cooked with a woman named Alison at L’Atelier Madada. We spent the morning shopping in the spice souk for ingredients to prepare a fish dinner and ghriba (almond cookies) for dessert. We purchased plump almonds which we ground into flour for the dough scented with orange blossom water. After the meal, Alison wrapped the remaining cookies in paper and sent them with me for the long ride back to Marrakesh.

In Bali, there are street cafés called Warungs, where an open fire with burning coconut husks are spitting under racks filled with bamboo sticks packed with flavorful chicken. Unlike the chicken skewers we often make with large chunks of meat, satay is small pieces of meat, sometimes minced with spices, that are threaded onto bamboo sticks, lemongrass stalks or sugar cane.

Naan is a light and bubbly flatbread well-known in India, and best when made in a tandoor oven. I happen to own a tandoor because I fell in love with naan on my first trip to southern India. On the beach in Goa there were tents with delicious naan baking in make-shift tandoor ovens.

My sister, Jill owned a Bed and Breakfast in Canyon, Texas for ten years called The Hudspeth House. Every morning she served granola and fruit in pretty little parfait dishes at breakfast. At Christmas everyone in our family hoped to get a bag of her granola as a gift because it was just so good. Last year she and her husband sold The Hudspeth House and she allowed me to share her recipe for granola.

I learned to make delicious hummus from Chef Nir Feller in Tel Aviv. It really makes a difference if you cook dried chickpeas, instead of using the ones in a tin. It takes some time to cook them, but you can cook a huge batch and freeze them for using later. Be sure to freeze the cooking liquid separately to use also.

One of the best days I spent in Istanbul was cooking in the home of Ela, and then shopping in the Spice Market. Ela lived in the modern neighborhood just across the Galata Bridge in Istanbul. Her apartment overlooked the Black Sea, and we sat in her living room drinking hot tea while she told me stories of cooking with her grandmother as a child.