A mix of cool, crunchy vegetables gives this healthy salad a satisfying bite for a perfect side dish. It’s a great accompaniment to your weekend barbecue menu.

Creamy Cucumber, Radish & Tomato Chopped Salad

Serves 6

Active Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

1 tablespoon chopped fresh ...Read more

There are a lot of claims about why we should avoid carbohydrates, including the claim that carbs make us “fat.” But is that actually true? A closer look at nutrition suggests that the devil is in the details.

Added sugars, high-fructose corn syrup, and white flour are processed forms of carbohydrates. Carbohydrate-rich foods also include ...Read more

I’ve never been much of a cookie maker, but when my friend Nina said, “Diane, you have to try these cookies,” I said, “OK!” I have mastered my chocolate chip cookie recipe, which results in a crispy and not too sweet cookie, so I thought why not try these oatmeal cookies, studded with finely chopped medjool dates and chopped pecans.

I...Read more

No matter the Memorial Day weather, the grill makes an appearance. The menu shifts as the clouds roll in — quick-cooking, fully-cooked brats when downpours happen, perfectly moist, bone-in pork chops in the sunshine.

Today’s lean pork may be good for our waistlines, but tricky for grillers. The challenge is to reap the ...Read more

The Yucatán Peninsula is a magical region in Southeast Mexico that’s rich in Mayan history and surrounded by beautiful waterfronts and jungles. In the towns, you will find colonial haciendas that are often lined with citrus trees and a very particular one called lima agria. From the outside, it resembles a large lime, though when you try it, ...Read more

It doesn’t matter if it’s a special occasion or I’m just having friends over — I love a good brunch recipe that feels very fancy, tastes delicious, and is also incredibly easy to make. Enter: my French croissant breakfast bake. It checks all these boxes and ...Read more

It’s always funny when a truck overturns and spills 40,000 pounds of cheese onto the road, until you’re the one stuck in traffic behind it.

The problem was that I did not know I was stuck behind a truck that had spilled 40,000 pounds of cheese onto the road. All I knew was that I was in Cincinnati trying to pick up my hungry mother for ...Read more

I'm usually a Southern biscuit kind of girl, especially when they're made with buttermilk. But I would never say no to a really good muffin — be it savory or sweet — since they're the perfect grab-and-go bite when you're in a hurry.

They're easy to eat out of hand, can be made in large quantities and most don't require a lot of technical ...Read more

PITTSBURGH — The best recipes — or at least the ones that make us feel all warm and cozy inside — are often the ones we grew up with.

There's something special about dishes that have been handed down from grandparent to parent to child and made time and again. And if each succeeding generation of cooks tweaks the instructions or modifies ...Read more

You only need to stroll past the hummus section of the grocery store to realize it’s a lot bigger than it used be. The fact that there is even a hummus section, with many, many varieties, tells us how popular this bean dip has become over the past few years.

Of course, hummus has been around for centuries, originating in the Middle East, but ...Read more

Food bank shortages caused by high demand and cuts to federal aid programs have some residents of a small community that straddles Idaho and Nevada growing their own food to get by.

For those living in Duck Valley, a reservation of about 1,000 people that is home to the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, there’s just one grocery store where prices are ...Read more

Apricot jam adds just the right amount of sweetness to balance the spicy, salty and umami flavors in this sauce that lightly coats tender pieces of pork and crisp green beans. If gluten is not a concern, soy sauce may be used instead of tamari.

Pork & Green Bean Stir-Fry

Serves 4

Active Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

1/4 cup ...Read more

Papaya is a sweet fruit ripe with vitamins, minerals, and health protecting compounds.

The folklore

The popular tropical treat papaya is native to the warm, humid regions of southern Mexico and Central America. Ancient Mayans, who ate the fruit and used it medicinally for skin problems and other issues, called the papaya tree ...Read more

The other day I was talking to my dentist, who shared his recipe for avocado pesto. Since avocados are rich in healthy fats and fiber, I thought, what a good idea! I wondered how it would be to replace olive oil with avocado and discovered that this adapted Seriously Simple recipe offers a pleasant flavor and satisfying texture.

Pesto is ...Read more

Chives and mint sprigs have been pushing up in the garden for several weeks now. Thankfully, much of this country will see the first skinny, emerald green asparagus spears and tiny, tender peas at local farmers markets soon.

Green is the color of spring itself, especially the green of a perfectly cooked asparagus or pile of sweet peas. The ...Read more

Simple, creamy, and ridiculously delicious, buttercream is what our sweet dreams are made of. This buttercream whips up super fluffy super quickly, and is literally the icing on the cake of any homemade treat. It’s made with simple, real ingredients, like butter and vanilla, and it’s ready in a handful of minutes. It’s time to stop buying ...Read more

I am a sucker for shrimp. I grew up with an uncle who mastered the art of cooking seafood. He made his way from Nayarit, Mexico, to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he is now the chef and owner of homeandleisure/recipes/varietymenu/s-3698009">Read more

When you need to throw something together for a fast and easy weeknight meal, tacos are often a busy cook's first choice.

That's because you can stuff almost anything inside a hard or soft tortilla — including leftovers — top it with some shredded lettuce and/or crunchy veggies, add a generous sprinkling of cheese and feel like a total ...Read more

We can’t help ourselves. We are, after all, merely apes — or at least close enough relatives to share 98.7% of their DNA.

Apes like sugar. So it is only natural that humans, too, are drawn to sugar.

I recently read a long and funny article in the New York Times by Caity Weaver where she made this very argument.

“How My Trip to Quit ...Read more

PITTSBURGH — My Japanese grandmother lived on the opposite coast when I was little. I only met her a couple times, but she would annually send a box of homemade Japanese treats, including red bean-stuffed buns.

As a kid growing up in a New York suburb, these were not exactly something I yearned for. I probably — no, definitely — would ...Read more