make ahead

With Cinco de Mayo on the horizon, you'll need a lot of salsa to celebrate. Instead of reaching for bottles in the chips aisle, make this chipotle-tomatillo salsa, which will put any of the jarred stuff to shame. If you've never attempted homemade salsa, let me let you in on a little secret. I've never been able to make a decent homemade salsa before I met Michelle Bernstein, a Miami chef, restaurateur, and expert in Latino cuisine. We met at Lean Cuisine's Culinary Roundtable, where Michelle, a member of the conference, taught a group of us food writers how to prepare various salsas from different regions of South America. This is a riff on her traditional Mexican salsa.

Afraid of tomatillos? Don't be! They have a flavor like underripe tomatoes, and once you've tried them in this salsa, you'll want to experiment with them in other Mexican sauces, soups, and dishes.

The tomatillos, onions, and garlic take a trip to the broiler to become charred and softened. This adds a smoky, roasted flavor to the salsa.

If you're wondering how the salsa turns out red, it's due to the chipotle peppers in adobo. Pulse the charred vegetables, chipotles in adobo, and agave nectar (which neutralizes the spiciness, according to Michelle) together in a food processor until a smooth salsa forms. One bite and you'll be hooked on this salsa forever. It has the amazing ability to hit all the flavor profiles at once: sweet from the agave, sour from the tomatillos, spicy from the chipotle, and salty from the adobo sauce.

Keep reading to make the salsa for yourself.

Now that I've accepted that I have a severe gluten intolerance, I've started enjoying food a lot more. Thanks to people like Lena Kwak — the food developer for chef Thomas Keller — we all have better gluten-free options. She has developed a flour called Cup4Cup that can be used interchangeably with all-purpose flour. So grab a bag and start baking these awesome cookies. Like the name suggests, I put just about everything in them — it just depends on what I have on hand.

Keep reading for the recipe!

Hot-pink stalks of rhubarb and rosy-shouldered strawberries practically beg to be simmered together; add perfume-like cardamom to the mix, and it's hardly surprising that this crumble is a keeper. Even better, it's a low-effort proposition, perfect for casual entertaining or baking up as a spontaneous treat for oneself.

Particularly when working with cardamom, make certain to grind the spice fresh, as it rapidly loses its fragrance once pulverized to a powder. Other than that, this recipe is simple, satisfying, and more than worth the minimal effort expended — try it yourself tonight.

If you've ever brushed by a patch of stinging nettles and felt the painful, numbing tingles contact brings, then you might find mild trepidation over tackling a recipe based around the wild Spring green. Thankfully, when handled properly, this nuisance of a weed transforms from baleful brute to a silky texture and satisfying addition to all manner of meals. All in all, it's more than worth the accompanying (minor) risk involved.

Here, paired with creamy, briny feta, chewy-tender pasta, toasted slivers of almonds, and nutty sesame seeds, nettles add just the right amount of grassiness, making for a pasta dish that will keep your taste buds guessing. Whether served hot, fresh from the pot, or at room temperature, it satisfies, and then some.

Try the unusually satisfying pasta dish for yourself.

Trying to cut back on refined flour? This cookie recipe will satisfy a dessert craving using a secret sweet ingredient — baked sweet potato. You wouldn't even know that the original recipe calls for twice as much sugar because the sweet potato adds so much natural sweetness. Throw in some dried cranberries and dark chocolate chips for extra flavor and texture and this recipe is soon to become a household favorite.

Keep reading to learn how to make these low-sugar, 135-calorie cookies.

It doesn't have to be a salad every night for vegans who are also gluten-free. A warm bowl of this savory lentil stew makes for a comforting meal. This creamy dish is full of protein, fiber, and flavor.

For under 400 calories each yummy bowl offers a whopping 18.7 grams of protein and 19.5 grams of fiber. Read on for the simple recipe.

Throughout middle and high school, I practically subsisted on Nature Valley's crisp and crunchy Oats 'n Honey granola bars. To this day, a mere glimpse of the bold green wrapper gets my stomach grumbling. So when I stumbled upon a recipe hack for the snacktime staple, I knew I had to try it for myself.

My first attempt turned out a batch that, while enticing, wasn't quite right; my roommates happily scarfed them down, but to my nostalgic palate, they were slightly too soft, not quite salty enough, and tasted a little raw. Thankfully, with a few tweaks — notably, toasting the oats and swapping out half the honey for brown sugar for a deeper flavor and a crisper, toastier texture — they're everything my teenage self could've wished for. Even better, they're slightly less sweet, leaving my slightly more sophisticated mid-20s persona pleased as punch as well.

Get the recipe, and start snacking.

I'm an unabashed fan of the humble chickpea, whether it's crisp and generously spiced, blitzed into creamy hummus, or pureed in a spicy soup, but perhaps most of all when it's marinated with bold, bright flavors. Satiating, satisfying — the textural contrast of the combined elements is key — this salad is just the ticket if you, like me, are plagued with a touch of brown-bag-lunch ennui. The melange of zesty flavors meld further with an extra day or two in the fridge, making this an option you'll look forward to till you scrape the last bowlful into a to-go container.

Get the recipe and break free from brown-bag-lunch boredom.

If you've never cooked, tried, or had anything to do with rhubarb, then this is the perfect introduction. Rhubarb is a pink-hued fruit that looks similar to celery stalks. It's incredibly tart, so many cooks opt to tone it down by mixing it with sweet fruits like strawberries.

However, this rhubarb galette does not try to hide its identity. A sprinkling of sugar and a buttery crust are all that is needed to complement and soften rhubarb's mouth-puckering tendencies.

Wrap the rhubarb filling in a pure butter pie crust, then bake the galette until the crust turns golden brown and the tips of the rhubarb begin to char.

The hardest part is allowing the galette to cool once it's out of the oven. Like letting steak rest after cooking it, the same applies to the galette. Cooling it enables the juices to seep back into the fruit and lets those fruit juices thicken slightly.

The galette's beautiful, swirled pattern makes it an eye-popping centerpiece for breakfast or brunch. Serve it at the table so everyone can watch the pink, gelatinous juices seep out from the center. The crumbly crust yields to a tender, tart filling that many described as tasting like the "essence of rhubarb."

Keep reading for the recipe.

The change of seasons may bring to mind shorter hemlines and a rededication to the gym, but it also means that the opportunity to indulge in a favorite balmy-weather treat — s'mores — is just around the corner. Sadly, it's not quite prime bonfire and grilling weather yet, even in Northern California, so I've come up with a fix to tide us over till then: a s'mores-inspired snack (OK, dessert) mix.

Now, I'd like to take credit for this rather clever idea, but that would be disingenuous; inspiration first struck after tasting a sample of Mama Mellace S'mores Snack Mix at the Fancy Food Show. Tasty, but a hair too sweet, and lacking the salty-sweet punch I so crave, this snack mix was on the right track but not quite as delightful as it could be. So, like any good test cook, I set out to re-create it the way my taste buds intended.

Keep reading for the dangerous — I warned you! — recipe.