When French toast and omelets and sausages don't sound very tempting, a gorgeous salad that offers a variety of interesting tastes, textures, and colors can be a good choice for brunch: not the kind of thing you'd often bother to make on a weekday, but not an immobilizing gut-bomb, either. Many of you can probably pull this kind of beautiful cold plate together from the odds and ends in your vegetable drawer, but for people like me who live and die by the recipe and the shopping list, Ad Hoc at Home offers an inspiring chapter on salads. More

I've been counting down the days until I could make a real ratatouille. Though I've found a great recipe, success is almost purely based on the ripeness of the ingredients, and tomatoes only just started to have any real flavor in the Midwest. But I came across this eggplant caponata from Blue Kitchen. It's essentially an Italian variation of ratatouille, but with briny capers and golden raisins to give it a little kick. More