My favorite soup recipe, this lentil soup incorporates American brown lentils and French du Puy lentils in a broth flavored with carrot, shallot, celery, thyme, bacon, and butter. It is light, but hearty and sweetly earthy. If I could quadruple this recipe just for myself, I would. More

If you asked me ten years ago if I would ever consider becoming a vegetarian, my answer would have been, "Hell no," followed by a string of surprisingly vicious obscenities. You might have cried. And I wouldn't have felt bad about it afterward. But dishes like this West African Vegetable Stew are just as filling and flavorful as meaty ones. Healthy as hell and simple to make, it possesses a wonderful sweet heat and heartiness. More

Why is garlic soup so satisfying? It's one of the simplest soups to make, and yet it comes out soothing and utterly calming. Some people have chicken soup; I prefer this stuff. Which isn't to say all are created equal. More

Though truly local asparagus is not quite here (for me), this simple soup made of onion, leek, celery, chicken stock, and asparagus has a clean asparagus taste and is remarkably creamy. More

Barbara Kafka never fails. Her recipes may be confusing—combining odd ingredients with peculiar cooking methods—but I've never completed a recipe of hers that didn't ultimately awe me. That's especially true for this recipe from Soup: A Way of Life, where there are so few ingredients, you'll wonder whether it will hold together at all. Yet, after the five minutes it takes to cook, you'll be greeted by a bowl of warming and fragrant soup, perfumed with basil and with surprising amount of depth. More

Most of the cauliflower I eat is roasted or sautéed until it's perilously close to looking burnt. It's hard to describe why it tastes so good when it looks so bad, but it really does a number on me and partly explains why it's one of my favorite things to cook. But this recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook retreats back to a time when cauliflower was treated gently and calmly. More

Learn more about cooking with sambals here.... More

Is Blue Ribbon's matzo ball soup better than either of my grandmother's? I'd rather not say. What I will say is that it lived up to the title of "excellent"—the stock was beautifully flavored, and the matzo balls were the ideal weight and density and tasted of chicken fat in the best possibly way. More

Most barley soup recipes have a heavy helping of beef, which might have been really wonderful in mid-January. But now with spring around the corner, I was looking for something a tad lighter. Thankfully cabbage and spinach get the job done here. They bulk it out, making it a filling soup without being a heavy or meaty one. More