By now, you may have had your fill of simply steamed or roasted asparagus.  I haven’t yet, but I can see that day coming.

Every spring, I gorge on plump asparagus spears from the farmers markets.  I adore the grassy freshness and pure green flavor of just-cut stalks.  Nothing tastes quite so much like spring.

But somewhere along the line, I always begin thinking of the other things I might do with those beautiful spears.  This year, my thoughts turned to shaved asparagus salad.

It began with this video from Chow.  I had never really considered the idea of asparagus in the raw before, but the ribbons of shaved asparagus looked so good, they begged for a salad that made the most of their fresh flavor.

Shaving the stalks lengthwise with a Y-shaped peeler produces paper-thin strips that don’t require any cooking at all. Marinate them in a lemony vinaigrette for an hour or so before serving, and the ribbons soften, their grassy flavor mellowing into the essence of spring.

In this substantial salad, I’ve teamed the asparagus with its classic partnerss, eggs and ham.  In this case, it’s salty prosciutto and hard-boiled eggs.

Preparing the asparagus takes a little time, but the rest of the salad comes together quickly.  Lay a stalk down on the counter and proceed to peel it in layers lengthwise.  When the stalk gets very thin, you may have to raise the stalk a little on the handle of a wooden spoon to give the blade room to maneuver.    Once you have a pile of ribbons, you’re ready to go.

I’ve added preserved lemon to the dressing to deepen the flavor.  It’s a wonderful savory condiment to have waiting in the refrigerator.  If you’d like to make your own, check out this earlier post.  Mark Bittman offered an even quicker variation in the New York Times a couple of years ago.

Of course, you could always just grate some fresh zest into the dressing.  Just don’t miss the delights of raw asparagus.

With the days getting longer and temperatures rising, grilling season has opened at our house.

Throughout the warm months, we cook at least half our dinners outside.  They’re simple affairs—a piece of fish, or perhaps a pork chop, and a grill basket filled with the season’s best vegetables.  I never tire of the way a little smoky char brings out the natural sweetness of everything from eggplant and zucchini to peppers and potatoes.

This year, we decided to try grilling artichokes, which are plentiful at the farmers markets right now.  I especially like the smaller ‘chokes with their tender stems.

The results were extraordinary — the buttery, nutty flavor of the thistles playing off the smoke of the grill and a parsley paste heady with garlic and lemon.  Braising in white wine and olive oil beforehand contributed yet another layer of flavor.

It does take a little more effort to prepare artichokes for the grill. You’ll need to strip each one down to its most tender leaves and remove the hairy choke at its center.  On the other hand, eating artichokes requires less effort when you don’t have to remove the leaves as you go.

If you need a refresher on prepping, check out this tutorial from my earlier post on artichoke risotto.  For this dish, though, you will slice the prepared artichokes in half rather than eighths.

To make things easier at dinner time,  you could prep and braise the artichokes early in the day, then refrigerate them until it’s time to grill.  The actual time over the open flame is relatively short.

Just be sure to make plenty.  They’ll go fast.

 Many cookbooks are primarily kitchen manuals filled with no-nonsense instructions.

Not “Ripe.”  Author Cheryl Sternman Rule and photographer Paulette Phlipot break the cookbook mold.  Their  gorgeous tribute to fresh produce in all its glory is more inspiration than instruction, although filled with creative recipes.

“Ripe” (Running Press, 2012) will send you straight into the kitchen – right after you get home from the farmer’s market.  You may find yourself keeping it out on the coffee table, though, to thumb through in idle moments.  The photographs are downright luscious and the text is whimsical, amusing and informative.

Rule and Phlipot wanted to get away from the “eat your vegetables” cookbooks.  Their goal is to make you want to eat vegetables and fruit just because they’re so irresistible.

They definitely succeed.  Even the photograph of a red apple is tempting, and I don’t care much for red apples.  Raspberries glow, peas gleam, bok choy beckons.  The Bosc pear belongs on the wall of an art gallery.

The beautiful photographs are the appetizers of this cookbook. They draw you in and prime your palate with vivid colors and textures. Sections are arranged not by seasons, as is common in produce cookbooks, but by color.

The main course, though, is the encyclopedic introduction to a wide range of fruits and vegetables, from pomegranates to jicama. Even familiar vegetables show a fresh side of their personality here.

Rule is an engaging writer and gifted cook who offers a little background on each fruit or vegetable along with a few simple uses and an unexpected recipe.   The pomegranate, for instance, is represented by a pomegranate clove thumbprint cookie, tomatoes by an open-faced grilled sandwich with smoked mozzarella.  I loved the kumquat and arugula salad, which explodes with bold but complementary flavors.  The Israeli couscous with fava beans, shallots, and olives was stunning.

I zeroed in on the broccoli soup with cheddar croutons, however, because  it felt particularly appropriate given the cookbook’s mission to entice diners into eating fresh produce.  When Supreme Court justices go out of their way to badmouth broccoli, you know its reputation could use a little help.

The creamy green soup is especially healthful because it doesn’t include a drop of cream.  But it’s packed with so much flavor from cumin, coriander and fennel balanced with lemon and Greek yogurt that you’ll never notice.  Just go slow on the crunchy cheddar croutons, which are infinitely munchable on their own.

The soup was even better the second day, when the flavors had time to meld.  Although Rule recommends pureeing with an immersion blender, I got a far smoother texture with a more powerful standing blender.

I should note that Rule is a San Jose resident and I got to know her when I was a food writer at the Mercury News.  I’ve followed her freelance career ever since and am a fan of her blog, 5 Second Rule.  This cookbook with Phlipot is her first.

I’ve yet to meet an Asian salad I didn’t like.  The sour, sweet and salty flavors in combination with crunchy textures are so intensely satisfying.  Green papaya salad, noodle salad, Cambodian shredded cabbage salad, even that old standby, Chinese chicken salad — they all get my vote.

My latest obsession is this Asian salad made with crisp radishes and fat green onions, some of the best produce of the season.  The English cucumbers grow in Watsonville greenhouses year-round, so I include them and the fresh herbs in seasonal produce, too.  Throw in poached chicken, some glass noodles, a little chile and cashews and I’m happy.

This recipe began in a terrific cookbook by the revered British cookery writer, Simon Hopkinson,  The original is semi-vegetarian.  By that, I mean Hopkinson uses fish sauce in the dressing.  Neither meat nor poultry make an appearance, however, in “The Vegetarian Option”  (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2010).

Still, I’m a self-confessed carnivore and if I’m making an elaborate salad for dinner, I like to include a little protein to tide me over til morning.  This recipe just called out for chicken thighs poached with Asian spices.

I didn’t make the ginger syrup and sesame paste recipes that the author specifies.  Not only do fear my old food processor is not up to the job of grinding sesame seeds, but I also can’t see devoting so much energy to an ingredient of which I’m only going to use one tablespoon.

Thankfully, the juice from a jar of pickled ginger and some roasted sesame tahini made acceptable substitutes after they were dressed up with a little sugar and chile flakes.  I’m sure the originals are better but life is short, even for the food-obsessed.

What makes this salad work so beautifully is the interplay of textures, sparked by chile, lime juice and fresh mint.  Every bite has the clean, fresh flavors I crave at this time of year, when you never know whether spring or winter will show up tomorrow.  With this salad, I’m casting my lot with spring.

Even in California, it’s tough to find a good selection of local fruit in the winter. Citrus is about the only choice at the farmers market these days and I get weary of clementines, as wonderful as they are.

The arrival of blood oranges is always cause for celebration. I can’t resist these beautiful oranges with the blushing rind and dark red flesh.  Their flavor is deeper and more complex than ordinary navels, with wine-like undertones and a lively balance of sugar and acid.

Blood oranges are great to eat out of hand but I think they’re best used in salads and desserts that capitalize on their exotic flavor.They’re an intriguing substitute for the usual lemons in this take on the old-fashioned pudding cake.

To call it a cake is really a stretch.  Think of it more as a rustic souffle floating atop a luscious sauce.  As a bonus, it’s much less temperamental than the classic souffle.  It puffs up in the oven and deflates a little on standing but never totally collapses.

This is a homey dessert.  With the exception of the oranges, all the ingredients are probably sitting in your pantry and fridge.  Stir up the batter, beat the egg whites, fold them in, and spoon it all in a buttered dish to bake while you fix dinner.

As the batter bakes, it separates.  An airy cake rises to the top of the dish and a tangy, pale pink sauce forms on the bottom.  The sauce tends to be fairly thin but incredibly tasty.

Of course, if you can’t find blood oranges, lemons will make a very nice pudding cake.  Meyer lemons would be even better.

There was a time when I cooked bulgur several times a month.  The par-boiled and ground wheat was cheap, filling, and a great base for one-pot meals with vegetables and chicken.

I loved the mild, nutty flavor and nicely chewy texture.  But bulgur slipped out of my repertoire when I began experimenting more in the kitchen and homey pilafs gave way to sophisticated risottos.

This winter, though, I’ve rediscovered the simple pleasures of the quick-cooking grain in my quest to put more whole grains on our plates.  Prepared in the style of a risotto with mushrooms, butternut squash and spinach, it makes a terrific entree for Meatless Monday or a side dish for grilled meat.

Bulgur is a staple in the Middle East and  may well have been the first convenience food.   Archaeologists date the cereal back at least as far as Bulgaria in 5900 BC,  where it was pre-cooked and dried before being ground, much as it is today.

You may have eaten it in tabouleh or kibbeh, the meatballs popular throughout Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.  It retains most of its nutrients and is a far better source of protein and fiber than brown rice  Look for it in the bulk bins of natural foods stores or in the supermarket cereal aisle alongside the steel-cut oats and seven-grain blends.

Unlike many whole grains, bulgur cooks in 20 minutes or less.  It can be soaked in boiling water or simmered in chicken broth.  Vegetable broth is a good alternative but makes for a slightly sweeter dish.

I give the grain a risotto treatment — minus the constant stirring — in this pilaf of winter vegetables.  Half a cup of dry white wine, stirred in after the bulgur cooks for a few minutes, makes all the difference in the finished dish.  Baby spinach is added in the last five minutes for the nutritional blessings of greens without all the prep work of kale and chard.

Bulgur has earned a prominent place in my pantry once again.

The poor radish gets no respect in America.  We take it for granted, barely registering its crisp snap and remarking only when it gets a little too spicy for comfort in the scorching hot days of summer.  It’s merely the supporting actor in the garden salad, the splash of color on the crudité platter.

The French, however, have long appreciated the humble roots for their satisfying texture and gentle bite, serving them with sweet butter and sea salt.   Asian cooks treasure the more pungent varieties for pickles and stir fries.

I say it’s time to give radishes their due on this continent.    They’re the stars in this winter salad, which makes the most of what’s in season right now.

Although radishes are year-round vegetables in Northern California, they like cool weather.  They’re at their crunchy best right now with none of the bitterness that sometimes marks summer radishes. Any of the many varieties should work well for this salad.  I used the common red radishes with bright white flesh, which are easy to find.

The English cucumber they’re paired with is a hot house product at any time of the year.  I get mine from the Nagamine family, who grows them in Watsonville greenhouses and sells them at local farmers markets.

Inspiration for the salad came from Nigel Slater’s “Kitchen Diaries” (Gotham Books, 2006).  I made some key alterations, though, substituting lemon juice for red wine vinegar, introducing a bed of peppery arugula and omitting the feta cheese.  Feta is nice, but not essential to the salad.  Feel free to crumble some on top if you have it on hand.

One bite of this salad and you’ll feel like spring has arrived ahead of schedule.

One of the best gifts I received over the holidays was an introduction to this kale salad. I spotted it in the deli case when I was shopping at my local natural foods store a couple of days after Christmas and bought a quarter pound on a whim.

It was an instant hit.  My family and I began nibbling on little bits of sesame seed flecked Kale right out of the carton as soon as we got home and it never made it to the dinner table.

With all the crunchy textures and savory Asian flavors, the dish reminded me of the seaweed salad I always order at sushi bars. Most of the ingredients were readily identified—raw kale, red onion, sunflower sprouts and a trio of pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds. I wasn’t sure about the dressing, though.  It tasted a lot like soy sauce, yet not quite.

After New Year’s, I contacted Naomi Dresser at New Leaf Community Markets, a small chain of natural foods grocers in the Santa Cruz area.  The Coastal Kale Salad is one of the store’s favorites, Dresser said, and she was happy to share the ingredients. But New Leaf does not give out recipes.

A web search, however, brought up several mentions of a kale salad with very similar ingredients in “Esalen Cookbook,” by Charlie Cascio (Gibbs Smith, 2006). I used that recipe as a guide for some of the proportions in mine.

The mystery ingredient turns out to be Bragg’s Liquid Amino, a soybean based condiment long favored by health food advocates.  I don’t have any on my shelves, so  I’ve used tamari, a mellow cousin of soy sauce that is derived from miso paste.  Its salty, savory character gets a lift from the lemon juice and olive oil in the vinaigrette.

Although any variety of kale would work in this salad, I like it best with Tuscan kale, known as cavolo nero in Italy.  The leaves are more tender and the flavor a little more mellow than ordinary curly kale.

They’re also easier to handle.  You just fold each leaf lengthwise and strip it from the center stem.  Stack the leaves in thick bunches and slice them crosswise into narrow ribbons, which tenderize more quickly in the lemony dressing.  To speed up the tenderizing process, you also can squeeze and massage the leaves vigorously for a couple of minutes after pouring on the dressing.

Or just let the dressed leaves stand for half an hour or so before serving.  Unlike most salads, this is better when it’s made ahead of time.  The leaves get softer but don’t wilt.  So it’s even good after a night in the refrigerator.

Kale salad is going to be a regular on my dinner menus this winter.

I’ve begun to dread any recipe that starts with cutting up a winter squash.  Every time I slice open a butternut squash, I worry that I’m either going to break a knife blade or slash a finger before I’m done.  Kabocha squash, which I love, is even more of a challenge.

So it was a pleasant surprise when I sliced into a delicata squash for the first time this year.  The knife just slipped right through the thin skin and tender flesh.  The heirloom squash didn’t even require peeling.

The flavor was wonderful, too — a little milder than butternut, but sweet and rich with a creamy texture.  It’s ideal for this beautiful salad I found in one of my favorite new cookbooks, “Eat Good Food,”  by BiRite Market owner Sam Mogannam and Dabney Gough (Ten Speed Press, 2011).

The combination of roasted squash and fingerling potatoes with peppery arugula, pomegranate seeds and Parmesan is as delicious as it is colorful.  I’m planning to serve it with a pork roast for Christmas dinner.

The delicata squash looks a bit like a reverse image of its summer cousin, the zucchini.  It’s sausage-shaped and rather small with green stripes on yellow skin.  The flavor is so nice, it needs little embellishment.  Roast the slices with a little olive oil and salt until the edges begin to caramelize and  you’ve got a great side dish .

For this recipe, the squash and potatoes are sliced fairly thin for quick roasting.  Then they’re tossed with the arugula and pomegrante seeds in a vinaigrette made with champagne vinegar and shallots.  A dish this substantial could be served as a vegetarian entree but I think of it as salad and starch in one.  Just add protein, bread and a nice wine for a complete winter’s feast.

We’ve had a harsh introduction to winter in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where I live.

Ferocious winds buffeted the redwoods surrounding my house for three days and nights last week, uprooting a huge tree just up the road, knocking down a utility pole and sending a long limb crashing through a skylight in the living room.  The power was out for four days and the DSL just returned.

We’ve lived here a long time and we’re used to the electricity going out in the middle of big storms.  We have a generator to keep the refrigerator, freezer and a couple of lamps running.  But cooking becomes a challenge when the oven doesn’t work and you have to wear a backpacker’s headlamp to see clearly what you’re chopping.

I was grateful to have a beautiful red kabocha squash sitting on the kitchen counter when the lights went out.  With a little curry paste, chicken stock and some coconut milk from the pantry, it made a spicy but soothing soup to improve our mood during a difficult week.

Of course it helps if you happen to have a squash on your counter and some Asian ingredients in your pantry.  But this soup is so simple and flavorful, it’s worth stocking up for future emergencies. The Asian ingredients are commonplace in supermarkets now and hard-skinned winter squashes keep for quite a while in a cool, dry place.

The inspiration for this dish comes from the gardening/cooking journal, “Tender,” by Nigel Slater (Ten Speed Press, 2009).  Slater is a gifted British cook who writes about the down-to-earth food that real people eat.  His book is my go-to reference for interesting recipes using fresh produce.

Since the red kabocha, often called Japanese pumpkin, is an especially sweet and meaty winter squash, I was pretty sure it would work in the “pumpkin laksa for a cold night,” based on a traditional Malaysian soup.  Butternut squash would work, too, although the flavor is not as rich.

To save time and energy, I steamed the flesh unpeeled.  It was much easier to cut away after it had softened in the steam.  I also added baby spinach leaves to give the soup enough substance for a one-dish meal.

Slater probably would be appalled that I’ve substituted jarred curry paste for the homemade version in his recipe.  I’m sure his would be far better, too, but I didn’t have those ingredients on hand.

The first time I made this soup, I wildly overestimated the appropriate amount of commercial curry paste and produced an almost inedible concoction.  Even my husband, who loves fiery food, found it hard to finish a bowl.

I may have erred on the side of caution with this recipe, so feel free to add more if it’s too mild for you.  The spices add a warming tingle to the creamy soup accented with lime.

When temperatures drop and winds blow, this is just the soup to have in your repertoire.