The Everyday Gourmet: Cooking With Vegetables

Cooking and creating with vegetables; a chef prepares savory dishes starring carrots; carrot osso buco; carrot tartare; simmered baby carrots in butter sauce; and burnt carrot salad with goat cheese, arugula and garlic chips.

How to select and cook summer squash in unexpected and satisfying ways; light, flavorful vegetarian recipes; summer squash pasta studded with pecorino, almonds, tomatoes and garlic; grilled zucchini; roast zucchini lasagna.

Summer and winter squash; winter squash takes well to seasonings; it can be used in soups and desserts; how to select a squash; butternut squash carpaccio; spicy butternut squash with coconut milk soup, a variation on tom kha gai.

Recipes showcasing inflorescences; they are vegetables that also happen to be flowers such as cauliflower, broccoli, broccolini, squash blossoms, Romanesco broccoli and broccoli rabe; making two vegetarian dishes; broccoli rabe with orecchiette.

How mushrooms differ from other vegetables; their properties; their flavor and textural variances from shiitake to crimini; two dishes bursting with umami; a vegetable pot pie; tamales filled with maitake, trumpet royale, and button mushrooms.

How to store, wash and dry salad greens; a simple butter lettuce salad; tomato, arugula, and mozzarella salad with pesto dressing; kale salad with tapenade and pecorino; hot bacon-wrapped endive salad with fingerling potatoes.

How to make Horta, a Greek dish; featuring a mix of braising greens; mustard green salad with prosciutto; gnocchi with spinach and pancetta; how tasty nutrient powerhouses like kale, dandelion and purslane can be when seasoned and cooked properly.

Versatile, inexpensive root vegetables; how to select, store, and cook carrots, celery root, and parsnips; preparing crudités with tapenade; parsnip chips; celery root tonkatsu with rice and napa cabbage salad; carrot cake with a parsnip icing.

Preparing onions, leeks, garlic and shallots with recipes; a classic onion soup topped with croutons and Gruyère; leek pizza with potatoes, teleme cheese, and truffle oil; an appetizer of roasted garlic and cambazola cheese on crostini.

Fruits that are thought of as vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, and summer squash; examining heirloom tomatoes; how to prepare simple dishes bursting with flavor; Catalan toast; caprese salad.

Focusing on bulb vegetables with pinzimonio, an Italian snack of thinly shaved vegetables; a twist on a classic gin gimlet featuring celery juice; a quick shaved vegetable salad that serves as a template for any vegetables.

Brassicas deliver assertive flavors along with great health benefits; focusing on hearty, distinctive dishes; Brussels sprouts with Thai dipping sauce; butter-braised turnips with miso and honey; braised endive with ham.

The varieties of potatoes; their optimal storage conditions; cooking it in new ways; pickled potatoes; reupholstered potatoes; an impressive brunch dish made with eggs and smoked salmon; chilaquiles are a classic Mexican comfort food.

Green and white asparagus; the identity of rhubarb; grilled asparagus with heirloom tomatoes; white asparagus topped with browned bread crumbs and slivered lemon peel; a Korean spinach salad; and rhubarb chutney with pork loin.

What one can do with cabbage, the king of the brassica family; using it in an Asian coleslaw with toasted cashews; larb salad, a southeast Asian meat dish; Savoy cabbage with prosciutto, Gorgonzola and pine nuts; an Irish take on mashed potatoes.

Solving the beet's image problem; how to properly cook and season this vegetable; preparing Beet Juice; roast beet in salt crust with green goddess dressing; Fatima's tiered beet salad with charmoula vinaigrette; beet-green-stuffed tortellini.

Touring the eggplant varieties and dishes the world has to offer; eggplant tart with cherry tomatoes, fontina, Parmesan and pesto; Szechuan eggplant; fried eggplant with a miso sauce; how eggplant has evolved; what to look for when shopping.

Switching to a lesson on avocado; how to speed or slow ripening; joining Chef Briwa for a cooked ceviche verde with shrimp; tacos composed of thin-sliced jicama "tortillas" and English-pea studded guacamole; spring salad with green goddess dressing.

The difference between white and yellow corn; the reliability of USDA grading; a lesson showcasing corn's versatility; how to create creamy corn butter and biscuits; an esquites salad; sweet corn ice cream with a blackberry swirl.

Going through commonly found peppers in order of heat; delving into recipes featuring these colorful "fruits"; starting with a pre-Columbian salsa featuring pumpkin seeds and blackened habaneros; making pickled stuffed jalapeños and chilis rellenos.

Getting familiar with a variety of beans and peas; four ways to flavor beans and peas; making a pasta-inspired dish of French-cut green beans with shiitakes and pancetta in cream sauce; finishing with fava beans on crostini.

How to label and store leftovers the way chefs do; how to transform one's remaining cooked vegetables into new dishes; creating smashed potatoes with bravas sauce; tattooed fingerling potatoes; an egg frittata; a red flannel hash.

Markets are filled with seemingly strange but delicious vegetables; how to use some of them, including cactus paddles, purslane, yucca, fig leaves and spaghetti squash; discovering when and why organic produce might be worth the additional cost.

Learning how to store herbs so they stay fresh longer; diving into a menu that celebrates herbs; grilled pizza with various ingredients; a not-so-bloody Mary; salmon-stuffed squash blossoms; farro and mushroom risotto; a dessert of sabayon.