Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Cream butter, tahini, and sugars.
2. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat until well combined.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together flours, baking soda and salt.
4. Gather your garnishes—chocolate chips, raisins, coconut, seeds or nuts, and millet—in yet another bowl.
5. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture. Don’t overdo it.
6. Now add chocolate chips and all of the other fun stuff. Stir until evenly distributed.
7. Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate at least one hour. Can be frozen for longer-term storage.
8. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Place rack in the upper-middle position. I prefer to bake cookies one sheet at a time—that’s just what works best in my oven.
9. Form dough into just-larger-than-tablespoon spheres.
10. Bake until golden all over. Cool five to ten minutes on wire rack before munching.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Preheat your waffle iron.
2. In a large bowl, thoroughly combine flour, salt, baking soda, lemon zest, and poppyseeds.
3. In a separate bow, whisk together egg yolks, buttermilk, yogurt, milk, and melted butter. Set aside.
4. In a third bowl or electric mixer, whip egg whites and cream or tartar to soft peaks.
5. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in buttermilk mixture. Mix gently with a whisk until just incorporated. Some lumps are OK.
6. Toward the end of mixing, fold in egg whites.
7. Bake in waffle maker until crisp and golden.
8. Serve with powdered sugar, berry syrup, maple syrup or anything else delicious.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Measure out the flour and place in a large bowl.  Make a well in the center of the flour mound.
2. Mix eggs and yolks in a separate bowl.  Break up yolks and whites with a fork, as if you’re fixin’ to scramble them.  Add basil.
3. Pour the egg mixture into the flour well.  
4. Mix with a fork, then with your hand when the flour is too stiff. Add a little bit of water if the dough is too crumbly. Turn out onto  lightly floured surface and knead until a smoothish dough forms.
5. Divide and form two discs.
6. Wrap discs in plastic and let sit at room temperature for at least an hour.  This gives the gluten some time to relax and makes it much easier to roll and stretch out later.

You can roll out pasta by hand, or use a machine.  I used a machine.  

7. Pass the disc through the machine at its widest settling.  Fold in thirds and pass through the machine again.  Repeat twice, or until the surface of the dough is smooth and shiny.
8. Continue to pass dough through the machine, gradually decreasing the space between rollers until desired thinness is achieved. 
9. Cut to desired shape and length.
10. Fresh pasta absorbs a lot of water when it cooks, so use a generous amount of lightly salted, vigorously boiling water.
11. Fresh pasta also cooks very quickly, about three to six minutes.

If you’re not going to cook the pasta right away after cutting it, toss in a little bit of flour, lay out on a sheet pan, cover with parchment or a towel, and refrigerate.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Combine all and toss.
2. Let sit out, covered, for at least one hour to marry the flavors.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Sweat leeks in butter.
2. Add potatoes and chicken stock and simmer gently until tender.
3. Puree soup with immersion blender.
4. Add milk to desired consistency.
5. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Cook garlic and chili flakes in oil until garlic just begins to brown.
2. Add remaining ingredients and cook gently until thickened, stirring regularly.

It went like this, and I think you should try it:

You’ll need a medium-smallish saucepan, a mesh strainer, and a candy thermometer.

• •• Peel 1/2 pound fresh ginger and slice thin. Be sure to cut against the fibers, not with them.
• •• Put the ginger in your saucepan and cover with water.
• ••Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let cook 3 minutes.
• •• Drain.
• •• Repeat.
• •• Drain.
• •• Repeat. That’s three blanchings when all is said and done.
• •• After the final draining, return ginger to saucepan and attach the candy thermometer.
• •• Add to the saucepan 3 cups of water and 3 cups of sugar.
• •• Stir to help dissolve and crank the heat up.
• •• Cook until the temperature reaches 222º F. (I’m not making that up.)
• •• Once desired temperature has been reached (this takes a while – the last five degrees especially), turn off heat and let ginger sit in syrup for one hour.
• •• Strain the ginger from the syrup, again for an hour. You may wish to reserve the syrup for another use. I’m keeping mine for sweetening drinks at least, and perhaps as a jam component. It’s the color and consistency of runny honey and it tastes just delightful.
• •• Toss the ginger in 3/4 C sugar. Make sure all pieces are separate and well coated.
• •• Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to several months.

Not to toot my own horn – because really I just followed directions; a monkey could do it – but what I like about the way mine turned out as discrete from the stuff I’ve been paying $10 or more per pound, is that it’s soft, not hard or crunchy or dry at all. Maybe I did it wrong. Either way, I’m happy.