If you’re wondering how I ever came up with the idea to put pesto on potatoes, it’s like those old ads for you-know-what, where a guy walking the street eating a chocolate bar bumps into a girl with an open jar of peanut butter: a complete accident, but what an outcome! I was staring into the refrigerator as fingerling potatoes were coming out of the oven, and what should my eyes chance upon but a container of the pesto. Normally I’d use the pesto with pasta, but as I  discovered that night, it’s also wonderful with potatoes. 

I’ll admit it: I’m a ham. Take the last time I demonstrated how to make sauerkraut. The recipe is pretty basic: pulverize some cabbage, pour some salt over it in a crock, cover, and ferment. Not the most exciting of demos—unless you’ve got a friend, like my friend Jo, with a great sense of humor and knowledge of moi. I told her I needed a mallet for the demo; she lent me her mother’s mallet. It was about eighty years old and five feet tall, and was so big I had to get on top of a milk crate to wield it. It was chancy—the room was filled with three hundred health care professionals—but we all got a good laugh out of it. Hijinks aside, sauerkraut is easy to make—and it’s a great probiotic, leading to a sound gut, which, as scientists are learning, makes for a sound mind.

I can’t imagine any green bean more maligned in American culture than the string bean. The canned versions often resemble a Seattle drizzle and are about as tasty as a one-note piano (salt...salt...salt). The restaurant versions are at least pretty to look at (sometimes), but they’re still bland. I’m here to tell you that string beans can have pizzazz. I start by giving them a special bath: a quick dip in boiling salted water followed by an even faster plunge into a cold pool. This parboiling cooks the beans and brings out their beautiful color.

These potato pancakes, unlike the typical holiday fare, are a light delight! Sweet potato, zucchini, onion, egg and spices cooked with just a little olive oil make them especially nourishing, and they reheat beautifully. Shred the basil just before adding it to retain its bright green color. Here’s a convenient way to shred it: Stack the basil leaves, roll them into a cigar shape, and snip it with scissors or cut thin slices with a sharp chef’s knife.

Classic slaws usually aren’t much to get excited about. Between their homely appearance and goopy consistency, they tend to resemble Spackle. But that’s not the case here. This slaw is a feast for the eyes and palate. If Pixar ever created a recipe, this just might be it.

Back in the days when I was a kitchen serf, I received a great piece of culinary advice from a cook. She said to take a food you wanted to work with and imagine preparing it thirty different ways. That’s a mental exercise that has served me well over the years, because certain foods are so valuable from a health perspective that they need to show up time and again in new and interesting forms. So it is with lentils. They’re so versatile, and they act as a great backdrop for salads and side dishes. In this recipe, they’re the foundation for a wonderful blend of citrus and crunch, with fennel, sweet roasted beets, and walnuts all gleefully playing together in the sandbox. Now I just have to come up with twenty-nine more lentil combinations to satisfy that cook.

Getting in the swing of eating veggies is like igniting a pilot light on a stove: it may take several tries, but once it’s lit, the flame burns steadily. My challenge is to present important vegetables—and, none is more vital for brain health than kale—in ways that will kick-start your taste for this superfood. Here, I’ve paired kale with an autumn favorite, delicata squash, along with garlic, red pepper flakes, and freshly squeezed lemon juice to create a dish that’s both a delight to the eyes and the taste buds. The chopped roasted hazelnuts take the entire concoction completely over the top. It’s ablaze with flavor and should leave you burning for more.

During the summer months, I take advantage of the abundance of tomatoes and put them in the oven to roast. The heavenly smells take me back to Italy, where I first learned how to make this version of tomato sauce. 

Some foods just look like they should be good for the mind. Take cauliflower. Kind of like walnuts, it visually reminds you of the brain. And sure enough, cauliflower is a brain-boosting superstar, filled with B vitamins, omega-3s, phosphorus, and manganese. 

There’s a fine line I walk as a cook. I don’t want to take people too far out of their comfort zones, yet I want to energize their taste buds with delightful takes on old favorites. So it goes here. There are about 1,000 ways to prepare sweet potatoes, and mashing them is top of the list, but a simple twist takes these taters over the top, and that’s the ginger (a notable anti-inflammatory) and the lime. Like a pair of piccolos, these two provide unexpected high notes of tartness and spice that play off the sweet potatoes’ bass heartiness. If you’re craving something sweet, this mash hits the mark; the fiber in the potatoes acts as a great insulin regulator, letting their sugars metabolize and feed the brain slowly and consistently.

I promise you that this quick and easy preparation of sugar snap peas will become a summer favorite. Look for pods that are evenly green, firm, and free of blemishes. Observe the usual caution: do not overcook them; better to err on the side of too crunchy than too soft. This is the essence of good, healthy fast food.

This is a twist on plain old steamed broccoli, which too often is tasteless. The miso is the salt component in the miso butter. If you choose to use wasabi butter, you may need to add a pinch of sea salt to this dish.

Anybody who knows me knows I’ve got a potato jones that just won’t quit. Doesn’t matter the make and model, a properly prepared spud just takes me places. This version relies on a little spice razzamatazz: I throw some mustard and coriander seeds into a hot pan and play Jiffy Pop with them for about thirty seconds. It gets their oils going, and they get fully released—along with a load of anti-inflammatory ingredients—when I grind them a few seconds later. I then bake them along with some lovely fingerling potatoes coated with olive oil and sea salt, and it’s heaven on a plate. Or so say the potato critics in my crowd, and they’re not an easy bunch to please.