10,000 bitter recipes

Fennel bulbs blanched and browned in butter, simmered with caramelized pearl onions and carrots in stock. A light, elegant vegetable stew that's ready in an hour.

Ginger-carrot bisque: silky pureed carrot soup with fresh ginger, orange zest, and coriander, finished with cream. The elegant first-course soup that converts vegetable skeptics.

German baked spinach with Emmentaler cheese, butter, garlic, paprika, and nutmeg. A bubbly, golden spinach gratin that's simple to make and rich with Alpine cheese flavor.

Let your crockpot help you out with making dinner with this delicious macaroni and cheese dish.

Broiled salmon steaks topped with a garlic, parsley, and dill breadcrumb crust. A 25-minute fish dinner finished under the broiler for a golden herb crust on a flaky salmon steak.

Seared beef tenderloin with a three-citrus butter sauce made from lemon, lime, and orange juice reduced with red wine. Restaurant-level elegance, surprisingly simple.

A scrumptious shrimp dish made with finely chopped shallots, parsley leaves and red hot pepper sauce.

Chocolate cream pie cooks a silky cocoa-egg yolk custard on the stove, pours it into a baked shell, and crowns it with billowy meringue. Old-school Southern dessert classic.

A triangular filled pastry, traditionally eaten during the Jewish Holiday of Purim.

Buttery shortbread sticks studded with mini chocolate chips, baked golden, and dipped in melted chocolate. Four ingredients in the dough, shaped like little biscotti logs. Simple, elegant, and impossible to eat just one.

Red lentils simmer with sautéed peppers, onions, and berbere spice in ghee for this protein-rich Ethiopian main dish ready in an hour.

A universal cream soup formula: butter, onion, potato for body, chicken broth, and any steamed vegetable you like, pureed silky and finished with heavy cream.

Old-fashioned Nantucket molasses cookies with brown sugar, butter, and a soft, cake-like texture. Six pantry ingredients and no eggs, just like the New England whaling-era originals.

Silky cauliflower soup enriched with curry spices, saffron, and sweet apples, then blended until cloud-smooth. Golden Delicious apples add natural sweetness that balances the warm curry in every spoonful.

It can't get much easier than this, sprinkle chicken breasts with seasoning and cook. A quick and easy meal for those picky eaters.

Throughout the Middle East, bureks are made by folding buttered, cheese-filled phyllo dough into little triangular shapes. Cigarro bureks taste the same but, as the name implies, are rolled into cylindrical shapes resembling small cigars.