Author: By Laura Hobbs

A little cheese went on, followed by my obsessive/compulsive placement of the zucchini and caramelized onions, followed by a little more cheese and some seasonings.

This makes a lot of food for two people; it served as my lunchtime leftovers until midweek, and seemed to get better and better by the day. Another idea is to divide the shells into two smaller dishes, and bake one while freezing the other.

This recipe takes packaged ramen and amps up the flavor with additions like soy sauce, grated ginger and sesame oil. And instead of leaving the ramen naked, I like to add on plenty of fun and delicious toppings, like thinly sliced shiitakes, green onions, cilantro, and a blob of chili paste.

What starts as perfectly yummy stovetop popcorn gets amped up with the addition of truffle oil, parmesan cheese and a nice blend of zesty spices, and mellowed out with plenty of melted butter. It’s perfect for a cozy night in with a movie.

The flavor combination can’t get much better – cheesy tortellini paired with crunchy green veggies and toasty pine nuts, creamy avocado and zesty sprouts, with a garlicky, lemony pop from the dressing.

While the end result is worthy of a standing ovation, the steps to get there are mind-numbingly simple – dipping canned biscuits into melted butter, rolling them in sugar and orange zest, and piling them all into a Bundt pan.

We still have several months of winter weather ahead of us – let’s keep things warm and cozy with plenty of soup, shall we? Without further ado, the final recipe of the Soup Series: Chunky Tomato & Fennel.

It starts with simple baked potatoes and turns into a creamy, cheesy pot of soup with some straight-forward help from a little flour, milk and cheese. On a chilly night when you want something hearty and comforting, this is the soup for you.

On the first day, it’s a lovely brothy affair, with just the right consistency of a chunky soup. On the second day, the pasta has absorbed more of the broth, and what was once soup has morphed into a brothy pasta dish.

For the inaugural recipe for the soup series, I propose a toast: To eating well, eating wisely, and eating with plenty of friends in 2012. Until next week, friends!

Gluten-free baking is a different beast altogether, using ingredients that I don’t usually carry in my pantry. The texture and the flavor are surprisingly convincing, though, and the batter behaved just like a regular cupcake batter.

This is a classic, quintessential, flawless recipe, and I beg of you to keep it just the way it is. One small warning: You will want to eat the entire dish, in one sitting, by yourself, with a big bottle of Malbec, and Bill Withers on the hi-fi.