The Everyday Gourmet: Cooking with Vegetables

Hear the case for cooking and creating with vegetables, then watch as Chef Briwa prepares savory and surprising dishes starring carrots, including carrot osso buco; carrot tartare; simmered baby carrots in butter sauce; and burnt carrot salad with goat cheese, arugula, and garlic chips.#Better Living

Learn how to select and cook summer squash in unexpected and satisfying ways, with a lesson featuring light, flavorful vegetarian recipes, including summer squash pasta studded with pecorino, almonds, tomatoes and garlic; grilled zucchini; roast zucchini lasagna with parmesan crisps; and pickled zucchini.

Sweeter and denser than summer squash, winter squash takes well to seasonings and satisfies in everything from soups to desserts. Learn how to select a squash and follow recipes for butternut squash carpaccio; spicy butternut squash with coconut milk soup, a variation on tom kha gai; and maple custard in a pumpkin.

Delve into recipes showcasing inflorescents - vegetables that also happen to be flowers - including cauliflower, broccoli, broccolini, squash blossoms, Romanesco broccoli, and broccoli rabe. Learn how to make two vegetarian dishes, cauliflower shawarma with tahini yogurt sauce and braised artichoke and potato stew, in addition to broccoli rabe with orecchiette and sausage.

How do mushrooms differ from other vegetables? Here, Chef Briwa highlights the unique properties of mushrooms and the flavor and textural variances found in varieties from shitake to crimini. Then, watch as he creates two dishes bursting with umami: a vegetable pot pie and tamales filled with maitake, trumpet royale, and button mushrooms.

Discover how to store, wash, dry, and revive salad greens to make satisfying dishes, including 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; parsley salad with garlic and parmesan; and bacon and egg salad.

Discover how tasty nutrient powerhouses like kale, chard, mustard greens, and even "weeds" like dandelion and purslane can be when seasoned and cooked properly. Learn how to make the Greek dish, horta, featuring a mix of "braising greens"; mustard green salad with prosciutto; and gnocchi with spinach and pancetta.

Turn your attention to versatile, inexpensive root vegetables with this lesson on how to select, store, and cook carrots, celery root, and parsnips. Watch as Chef Briwa prepares crudités with tapenade; parsnip chips; celery root tonkatsu with rice and napa cabbage salad; and carrot cake with a parsnip-infused icing.

Take the mystery out of preparing onions, leeks, garlic, and shallots with recipes including 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; and baby leek salad.

Turn your attention toward fruit that we commonly think of as vegetables, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, and summer squash. Begin with a look at heirloom tomatoes, then learn how to prepare simple dishes bursting with flavor, including Catalan toast, caprese salad with burrata, stuffed tomatoes, and tabouleh salad.

Here, focus 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 you may have on hand; gigande beans; and linguine with fennel, crabmeat, and cream.

Representing the largest family of vegetables, brassicas deliver assertive flavors along with great health benefits. In this lesson, focus on just a few with hearty, distinctive dishes, including Brussels sprouts with Thai dipping sauce; butter-braised turnips with miso and honey; and braised endive with ham in a crème fraîche sauce.

Look at the varieties of potatoes and their optimal storage conditions, then consider how you can make America's favorite vegetable in interesting new ways. Follow along as Chef Briwa makes pickled potatoes; reupholstered potatoes; an impressive brunch dish made with eggs and smoked salmon; and chilaquiles, a classic Mexican comfort food.

What's the difference between green asparagus and white? Is rhubarb a vegetable or a fruit? Find out as Chef Briwa demonstrates grilled asparagus with heirloom tomatoes; white asparagus topped with browned bread crumbs and slivered lemon peel; a Korean spinach salad; and rhubarb chutney, or mostarda, with roasted pork loin.

What can you do with cabbage, the king of the brassica family? Plenty, as you'll see in this lesson featuring a bold Asian cole slaw with toasted cashews; larb salad, a famous southeast Asian meat dish; Savoy cabbage with prosciutto, gorgonzola, and pine nuts; and colcannon, an Irish take on mashed potatoes.

Chef Briwa helps to solve the beet's image problem in this lesson that demonstrates how to properly cook and season this often-feared vegetable. Watch as he prepares Beetle Juice; roast beet in salt crust with green goddess dressing; Fatima's tiered beet salad with charmoula vinaigrette; and beet-green-stuffed tortellini.

Tour the eggplant varieties and dishes the world has to offer, including eggplant tart with cherry tomatoes, fontina, parmesan, and pesto; aromatic Szechuan eggplant; and fried eggplant with a sweetened miso sauce. But first, learn how eggplant has evolved and what to look for when shopping.

Switch gears with a lesson on avocado, another fruit that we treat like a vegetable. Learn how to speed or slow ripening, then join Chef Briwa for a cooked ceviche verde with shrimp; tacos composed of thin-sliced jicama "tortillas" and English-pea studded guacamole; and spring salad with green goddess dressing.

What's the difference between white and yellow corn? How reliable is USDA grading? Find out in this lesson showcasing corn's versatility. Discover how to create creamy corn butter and biscuits; an esquites salad inspired by the bright, bold flavors of grilled Mexican street corn; and sweet corn ice cream with blackberry swirl.

Walk through commonly found peppers in order of heat, from the ultra-mild bell pepper to the super-spicy habanero, then delve into recipes featuring these colorful "fruits." Start with a pre-Columbian salsa featuring pumpkin seeds and blackened habaneros; then make pickled stuffed jalapeños, a popular Mexican bar snack; and chilis rellenos using roasted poblanos.

Get familiar with fava beans, green beans, purple green beans, snow peas, sugar snap peas, haricots verts, okra, and English peas. Discover four easy ways to flavor beans and peas, then make a pasta-inspired dish of French-cut green beans with shitakes and pancetta in cream sauce. Finish with fava beans on crostini.

Learn how to label and store leftovers the way chefs do, then discover how to transform your remaining cooked veggies into entirely new dishes. Create smashed potatoes with bravas sauce; tattooed fingerling potatoes; an egg frittata; and a red flannel hash combining potatoes, beets, parsnips, carrots, and onions.

Markets are filled with seemingly strange - but delicious - vegetables you may never have tasted or worked with before. Here, learn how to use some of them, including cactus paddles, purslane, yucca, fig leaves, and spaghetti squash. Then, discover when and why organic produce might be worth the additional cost.

Conclude your exploration of vegetables by learning how to store herbs so they stay fresh longer. Then, dive into a menu that celebrates herbs, including grilled pizza with burrata, prosciutto, herb salad, and an olive "soil"; a not-so-bloody Mary; salmon-stuffed squash blossoms; faro and mushroom risotto with sage and thyme; and a dessert of sabayon with stone fruits and berries.