I had purchased some squash blossoms from the Farmer’s Market, and I was trying to decide what to do with them. I usually stuff them with cheese and fry them, but I didn’t really want to fry anything. Then I remembered I had about a dozen cherry tomatoes left over from making a tomato and okra stew, and I realized I could put the tomatoes inside of the blossoms. Since I didn’t want to fry, and boiling obviously wouldn’t work, I thought I’d try baking them in the oven. I even went out and bought a pack of toothpicks to help this work.

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Springtime brings some interesting things to the market; things like fiddlehead ferns. I’ve cooked with fiddleheads before, but I wanted something quick, easy and light. I ended up blanching the fiddleheads in salted boiling water (a necessary step to properly clean them), and then sauteing them with sliced asparagus in olive oil with salt and pepper until they were just tender. I added some fresh lemon juice, and then when that cooked down I poured in the liquid from a can of tomatoes. I cooked this down for just a few minutes, re-seasoned, and then tossed with some gemelli pasta. It was a great expression of early spring, and it was delicious.

On an episode of Jacques Pepin’s More Fast Food My Way he made a quick flatbread on the stove top, inspired by a bread he had at a Tibetan restaurant. If you watch the clip, he says the recipe is simple: 1 1/2 cups of flour, a cup of water, some salt, and “a teaspoon of baking -” and then his daughter interrupts him before he says whether it’s baking soda or baking powder. I assume it’s baking soda, because he compares it to a quick soda bread. Anyway, you mix it all together (his came out much gooier than mine) and then fry it in olive oil for ten minutes on each side. You also add a splash of water to help it steam. The result isn’t anything you’d really mistake for bread, but it is compulsively snackable. Especially after you slather the warm “bread” with butter and sprinkle it with sea salt

Wondering what to do with that asparagus from the Farmer’s Market? For a super easy meal heat up some olive oil in a pan and quickly saute some thin asparagus with salt, pepper, and a splash of sherry vinegar. Fry up an egg (also from the market) and serve it on a nice piece of crusty bread (that too) alongside the asparagus, with some cheese grated over everything. Not the prettiest plate I ever put together, but a tasty one.

When people find out that I cook a lot, they almost always ask me what my “specialty” is. I think many people put too much emphasis on recipes, when I believe it’s more important to focus on technique. Once you’ve got techniques down, you can adapt them to almost any ingredients. So I’m starting what I hope will be a recurring column about basic cooking techniques.

People are often astounded when I tell them I make my own tomato sauce. I think they must be imagining a big pot of Sunday “gravy” or an all-day ragu. The truth is you can make a great tomato sauce in minutes, while the pasta boils, with a few simple ingredients. The most basic involves the few ingredients you see above — olive oil, salt, a can of tomatoes, and half of an onion (things you should keep in your pantry at all times). Yes, that’s it. Once you’ve got the technique down you can customize it and flavor it however you’d like, and I’ll mention some ideas along the way. I recommend starting out with the most basic formula, so you can see just how great these four simple ingredients can be. Ready? Here we go.

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Note: A couple of years ago I wrote a detailed post about how I cook Kosher for Passover, or K for P as I call it. Click here if you care about such things.

Call this one an interesting failure.

The idea was to get the crispy jacket of the potato to act as a cup for the smooth duxelle. It ended up being the other way around. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used those soft red potatoes, but I coated them with oil, salt, and pepper, then baked them in a 400 degree oven for about half an hour. While they cooked I made the mushroom duxelle — I used shitakes and oyster mushrooms because that’s what I had, but I’m sure anything would be fine. In order to get the mushrooms into tiny pieces you need either a lot of patience or a food processor. I used a food processor. Then the mushroom bits were cooked in olive oil and butter until the moisture was almost all cooked out, then seasoned. Then I added a splash of wine leftover from the Seder. When it cooked down I let it cool for a few minutes. When I pulled the potatoes out of the oven they were cooked through but they almost liquefied when I cut them in half. I tried scooping out the interior, but they were way too soft to do it well. Undeterred, I filled the best looking ones with the duxelle, which tasted good but was a little crunchy. I baked them again for about ten minutes. This didn’t do much to crisp up the potato skins, but it did dry out the mushrooms even more.

I ended up mixing the rest of the potatoes directly into the remaining duxelle; everything tasted good, it just wasn’t what I had intended to make.