We’re all getting tired of winter, so when the sun came out for a few short hours, everyone at my house headed outdoors to soak it up. I followed them with a hot bowl of bagna cauda, a tray of bite-sized vegetables and a loaf of crusty French bread for dipping.

Bagna cauda is a simple Italian mixture of olive oil and butter infused with garlic and anchovies. The proportions are basically up to the cook. What’s your pleasure? Some prefer more oil while others go heavy on the melted butter. A hint of garlic or enough to keep the vampires away—after all we’re all in this together, so garlic breath is not an issue. Then there are the anchovies, those controversial little critters you either love or hate. Do you want a subtle sophisticated flavor or a fish-infused jolt? Personally, I prefer a mixture of 2/3 cup of good olive oil with ¼ cup of butter, lots of garlic and no more than four anchovy fillets. Some cooks delight in eight to 10 fillets, in which case I must pass on the sauce and fill up on the veggies, bread, and a crisp glass of white wine to drown my disappointment.

As we all sat around the old garden table laughing and sharing the feast, the winds picked up and things got cold really fast. I was reminded of the early vineyard workers of Piedmont, Italy, who depended on this pungent dish to warm them up in the fields on cold winter days. Like the peasants that originated it, the vineyard workers consumed their bagna cauda in large rustic pots set over an open flame. Today, I served it in a terra cotta pot set over a candle to keep it warm. No matter your heat source, never boil the sauce or you risk spoiling it quickly.

Italians serve fresh local vegetables like fennel, cardoons and peppers for dipping, while I chose cauliflower florets, peppers, cucumbers, broccoli and artichokes for my platter. In California we are fortunate to have an abundance of winter produce choices that can be served raw, blanched or roasted.

Many home cooks go into the kitchen and madly chop a bunch of vegetables for immediate consumption, and while this works well for cucumbers and peppers, there is a much better way for sturdier items like broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. Take the time to blanch these vegetables in salted boiling water for several minutes, then plunge them into ice water to stop the cooking process. You’ll be amazed at the difference between hard, gray-green raw broccoli florets and the tender, emerald green morsels you get after blanching. A veggie worthy of all that delicious sauce!

I’m also a great fan of roasting vegetables like artichokes. Simply halve them and cut away the thorny tips of their leaves with scissors. Rub with olive oil, then place a clove of peeled garlic, a lemon slice and sprig or two of fresh thyme on each half and place face down on a baking sheet. Roast them in a 375-degree oven for approximately 50 minutes, or until the leaves pull away easily. Try this once and you’ll never boil an artichoke again.

Bagna cauda is the essence of simple food shared with friends and family; both warming and fortifying us for the next big storm.

As a child, I thrilled to red and pink paper hearts, inscribed with simple words of love. Today, I give the three-dimensional, edible kind: heart-shaped red velvet cupcakes heaped with extra love in the form of luscious, finger-licking cream cheese frosting. Irresistible!

This moist, rich classic cake will tickle your taste buds with a hint of chocolate and thrill with its festive color. Red velvet cake has been around for almost 90 years, beginning as a signature dessert at New York’s famous Waldorf Astoria hotel. In a land of angel and devil’s food, vanilla and chocolate, this cake stood out like a drop-dead gorgeous lady wearing a hot red dress in a room filled with basic black.

I first made red velvet with the standard recipe that you find everywhere on the web. Its flavor and moisture were OK but not sensational. The screaming color was actually a little scary, and not at all sophisticated. I hit the kitchen and started playing with the ingredients: cake flour, cocoa, salt, sugar, butter, vanilla, buttermilk, baking soda and vinegar. With a few adjustments—mainly swapping out the butter for double the amount of vegetable oil and a bit more sugar—things improved dramatically. An additional tablespoon of cocoa toned down the red color and added more depth of flavor.

Next, bubbles—lots of air bubbles caused by the intensity of multiple acidic ingredients. Since I’d balanced the ingredients as much as possible, brute force seemed the best approach. So, I banged the cake tins on the counter several times to release the bubbles, then ran a knife gently through the batter. Perfection!

As my hearts baked, I made a huge bowl of cream cheese frosting. Once the cakes were thoroughly cool, I piled them high with the frosting and tried selling the beaters to everyone circling me in the kitchen. They were not amused and came at me with their outstretched spoons. Licking my fingers, I had to admit pure love for the baker that invented this stuff. How can anything taste so good?

Love is sweet. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Print a copy of my Red Velvet cake recipe for your convenience.

Leftovers—who says that they have to be boring? At my house a juicy roasted chicken and rice one night often means a big pot of spicy mulligatawny soup the next. No one is ever disappointed.

If you’ve never heard of this beloved Anglo-Indian soup, you’re in for a treat. Indian cooks all have their favorite versions, but the soup basically combines a fragrant curry broth with cooked chicken pieces and rice, fresh lime juice and cilantro. Rich and deeply flavorful, it at once warms the soul and nourishes the body.

I learned how to make mulligatawny soup from my friend Leela Manilal during one of our marathon cooking sessions. We were into the third day of recipe development and had lots of leftovers. Always frugal, Leela stressed the importance of never wasting food but re-working dishes into new and exciting meals the second day.

Everyone at our table that day called mulligatawny “the soup with the funny name,” so Leela patiently coached us in its correct pronunciation. She told us that the name comes from the Tamil language and means “pepper water.” I thought that a tad strange, as there is no pepper in the base recipe (though there is a bit of chile).

Fast forward to my kitchen last Saturday as I prepared lunch for some friends. I find picking chickens for this recipe boring, but am driven forward by the promise of a kitchen filled with the scent of sautéing onions, garlic and ginger. As I stirred in the coriander, earthy cumin, golden turmeric, red chili powder and Turkish bay leaves, my tummy growled with anticipation.

With the soup pot simmering, I decided to set the table on the deck and take full advantage of a small window of warm sunshine on an otherwise dreary day. I covered the table with some beautifully gauzy orange Indian fabric and got out my favorite Jaipur Blue pottery—all hand carried from India over the years. Their brilliant colors and patterns are the perfect contrast for this reddish soup. In this pretty setting, my humble but inspired pot of leftovers became the high point of the weekend; good friends, good food and time to catch up on everyone’s life.

I ladled the piping hot soup into bowls and…

…encouraged my friends to help themselves to rice. None of the guests had ever added rice to soup this way…

…or spritzed in fresh lime juice. Some commented on the taste and beauty of the contrasting green cilantro leaves as they sprinkled them on top. We all inhaled the divine scent with each bite, and agreed that mulligatawny soup is sensational.

Could things get any better? Well yes, they did. I brought out a large basket of warm naan, the Indian flatbread, as a special treat. Some guests dipped it into their soup while other simply devoured it. I told them that I found it in the artisan bread section of my local market, but they could also find it in Indian markets and restaurants.

The afternoon flew by as we savored every last drop of soup. One guest looked at me and laughed, “I guess there won’t be any leftovers today, so you’ll have to create something new tomorrow. Can I come for dinner?”

My friend and cook extraordinaire, Leela Manilal, always enjoys the luscious chocolate desserts at my table—especially the truffles. She asked if I would teach her how to make them, and I knew that my favorite chocolate-Kahlúa truffles would be the perfect place to start. They are easy for beginners and offer a sophisticated depth of flavor that satisfies the most devout truffle lovers, including Leela.

In the kitchen, she spied a large block of chocolate and pitcher of cream on the table. “That’s it? How can two basic ingredients produce perfection?” The secret is in the chocolate. Always use best quality brands like Valhrona, Scharffen Berger or my personal favorite, Barry Callebaut. All are easily available at good grocery stores, online baking supply sites or kitchen stores. Inexpensive supermarket chocolate is not worth your time or money in this instance.

I handed Leela a sharp chef’s knife and showed her how to chop the chocolate into small, uniform pieces so that it would melt evenly. “Barbara, that’s so much chocolate. Is this really necessary?” If you leave large chunks, they won’t melt completely and you could have lumpy truffles.

Lumps seemed almost inevitable when I poured the hot cream over the chocolate. As any experienced truffle maker knows, this step instantly creates an alarming mass of puddles and chocolaty blobs. “Now what?” asked Leela in frustration. “It’s a muddy mess!” I handed her a whisk and reassured her all would be well.

As Leela whisked with a vengeance, I told her how an assistant to culinary great, Auguste Escoffier, invented chocolate truffles when he made a huge mistake in his kitchen over 80 years ago. The assistant was whipping up some chocolate pastry cream and not paying attention as he accidentally poured hot cream over a bowl of chocolate pieces. Sacre bleu! What to do? Soon the melting chocolate absorbed the cream and cooled into the malleable mixture that we know as ganache. Reluctant to waste expensive ingredients, the assistant scooped and formed the ganache into lumpy, bumpy balls and rolled them in cocoa powder. The resulting confection strongly resembled truffles those rare, highly prized fungi dug up in parts of France and Italy. Voila! Chocolate truffles were born.

Today, there are hundreds of truffle variations as cooks flavor them with Grand Marnier, Kahlúa, brandy, whiskey, a variety of wines, liqueurs and extracts and coat them with crushed nuts, cocoa powder, chocolate shavings, sugars and spices—or dip them into warm liquid chocolate.

Soon Leela’s hard work was rewarded, as the mixture came together into a satiny smooth batch of perfect ganache. I handed her a quarter cup of Kahlúa to flavor the mixture. “That isn’t much,” she observed. Therein lies the secret to flavoring truffles: always go easy. There is nothing worse than those that reek of alcohol or send you into hand-flailing contortions with over-the-top taste. Be especially careful with flavorings designed for serious bakers, as they are more intense than the supermarket extracts we are all familiar with.

Once the ganache sets in the refrigerator, creating uniformed sized truffles is easy with a one and one-quarter-inch ice cream scoop. Perfectionist Leela struggled to roll perfectly round balls between her warm hands—with messy results. I laughed as she held up her chocolate-covered hands, looking much like a kid making yummy mud pie. Before long, she learned to embrace the imperfections of a quick scoop, working swiftly to keep the ganache cool, firm and easy to handle. Since this was a lesson, I had Leela roll some of her truffles in chopped pistachios while others got a dusting of cocoa powder. For the tour de force, I gave her a bowl of molten chocolate with two forks for dipping the remaining truffles. To my mind, there is nothing better than double chocolate.

Packing up the truffles was bittersweet because Leela was leaving for her home in New Delhi, India the next day. I slipped a pound of Callebaut chocolate into her suitcase and knew that she would spread the magic of truffles to her family and friends.

Get a printable Chocolate-Kahlúa Truffles for easy reference.

Refer to my illustrated, step-by-step instructions on  How To Chop Chocolate for Melting and How To Melt Chocolate.

When I was a kid, Oreos were my favorite cookies in the whole world. Today, they are the dark crunchy crust of my decadent chocolate mousse pie. It’s a bit more sophisticated but just as memorable. This deep, rich chocolate dessert is my Valentine to you.

As an eater, I’m not sure which gives more pleasure: licking the spoon after folding mounds of freshly whipped cream into liquid chocolate infused with espresso and Kahlúa, or just dipping Oreo cookies into an icy-cold glass of milk, then sucking them dry until the next dip. Chocolate love needs no real thought—it just is.

This pie is a showstopper dessert—the “wow!” both at large gatherings and spoon-to-spoon, one-on-one with your special love. And it gets better—especially for you, the cook—because this pie is easy to assemble and can be conveniently made a day ahead.

To start, you’ll need a 10-inch round springform pan to mold and chill the pie. For Valentine’s Day, I used a special heart-shaped springform that I bought at a local kitchen store. These pans have side latches that make removing the pie in one piece fairly foolproof. After all, who wants all that chocolate love on the floor or in multiple pieces of ugly on the serving plate?

Think you’re too busy to try this? Time is on your side as the crust and mousse are ready in approximately 30 minutes. And while the recipe allows for a quick chill of four to six hours, mousse pie is best when chilled overnight. Now if you are new to cooking or never attempted a dessert like this, don’t be shy. Jump right in and refer to my illustrated, step-by-step cooking techniques and tips for help.

The ingredients are easy: double-chocolate Oreos (any style will work, as there is no wrong Oreo), semi-sweet chocolate chips, espresso powder, Kahlúa, butter, eggs and heavy cream—plus decorations of your choice. My personal Valentines get fresh raspberries, but you could pipe whipped cream on top, add shaved chocolate or colorful holiday candies or sprinkles.

On the day I removed my mousse pie from the refrigerator and outlined it with plump red raspberries, I couldn’t help humming a bit of Janis Joplin, “…come on, come on…take another little piece of my heart…it makes you feel good.”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Refer to my illustrated, step-by-step cooking techniques and tips:

Make a Crumb Crust
Melt Chocolate
Grease and Flour a Cake Pan
Unmold Your Cake from a Springform Pan