Star Chef Moms

Traci Des Jardins created this refreshing salad to showcase one of her favorite Latin ingredients, the avocado. She tasted her first avocado during a visit to her Grandma Salazar in Mexico; she would snack on it at taco and fruit stands on the street, where it is typically served with fresh lime juice and chile salt.

Lidia Bastianich stuffs homemade ravioli with ricotta, leeks, scallions and spinach, then serves it in a butter-sage sauce. An easier way is to deconstruct the ravioli by mixing pappardelle with all the ingredients in the filling (except the labor-intensive leeks).

Typically, a fricassee is made with chicken or another kind of white meat stewed in a white sauce with vegetables. For her version, Katy Sparks sizzles chicken in butter until it’s crisp, then cooks it with shallots and morels, finishing with lemon for a hit of tartness.

This vibrant dish, layered with arugula, bright white slices of ricotta salata and strips of salty serrano ham, is the sort of composed salad that Suzanne Goin uses to showcase seasonal ingredients.

This piquant dish from Lidia Bastianich’s Missouri restaurant, Lidia’s Kansas City, is one of our favorite ways to prepare skinless chicken breasts.

Suzanne Goin (an F&W Best New Chef 1999) is beloved in Los Angeles. She accents leg of lamb with a flavorful mustard crust.

This recipe by Lidia Bastianich is already incredibly simple; just be sure to buy sushi-grade tuna fillets.

“I top fresh ricotta with cherries that I’ve picked in the spring and frozen. The cherries absorb the natural sweetness of the port,” explains pastry chef Gale Gand about one of her favorite three-ingredient desserts.

In her version of lemon meringue pie, Gale Gand forgoes a traditional crust for quick-baked sheets of sugared phyllo dough, which she layers with house-made lemon curd and a brown-sugar meringue.