Low in calories, delicious, and as inexpensive as they’re going to get: This is the season to have as much asparagus as you desire. Incorporate them into everyday dishes such as eggs and pasta, or make something more special-occasion like risotto. Steam them for a snack. Whatever you do, cook them al dente rather than soft.

Adding asparagus to a recipe is easy: Just grill, sauté, steam or stir-fry the spears.

For pasta and risotto: For a seasonally exciting change, cut asparagus into bite-size pieces, sauté or steam and mix into cooked pasta, risotto or plain rice. You can use the pasta sauce of your choice, or simply toss with good olive oil and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. For more complexity, combine asparagus with mushrooms and/or other green vegetables, including broad beans, broccoli, green beans, spinach and spring peas.

For eggs: Mix al dente cooked and cut spears into omelets or scrambled eggs, or add whole spears to Eggs Benedict, between the Canadian bacon and the eggs.

For salad: Add asparagus to your favorite salad recipe, or create a composed salad of asparagus, beets, hard-cooked eggs, mozzarella and any other appealing ingredients.

 
ASPARAGUS TIP

The thickness and size of the spear has nothing to do with the tenderness of the asparagus. Tenderness is a function of how the plant was grown and how fresh it is—the longer the time since harvest, the less tender.

However, the bottom of the stalk, where it is cut from the ground, is tough. It should be removed before cooking.
  

What happens when you find yourself with a dozen stale donuts? We received two large boxes and forgot to freeze the leftovers. When we returned to them two days later, they were stale.

Smart money might say: through them out or feed them to the birds. We thought: How many ways can we repurpose these donuts?

First: If the donuts are not rock-hard, there are ways to revive them. The first is 20 seconds in the microwave; the second is to place two slices of white bread in a plastic bag with the donuts for several hours or overnight. The moisture from the bread will transfer to the donuts. The dried bread that results can be turned into bread crumbs, croutons or toast.

Or, turn your stale donuts into a different recipe entirely. Here are some suggestions for starters:

 
There are other options we passed by, such as deep-frying the donuts and grinding them into flour for brownie batter. But don’t let that stop you.
  

The chip choices in America are vast. We’ve got bagel chips, beet chips, cassava chips, chickpea chips (hummus chips and falafel chips), corn chips/tortilla chips, lentil chips ([apadums), lotus root chips, pita chips, plantain chips, potato chips, rice chips, salba (chia) chips, taro chips and other grain and veggie chips.

Not to mention bean chips, a relative newcomer that’s packed full of bean fiber and protein.

We’ve tried different brands, but our favorite by far is Beanitos. The newest flavor, and our Top Pick Of The Week, is Restaurant Style Beanitos.

Unlike the rest of the line, which has rich bean flavor, Restaurant Style Beanitos look and taste like restaurant-style tortilla chips.

Why make bean chips that taste like tortilla chips?

It’s a super-popular flavor, and bean chips pack more fiber and protein. If you want deep bean flavor, check out the other flavors at Beanitos.com.

Read the full Beanitos review.

The next time you’re near a cheese store or the cheese department of your market, pick up a crottin, a small goat cheese (often two inches in diameter) shaped like a drum (it’s the signature goat cheese shape of France’s Loire Valley).

Crottins are typically served with a mesclun salad (mixed baby greens), lightly dressed in vinaigrette, as a way to end the meal. It can be divided between two people or eaten as a single portion.

Use whatever greens you have on hand. We prefer to serve goat cheese with with a Champagne, sherry or white vinegarette and good olive oil or an olive oil/nut oil mix (hazelnut oil and walnut oil are absolutely delicious). Other special salad mixes to serve with crottin or other goat cheese:

Crottins are generous individual portions. If you just want a bite of cheese, split a crottin in two. Photo of aged crottin by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

 
There’s no need to serve bread or crackers with the cheese. But if you want to, consider raisin, raisin-walnut or semolina, lightly toasted.

TURN THE CROTTIN INTO “CHEESECAKE”

If you want more of a dessert, simply dress up the crottin. You can use individual crottins or slice a goat cheese log or round to create a dessert that’s essentially a deconstructed cheesecake.

Brush up on the different types of cheeses in our Cheese Glossary.

Find more of our favorite cheeses in our Gourmet Cheese Section.

“Asian pear” is the generic name for more than 25 different varieties† that originated in Asia. In ancient times the fruit was cultivated in what are now China, Japan and Korea.

Asian pear is not a cross between apples and pears, as a name like “apple pear” suggests. That name was conferred because its shape and crisp texture are reminiscent of some varieties of apples. Don’t expect any apple flavor, either: The Asian pear is a true pear, of the genus Pyrus.

Asian pears. Photo courtesy Baldor Foods.

*Names include apple pear, Asian pear, bae (Korean), Japanese pear, Korean pear, li (Chinese), nashi (Japanese; also nashi pear, nashipati or nashpati), sand pear and Taiwan pear. Asian pears are cultivated throughout East Asia, as well as in Australia, New Zealand and other countries.

†The species include Pyrus pyrifolia, Pyrus ussuriensis, P. × bretschneideri, P. × sinkiangensis and P. pashia. Unlike the creamy flesh of Western pear varieties,

 
THE HISTORY OF PEARS

The pear genus is believed to have originated in present-day western China, in the foothills of the Tian Shan mountain range. It evolved into a diverse group of more than 20 widely primary species in Asia, and spread along mountain ranges in prehistoric times to the Middle East and then to Europe.

There is firm evidence of prehistoric cultivation of pear trees in the Stone Age (beginning around 9500 B.C.E.), the period that begins with the rise of farming with stone tools and ending when metal tools engendered the Bronze Age (approximately 3500 B.C.E. to 2000 B.C.E.).

As far back as 5000 B.C.E., Feng Li, a Chinese diplomat, became engrossed in grafting pears and other fruits as a commercial venture and switched careers.

Early colonists brought the first pear trees to America’s eastern settlements, where they thrived until crop blights proved too severe to sustain widespread cultivation. Fortunately, the pear trees brought west to Oregon and Washington by pioneers in the 1800s thrived in the unique agricultural conditions found in the Pacific Northwest.

Here‘s more on the history of pears from the Pear Bureau Northwest.