Poires Belle Helene is a classic French dessert composed of pears poached in a vanilla syrup served with vanilla ice cream then drizzled with a hot chocolate sauce. It’s a very easy dessert to master and can be easily altered to suit your tastes.

Enjoy this easy-to-bake lemon poppyseed cake. We eat it for breakfast or as an easy dessert. Perfect for when guests are visiting.

Savor the ethereal perfectness of a just-baked madeleine. The slightly warm madeleines with a crispy exterior and a cake-like interior bursting with the bright flavors of fresh lemon.

This easy tuna spaghetti is perhaps my sister Anne’s greatest contribution to the culinary arts. It’s an easy-to-make, quick pasta that literally takes less time to prepare the sauce than it does to cook the pasta. Perfect for busy families on the go. What I love about it is its versatility. You will notice in the ingredient list a number of optional items. Add those, don’t add those. If you don’t like tuna try adding shrimp to the mix or just eat it on its own. Dinner shouldn’t be complicated!

My apple trees are completely covered with ripe fruit ready to pick. As I started pulling a few off I began thinking about how to best use them. When I was a small child my mother use to make a really simple dessert that I adored. She would peel and core an apple then roll it in cinnamon sugar, stuff it with sweetened butter, wrap it in a thin skin of pie pastry, and bake it. It had all the great characteristics we love about apple pies but was quicker to make.

The most flavorful and moist olive oil cake you have ever tried. The recipe is highly adaptable to what you already have on hand in your cupboards.

A few years ago our family visited my cousins Andre and Lolo at their beautiful home in Southern France. The highlight of the visit was when my cousin Lolo made her famous olive bread. It was the best olive bread I had ever eaten. This kind of olive bread is also called cake salé, or savory cakes. Think of a savory coffee cake.

The best thing about tomato tarts is they are very forgiving and can be modified easily based on what you have on hand. I have baked this tart with slices of tangy goat cheese or even shredded gruyere cheese sprinkled over. Or even pulled the hot tart out of my oven and dropped a ball of creamy burrata right on top.

Learn how to easily make French sausages at home. They are not much different than Italian sausages other than the flavorings. In France, these sausages are called saucisses de Campagne or country sausages. They are coarse cut with a highly seasoned filling. Perfect for outdoor eating and grilling.

Quiche Lorraine is perhaps the most famous of all quiches. Purists will tell you that only bacon, cream, and eggs are allowed. Though it is common to find other ingredients like Gruyere cheese, caramelized onions, and even chives. The original quiche Lorraine may not include cheese, but I won’t tell anyone if you decide to add one cup of shredded Gruyere to the mix.

Learn how to make Bostock (a.k.a. Bostok), or toasted almond brioche in English. This is the ultimate dish for a quick and easy breakfast or brunch dish that is guaranteed to impress your guests. In the recipe from my new cookbook, French Cooking for Beginner's, the crunchy, golden-brown slices of rich brioche generously slathered with raspberry jam and velvety almond cream (frangipane) are topped with toasted almonds and fresh raspberries.

Croque Monsieur was invented in Paris in the early 1900s. It appeared on the first menu in 1910 at the Bel Age, a bistro on the boulevard des Capucins in Paris. The exact origin story will never be known and quite frankly who cares. Two quickly researched theories suggest that either a French worker accidentally left his lunch pail near a radiator and it melted his Jambon Beurre, creating the world’s first Croque monsieur.

The other theory is far more elaborate and may involve cannibalism. The story begins with a resourceful brasserie chef who unexpectedly ran out of baguettes, so he substitutes pain de mie, the French equivalent to our white bread. He toasts the bread because the horror of horrors no self-respecting Frenchmen could ever eat bread without a crust. One guest was so enthusiastic about this creation that he inquired the chef about it. The chef sarcastically pointed towards the town butcher, who is conveniently eating at a nearby table and mutters: “that’s Monsieur’s meat”. At the time, Bel Age was rumored to serve human meat so perhaps this story came from an early fake Yelp review.

Socca is the ubiquitous street food found all over southeastern France, most notably in Nice and more specifically around the Cours Saleya market. When cooked perfectly, it is best straight from the pan and served very hot, replete with addictively crispy edges and lightly seasoned with flake sea salt, a touch of cumin, and perhaps a drizzle of olive oil. It makes the perfect merenda, or midday snack, with a bottle of rosé (who drinks just one glass?) to keep you active while searching for treasures in the narrow streets of Vieux Nice.

I don’t know about you but I seriously crave pork rillettes. Those perfectly porky heaps of meaty goodness spread thickly on a slice of toasted bread. They are the world’s most perfect snack foods and can tame a growling stomach in a single bite. Rillettes are equally good at home served with a flute of Champagne before a simple lunch as they are heartily packed onto a warm baguette for a quick lunch on the run. The best news is they can be easily made by any cook in any home kitchen in three easy steps.