Rice & Grains

Candied orange peel is the star of this granola.

Caravan of Dreams is one of the restaurants where my family likes to eat when we're in New York City. It's a funky, comfortable place in the East Village, with food that's hearty and innovative (and all vegan). Once, my younger son ordered the Green Garden Platter, described as "seasonal mixed greens sautéed with grilled marinated seitan, garlic, and olive oil, topped with grilled carrot polenta in mushroom gravy." I was intrigued by the combination of seitan and polenta, so when I got home, I made my own version, which bears little resemblance to the restaurant's. There's something enticing about seitan/polenta synergy, and with the addition of greens, the result is a great-looking, hearty dish.

PAT You won't find a collard green—or a green of any kind, for that matter—that Gina hasn't mastered and found a dozen ways to cook. She's queen of the twists on greens. The idea for this particular twist came from stuffed cabbage with a vinegary red sauce—but we think this is even better than that recipe. Don't you?

Shrimp are a great go-to for lowfat protein. Opt for those farmed in the United States: Foreign farms use potentially harmful antibiotics and chemicals.

This rich, soufflé-like dressing derives its texture from stone-ground grits.

You can substitute any color of rice or quinoa to make this gorgeous (and healthful) salad, which works as a vegetarian main course or hearty side dish.

The big flavors of Mark Overbay's artisanal Big Spoon Roasters nut butters inspired his partner, Megan Lynam, to create this instant favorite. The complex nuttiness comes from the addition of ground pecans to the mix.

Cooking times for wild rice vary from brand to brand by as much as 30 minutes. We recommend using Grey Owl Canadian Lake (greyowlwildrice.com).

Soybeans are the only complete vegetable protein, delivering all nine of the amino acids that help build fat-burning muscle.

Highway 84 runs from Santa Fe to Colorado. About forty minutes north of Santa Fe, the highway cuts a paved path through Ohkay Owingeh, a Native American reservation, and the roadside becomes dense with fast-food outlets, outposts of national grocery chains, Walmart, and billboards for Ohkay Casino, Hutch and Norma Naranjo's sprawling midcentury home is set about fifty years back from the road, a shrine to the tug-of-war between new ways and traditional ones. In the backyward Mr. Naranjo built two hornos (behive-shaped adobe ovens). Inside the house, a handmade wreath of dried chiles hangs on one wall and a string of made-for-tourists ceramic peppers on another. A naïve painting of St. Francis hangs not far from a cluster of the dream catchers that the couple and their two grown children fashion from string, feathers, and yarn, just as their Pueblo ancestors did. "We go to church one Sunday and dance the traditional dances the next," said Mrs. Naranjo. A retired social worker, she gives cooking classes and does a little catering. But she spends most of her mornings working the two-acre minifarm where she grows vegetables from seeds that have been passed from one Pueblo generation to another for at least a thousand years. "The history of our people is in those seeds," she says. In the evenings, when her husband builds hornos on the terraces of hotels and McMansions, Mrs. Naranjo visits the elderly women in Ohkay Owingeh, who remember life and cooking when it was closer to the land, and collects their recipes and food stories. "Our history lives in our hands as well," she says. Mrs. Naranjo moves with the efficiency of a modern professional as she smooths cornmeal paste on damp cornhusks. Tiny white kernels from several ears of heirloom corn, and diced green chiles and squash, along with a thick, bloodred chile sauce and shredded fresh cheese, are lined up in small stainless-steel bowls at the head of her tamale assembly line. She notes that tamales were stuffed with rabbit, venison, pork—whatever people had. Vegetable tamales were a fine way to make use of the gardens' overflowing crops. She swathes the dough, sprinkles filling, folds, ties, and places the tamale bundles on a rack set over water in a big enameled pot. From time to time, she glances out the window to the backyard, where her husband is feeding small, dry sticks into this new four-by-four horno. Her smaller tamales are, she says, her only concession to modernity: "People love the little ones as snacks, and Hutch and I love them in these green chile stews we make in the horno."

Editor's note: Use this recipe to make Norma Naranjo's Tamales . Mrs. Naranjo says, "A lot of these traditional dishes are being modernized. You see chefs putting spices and things in their red chile. My grandmother only used salt. I only use salt. This sauce can also be used to make red meat chile or chile filling for tamales, or to give thickness and smoky fire to other soups and stews."

Chef Ashley Christensen serves this jam with cheese and thinly sliced country ham or prosciutto as a sweet-and-salty starter.

"Talk to most chefs and they'll say they'd want a perfectly roasted chicken for their last meal," says Sean Brock. For his definitive version, Brock starts with superflavorful heritage-breed chickens, but the key to the dish is prepoaching the bird in an immersion circulator. Because most home cooks don't have access to this equipment, we adapted the recipe to work in a home kitchen.

Rice grits are a by-product of milling Carolina Gold rice. Find them at ansonmills.com or grind your own. To learn how, go to bonappetit.com/go/ricegrits.

At Peels in New York City, chefs Preston and Ginger Madson tweak this Low Country favorite with two secret ingredients: a little Budweiser and a lot of tasso, a Cajun-spiced ham, which you'll find at specialty foods stores and cajungrocer.com. You can sub in andouille sausage if tasso is not available.

Farro, an ancient Italian grain similar to barley, is available at specialty foods stores and Italian markets.

Humble rice pudding gets a serious makeover with the addition of flavorful, fat-grained Carolina Gold rice and a glassy, sugared brûlée crust.