Epicurious

Now you can easily make one of your favorite rice dishes from the Indian restaurant. And all it takes is 15 minutes!

The south-of-the-border flavor bursts out of this dish and onto your family's Favorite Dinner list. Let the fiesta begin!

Who doesn't love a flavorful and filling pot pie? Your family will be lining up for seconds when you serve this all-time favorite.

A creamy, cheesy, savory, slow-cooked dish your family will love. No wonder this recipe was a Grand Prize-winner in the Ben's BeginnersTM Cooking Contest.

If your local Chinese restaurant made fried rice like this, you'd want to eat there every day! This recipe brings you the flavors of water chestnuts, La Choy® Soy Sauce, and eggs. Dig in!

Moonpies are traditionally thrown from Mardi Gras floats in New Orleans, and Mobile, Alabama, but with this easy recipe you can make your own chocolate-dipped graham cracker and marshmallow treats to enjoy at home—no parade or crowds required. For more on moonpies and Mardi Gras, see Make Your Own Moonpies.

This recipe traces a familiar path: Slice fruit and nestle it in some caramel, pour cake batter over the top, bake, and unmold. When you flip over the cake, you'll find it's topped with delicious candied orange slices and citrusy caramel. Stressed about that caramel? No need to be. Keep a distant eye on the sugar once you put it on the stove, but don't hover. Chop some vegetables. Check Twitter. Pet the dog. Every so often, swirl the pan to make sure the caramel is cooking evenly. Don't bother stirring (the sugar will only clump up on your spoon). Once the mixture starts to color, swirl it slightly more frequently. When it turns an attractive chestnut brown, take it off the heat, add your premeasured butter and salt (and a splash of booze, if you want), and stir.

To create this Girl Scout cookie–inspired dessert, combine vanilla ice cream with the coconut, caramel, and chocolate cookies known as Samoas or Caramel deLites. The final touch is a drizzle of chocolate and caramel sauces.

Malcolm Livingston II, the pastry chef at WD~50 in New York City, shared this recipe exclusively with Epicurious. What's the inspiration behind this unusual dessert? "Chef Wylie Dufresne said to me, 'We both love root beer, so let's make it come to life as a dessert,' " Livingston explains. The first challenge was finding the right root beer. Livingston and Dufresne tried making their own, and sampled 12 different sodas before finding Fitz's —that's their preferred brand, but feel free to use your favorite. Consistency and texture were the next obstacles. "I wanted to make a pudding that had the consistency of Jell-O pudding, but with more texture, so I crushed up barrel-shaped root beer candies," says Livingston. The candy was combined with milk, milk powder, cornstarch, root beer, and eggs to create a smooth and creamy pudding that Livingston likens to "a solidified root beer float." Use extra caution when grinding the root beer candy, which can be hard on anything but a commercial or high-powered blender.

Wylie Dufresne, chef/owner of Alder and WD~50 in New York City, shared this recipe exclusively with Epicurious. "Modernist cuisine is a mind-set," says Dufresne. "It's a paradigm shift." In this recipe, Dufresne applies his modernist cuisine ideology to shrimp and grits, reimagining the flavors and textures of the classic dish. "I've always been interested in shrimp and grits. When I came across a Shrimp & Grits recipe on Epicurious, from an old issue of Bon Appétit, I thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if we made the shrimp into grits?' Again, the modernist leap here was in the idea, not the technique, which is quite simple." To transform shrimp into grits, Dufresne grinds them in a meat grinder: once when raw, and then two more times after they've been cooked. Corn powder, vegetable stock, and "a healthy knob of butter" help create the creamy, starchy quality of actual grits, while homemade pickled jalapeños lend some heat. "Adding a fried quail egg is optional," says Dufresne, "but makes it much better, of course."

Tami Hardeman, blogger (Running with Tweezers) and creator of these delightful desserts, says of her recipe, "I have to be honest - it's really all about the compote filling that gets folded up into these little pockets. It's chock full of the Indian-inspired spices that I crave with baked fruit: ginger, cardamom, cinnamon. The recipe makes more of this fruit filling than you'll need - save the rest of it in a mason jar for stuffed french toast, some melted brie on toast or stirred into yogurt."

This classic pie combines sweet Red Anjou pears with the subtle tartness of dried apricots and the distinct crunch of pecans.

Start your week off right with this delicious weeknight dinner of pork chops, potatoes, and sauteed pears. This dish will please the entire family - and it makes delicious leftovers, too!

Tender spinach is tossed with sliced fennel bulb and sweet pears in this simple salad that delivers complex flavor. Make it an entree salad by adding 4 ounces of grilled chicken per person.

This simple weeknight dinner brings together the natural sweetness of pears with earthy spinach and juicy chicken cutlets in a simple dish with explosive flavor.

From the kitchen of food blogger Hilary Finch Hutler of tummyrumblr.com comes beautiful and fresh take on a classic salad combination: fruit, nuts, and cheese. Toasted hazelnuts are the perfect match for sweet, ripe pears, and finely grated vintage cheddar cheese adds plenty of interest to the classic buttermilk dressing.

These lettuce wraps put a fresh, modern spin on a favorite Asian appetizer. Spiced with chili sauce, ginger, and garlic, this dish will leave you craving more!