• Kelly Davis
• Tempeh and Qunioa Stir-Fry

Stir-fries are the first thing I think of when I get a hankering for an Asian-inspired meal. They're so incredibly simple, healthy, and easy to make. You can literally make a stir-fry with most anything in your fridge. Well, except leftover birthday cake. What I mean to say is that you can make a stir-fry with most any vegetable, grain, and protein in your fridge.

• Kelly Davis
• The simplicity of a stir-fry

When I first started cooking meals for myself as a junior in college, stir-fries were one of my go-to's (Note to Mom: I did eat actual meals in college, Mom. They were just of the easy-mac and dining hall variety).

Back then, I lacked creativity. Every stir-fry, without fail, consisted of chicken, rice, green peppers and soy sauce. It was only more recently that I've changed my stir-fries up quite a bit, and that includes adapting my sauce of choice (soy sauce) to something a bit more unique. Trust me, fig jam sounds a bit odd in a stir-fry recipe, but I assure you, it's very tasty and adds a slight sweetness that makes this dish.

In this particular recipe, I chose the powerhouse duo of protein: tempeh and quinoa, but if you prefer chicken, by all means, use chicken. If you would rather enjoy the traditional rice, feel free to make that substitution as well.

Stir-fries are flexible like that.

When warm weather rolls around, I love to making fresh salsa for parties, cookouts, or just any ol' weekday dinner. The essential definition of salsa is a spicy sauce of chopped, usually uncooked vegetables or fruit, especially tomatoes, onions, and chili peppers, used as a condiment. Fruit is an especially tasty and creative way to take salsa to the next level. And since strawberries are so abundant right now, I decided to use them this week to make a sweet and savory salsa.

• Kelly Davis
• Strawberry Salsa

This delicious, and might I add gorgeous, salsa is a wonderful way to incorporate fruit and vegetables into your meal simultaneously. You can eat it with some tortilla chips, add it to fish tacos, or spoon it over some grilled chicken.

I was extra creative today at lunch and spooned it over a spinach salad with chickpeas and feta cheese. The options are endless!

Besides just about anything chocolate, fruit cobblers are my very favorite dessert. There's just something about crusty dough and sweet fruit served steaming hot with cold vanilla ice cream. I'm a big fan of hot and cold foods served together which explains my undying love of cobbler à la mode.

• Kelly Davis
• Super Simple Strawberry Cobbler

No one seems to believe me when I say that my family's cobbler recipe is so extremely easy. Cross my heart and hope to die. It's so easy, a 7-year-old with a basic grasp of measuring cups could make this, if a parent was willing to operate the oven.

• Kelly Davis
• Strawberry Cobbler

For this week's recipe, I used fresh fruit. Strawberries are so fresh and cheap right now, I'd be a fool to use anything else. In fact, one of the things I love most about this recipe is that frozen fruit works so well in it, which means you can enjoy most any kind of fruit cobbler, even in the wasteland of winter when fresh local fruit is nonexistent.

Last week I brought you a delectable strawberry treat, just right for breakfast or dessert. Well, I must have scrumptious breakfasts on the brain because we're not straying far just yet.

Let's talk muffins.

I absolutely adore making muffins on the weekends. I mix everything up in a bowl, throw the batter in some muffin papers, and bake. Then I have breakfast for several days all ready to go. Muffins are delicious and easily adaptable for whatever fruit (and even sometimes veggies) are in season.

• Kelly Davis
• Strawberry Banana Muffins

What dessert do you imagine when you think of Easter dinner?

• Kelly Davis
• Coconut Pie

(Side note for you non-Southerners: Dinner is eaten in the evening most nights, but when lunch is large, we call it dinner, then the evening meal is called supper. But you can call the evening meal supper any ol' time too.)

Coconut cake is traditional Easter fare in my family, and it seems that other families aren't so different from mine. Whether it's my grandmother's three-layer coconut cake made with sour cream or my mom's coconut bunny cake (that's coconut cake in the shape of a bunny), I consume coconut, butter and sugar in some form or fashion every Easter Sunday.

But here's the thing -- I'm not really into making cake.

If you know me, you know that I'm a cook, not a baker. Although I can bake sufficiently when I put my mind to it, cooking is so much more fun for me. Baking is too precise, and cake is way too finicky for my adventurous kitchen spirit.

But every once in a while, you just have to make dessert. Goodness knows I like to eat it, so every once in a while, I bite the bullet, roll up my sleeves, and bake something. And it is during these times that I tend to choose pie over cake.

Why do we consume certain things at certain holidays? Like turkey on Thanksgiving, cookies at Christmas, beer on St. Patty's Day, watermelon on July 4th ...

Growing up at my house, chicken, roast, steak, and pork chops were everyday entrees, but not ham. Oh no. Ham was saved for Christmas and Easter.

• Kelly Davis
• Honey Glazed Ham

A quick search on Google and I learned that this became an American tradition because pigs are typically slaughtered in the fall and cured pork is typically was ready for eating around Easter. So serving ham is a seasonal convenience. I also learned that serving ham on Easter is a Northern European tradition, while the rest of Europe typically eats lamb. Even with our modern conveniences of being able to eat what we want, when we want it, we continue to observe this tradition of eating ham during special times of the year.

Now, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I've never cooked a ham before.