Blender

Sweet yellow peppers are exceptionally rich in vitamin C. Serve the soup either hot for a comforting wintertime meal, or chilled in the warm-weather months.

Pomegranate juice offers powerful antioxidants that strengthen the vascular system. Flaxseed adds a boost of fiber and omega-3 fatty acids.

Serve this no-cook soup straight from the blender when it is still frothy, or well chilled during warmer months. Bright, lemony sorrel makes a nice garnish. If you are unable to find pencil-thin asparagus, trim thicker stalks with a vegetable peeler or paring knife.

You can make this sauce with thawed frozen peas instead of fresh, in which case they don’t need to be blanched.

Papaya supplies hefty doses of vitamin A and enzymes to aid morning digestion.

This salad features Madras curry powder—a blend of spices that includes turmeric, coriander, cumin, and cinnamon, all of which are antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and detoxifiers. Watercress is also a potent detoxifier.

Cherries help prevent inflammation, and blueberries offer antioxidants, including vitamins C and K. African rooibos is a tea that’s high in antioxidants and subtly sweet, but you can also use rose hips, ginger, or hibiscus.

Stuffed with quinoa, black beans, mushrooms, and corn, these peppers make a satisfying vegetarian main course. Poblanos are among the mildest chiles, although they still offer a nice zing. Chipotle chiles are smoked, roasted jalapeños, usually sold in cans with a spicy adobo sauce.

Made with both carrots and carrot juice, this brightly colored soup is loaded with betacarotene. If you don’t have a vegetable juicer, look for bottled carrot juice at your grocery store or health-food market, or better yet, buy it fresh from a juice bar.

The “cream” in this dessert is actually pureed silken tofu, flavored with fresh lemon juice. You can make the puree, cover it, and keep it in the refrigerator for up to three days.

Berries, blended with ice and almonds, make a simple, refreshing dessert that is also packed with fiber and antioxidants. Raspberry and strawberry crushes are shown here (left to right), but blackberries and blueberries would work well, as would cut-up peaches or bananas.

Avocado provides folic acid, fiber, and monounsaturated fatty acids; pear adds extra soluble fiber and sweetness.

Verdant, leafy greens lend this soup a wealth of vitamins and minerals. If using chard, kale, or other hearty greens, remove the thickest center ribs; finely chop the ribs and add to the pot with the other ingredients. Packages of “stir-fry” greens are a quick alternative.

These are the fresh fruit drinks of Mexico that you find at markets everywhere served from large ribbed glass jars. Vendors at Mexican markets will offer licuados of all flavors made from local fruit, sugar, and water in a kaleidoscope of colors—hot pinks and greens from melons, yellow from pineapple, purple from hibiscus blossoms, orange from tangerines. No two licuado stands are alike, and this drink represents, for me, the infinite variety and vitality of Mexican cuisine. If you go to Mexico, be sure to try the local licuado, since each region and locality has its own special tropical fruits and ingredients. I prefer to use cane sugar for licuados as it produces a noticeably brighter fruit flavor. For a more natural sugar, substitute a light agave syrup, using about one-fourth less than for cane sugar. If you have a juicer that both squeezes the fruit and strains the pulp, it will produce a fantastic licuado base with the purest fruit flavor. With really ripe, sweet fruit, decrease the amount of sugar in the recipe.

Refritos—refried beans—are one of the most common side dishes in Mexican and Southwestern restaurants. Finding a good rendition, though, is rare. Most places use flavorless canned beans for a base—already a poor start. And they don’t take the time to slowly cook and stir them to infuse the mixture with flavor and texture. The best refritos are made from beans cooked from scratch with many different seasonings so the beans absorb the flavors and the cooking liquid is intense and balanced. Here are two recipes for refritos. The first is for black beans cooked from a dried state, which takes several hours to prepare. The second requires just forty minutes and uses canned black beans that are already cooked as a base.

If you don’t have time to cook your beans for refritos, for a better base, buy a Mexican brand of canned black beans like La Casteño, which have more flavor, or the Ranch brand, which have been cooked with jalapeños.

“Red or green?” means what color chile sauce do you prefer? It’s the usual question posed to anyone ordering a main course in traditional New Mexican restaurants. This is my version of the favorite cooked green chile sauce served with just about everything in New Mexico and other parts of the Southwest. It pairs well with all kinds of dishes, from eggs to roast beef. Make it hot or hotter by the type of chile you use—up to you. I prefer the fall chiles, roasted when they are turning red from green and a little sweeter.

One herald of fall’s cooler weather in northern New Mexico is the ristra—the strings of ripe, red chiles that hang outside to dry alongside doorways and against brown adobe walls. Once dried, the chiles are stored to use throughout the winter in sauces like this one. This recipe is a classic New Mexican red chile sauce and the perfect stage for a whole range of Southwestern foods or as a base for other, more complex sauces from barbecue sauce to moles to stews.

This green rice is the side dish that we have used at the Coyote Cantina for over twenty years. Its bright balance of herbs and chiles works well with almost every dish because it is not the usual “red-chile Mexican rice.” It tastes of pureed vegetables and chiles, but doesn’t overpower some of the milder tacos. And as most tacos contain smoky grilled flavors, this rice provides a fresh accent, rather than duplication of what’s already there.