The Recipe Club is your community for cookbooks: great recipes and inside stories with chefs and the people who make the cookbooks you love.

Last week, we decided to throw ourselves a little birthday party to celebrate the Recipe Club’s one year anniversary. Can you believe we’ve been up and running for a whole year? It’s flown by so quickly! To celebrate, Allison and I each made some treats from some of our new spring cookbooks to share with the office. One of my contributions was making these Toasted Almond Coconut Macaroons from One Girl Cookies (Clarkson Potter, January 2012).

Japanese culinary authority Elizabeth andoh wondered what she could do to help those in the devastated Tohoku region. Eager to preserve the area’s rich culinary heritage while nourishing the morale of displaced residents, she began writing KIBŌ (“Brimming with Hope”): Recipes & Stories from Japan’s Tohoku (Ten Speed Press, February 2012). Read in Elizabeth’s own words about the birth of Kibo, an eBook original from Ten Speed Press.

In Mexico City, you can find fideo tacos in almost any taquería. A thin pasta very similar to angel hair, fideos are usually broken up and then either cooked and served in a soup or prepared seco, or dry, very much like a rice pilaf, as in this recipe from Mexican Made Easy (Clarkson Potter, 2011) by Food Network star Marcela Valladolid. Simply sauté the pasta in a little oil, then add a tomato-based sauce and cook until it’s absorbed. To add some protein to this carb-inside-a-carb dish, just stir some shredded cooked chicken into the pasta before you make the tacos.

Recently, I hosted one of my best friends from college for a visit over a long weekend. Elizabeth and I had a busy, fun-filled weekend of visiting museums, enjoying dinners out at amazing restaurants, taking in a Broadway musical, and lots and lots of walking. By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, we were completely exhausted in the best of ways and decided that rather than go out that evening, we’d have a nice night in. After carefully examining my cookbook shelf, we picked out Weeknight Bolognese from Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That? (Clarkson Potter, 2010) by Ina Garten.

It’s Valentine’s Day! Still stumped on what sweet to make your sweetie? Good thing we have a recipe that can be whipped up in a jiffy–these chocolate chip cookies from River Cottage Every Day take just 10 minutes to make and 10 minutes to bake!