Sometimes Easter sneaks up on you. (I can hardly believe it\u2019s already April.) And whether you observe the holiday or not, the opportunity to bask in the aura of an L.A. spring Sunday calls for making brunch \u2014 even if it\u2019s last-minute. <\/p>\n
Maybe you stroll through the farmers market (or cruise the produce aisle of the grocery store) and pick up strawberries, asparagus, fresh herbs, new potatoes. You\u2019re most of the way to brunch.<\/p>\n
Making muffins is arguably easier than making pancakes (no standing over the stove flipping them one by one). Some muffin favorites are: More-Berries-Than-Batter Blueberry Muffins<\/a>, Butter Pecan Banana Muffins<\/a> and the recipe for vegan strawberry muffins below with fresh berries and ripples of jam. <\/p>\n Is there a better way to use loads of fresh herbs than the Persian dish kuku sabzi? The recipe below is packed with parsley, coriander, dill, spinach, lettuce, scallions and leeks, with just enough egg to hold it all together when baked.<\/p>\n Try these salads for brunch: Napa cabbage chicken salad<\/a>, a springtime green pea and potato salad<\/a> or chopped crunchy vegetables with yogurt and dukkah<\/a>. <\/p>\n And for all your boiled eggs: Make chef Sang Yoon\u2019s Egg Salad Sando<\/a>, just like the sandwiches from Japanese konbini. <\/p>\n Eating out this week? Sign up for Tasting Notes<\/a> to get our restaurant experts\u2019 insights and off-the-cuff takes on where they\u2019re dining right now.<\/p>\n Vegan Strawberry Muffins<\/p>\n This tender vegan strawberry muffin, which were on the menu at Go Get Em Tiger cafes, are fast and easy. There are swirls of strawberry jam through the batter with fresh-cut fruit on top. Coconut oil and macadamia milk bring richness to the two-bowl batter, which comes together quickly and bakes into muffins that are super-soft and taste delicious whether or not you\u2019re vegan. (Mariah Tauger\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Orange and Mustard-Marinated Asparagus<\/p>\n Cookbook author Lukas Volger uses this marinade for super-fresh springtime asparagus: orange juice, orange zest, mustard and thyme. Toss it with just-tender asparagus (poached for just a few minutes then shocked in an ice bath). He makes his own stovetop maple-ale mustard, but you can use Dijon or any other hot or horseradish mustard if that\u2019s what you\u2019ve got on hand. Buffalo Corn with Bacon and Egg<\/p>\n Former cooking editor Genevieve Ko douses corn with hot sauce made for Buffalo chicken. The tangy, spicy sauce highlights the sweetness in corn that\u2019s been seared in bacon fat. Splash extra sauce on the fried eggs to swirl into the runny yolks. Ko also offers vegetarian and vegan options, made with butter or olive oil and smoked paprika, respectively. Blue cheese and sliced chiles optional. Like anyone who has ever tried the Caesar-like kale salad at Barbuto in New York, contributor Carolynn Carre\u00f1o had fallen in love with it. She asked the chef Jonathan Waxman: What kind of kale<\/a> do you use? \u201cCurly kale,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s gotta be curly kale.\u201d The curls, when sliced, are what allow the kale not to fall into a dense pile. Instead, like Easter basket grass, the curly kale, even when dressed, has volume; there is light and air between the strands, giving a necessary levity to the intensely flavored leaves. (Juliana Yamada\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Chickpea, Cauliflower and Tomato Salad with Sumac Yogurt<\/p>\n This salad highlights the technique of oven roasting at high temperature. The flavors of the cauliflower and cherry tomatoes develop and become concentrated while the chickpeas get nicely crisped. Cool yogurt with a zing of garlic rounds out the trio, while the sumac lends its fruity-tart and tannic zest. (Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Kuku Sabzi (Persian Greens Frittata)<\/p>\n Kuku is the perfect thing to make if you\u2019ve just come back from your local farmers market, bags filled with fragrant herbs and other greenery. Parsley and coriander, dill and spinach, lettuce and scallions, leeks and fenugreek \u2014 it can all go into a bowl, from there into a cast iron pan, and ultimately, onto your table. It can be made ahead of time and is great at room temperature. (Glenn Koenig \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Crunchy and Spicy Green Potato Salad<\/p>\n The dressing for this fresh spring potato salad is inspired by zhoug, the fiery chile sauce from Yemen that goes well on basically anything. Serrano chiles add heat, but you can tame them by removing the seeds from as many chiles as you want. Try leaving three seedless and one with seeds. Otherwise, there\u2019s no spice to help brighten the potatoes, cucumbers and snap peas. While cardamom may seem an odd addition to a potato salad, it\u2019s an essential element in zhoug and provides a pleasing scent to this salad. (Shelby Moore\/For the Times)<\/p>\n Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake<\/p>\n This cake is fluffy, supremely moist and has a grown-up vibe about it: not kiddie stuff. The buttermilk in the cake adds even more tang and is essential to the rise and delicate crumb. (Mariah Tauger\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Pistachio Lemon Olive Oil Cake<\/p>\n This olive oil cake from Valerie Confections is moist and nutty with plenty of good olive oil and pistachio flour. Fresh lemon zest offers a blast of citrus. But what really sets this cake apart is the sprinkle of sumac, coriander and fleur de sel atop the sweet lemon glaze. (Silvia Razgova\/For The Times)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You are reading our Cooking newsletter Sign up to get a taste of Los Angeles \u2014 and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[51804,51810,4462,51808,51805,2882,51803,2303,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,5463,51809,51807,38221,51806,315],"class_list":{"0":"post-252823","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-caribbean-recipe","9":"tag-curry","10":"tag-dish","11":"tag-good-caribbean-restaurant","12":"tag-hot-sauce","13":"tag-hour","14":"tag-jerked-catfish","15":"tag-l-a","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-la-headlines","18":"tag-la-news","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","21":"tag-los-angeles-news","22":"tag-los-angeles-times","23":"tag-minute","24":"tag-restaurant-expert","25":"tag-scotch-bonnet-pepper","26":"tag-spice","27":"tag-spice-courtesy","28":"tag-time"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Get the recipe.<\/a>
Cook time: 1 hour. Makes 1 dozen.<\/p>\n![\"Vegan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775388370_362_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Get the recipe.<\/a>
Cook time: 30 minutes. Serves 4 to 6.<\/p>\n
Get the recipe.<\/a>
Cook time: 20 minutes. Serves 4. <\/p>\n![\"Seared](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775388370_770_.jpeg\")
You\u2019re-Using-The-Wrong-Kale Salad<\/p>\n
Get the recipe.<\/a>
Cook time: 30 minutes. Serves 4 to 6.<\/p>\n![\"Carolynn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775388371_922_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Get the recipe.<\/a>
Cook time: 1 hour. Serves 4. <\/p>\n![\"Chickpeas,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775388371_692_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Get the recipe.<\/a>
Cook time: 1 hour 20 minutes. Serves 6 to 10.<\/p>\n![\"Persian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775388371_81_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Get the recipe.<\/a>
Cook time: 45 minutes plus chilling time. Serves 8.<\/p>\n![\"Green](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775388372_783_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Get the recipe.<\/a>
Cook time: 1 hour 15 minutes. Serves 12 to 16.<\/p>\n![\"Lemon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775388372_463_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Get the recipe.<\/a>
Cook time: 1 hour plus cooling time. Makes 1 (9-inch) cake.<\/p>\n![\"Pistachio](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775388372_862_.jpeg\")
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