Given that I own at least a thousand cookbooks and have files stuffed with recipes I intend to make “one of these days,” it can feel like a guilty pleasure to revisit a recipe. I should be expanding my repertoire, or scrolling TikTok to see what’s trending. Instead I’m looking back and recalling some favorite spring dishes—with cheese, of course!—that have entered my personal Hall of Fame. A friend told me recently that she had lost the desire to cook, but I think the desire to eat something wonderful can cure that. I hope these five spring recipes will lure you into the kitchen over the next few weeks.

Let’s start with dessert, because life is short—but if you want to eat your Caramel Ricotta Flan for breakfast, I’m down with that. Blood orange segments love the caramel sauce, but I’ll switch to strawberries, raspberries or peaches when they’re in season. A superb recipe from Michele Scicolone’s A Fresh Taste of Italy.

An Italian friend introduced me to frittata with leftover spaghetti, a genius recipe born of frugality. But this Pasta Frittata is Greek, with the generous presence of feta to prove it, and it’s cooked in butter on both sides until crusty. This is Yaya (Greek grandma) cooking at its best.

Passover is imminent (it starts April 5) and, with it, an eight-day matzo marathon for observant Jews who forgo leavened bread during that time. Of all the work-arounds cooks have devised to accommodate the annual restriction, the hands-down winner is matzo brei—sheets of softened matzo mixed with beaten egg and fried. Scrambled eggs meets French toast, sort of. It’s hard to describe but easy to love and I made it for decades before thinking to add cheese. You don’t have to be Jewish to love this matzo brei (with asparagus!) and you definitely don’t have to limit it to Passover.

If you celebrate Easter, put a cheese-stuffed Star Bread on your table this year. And if you don’t celebrate Easter, make it anyway. It’s much easier than it looks and great for your self-esteem. People will tell you you’re ready for the baking big leagues.

Spring is prime time for fresh cheese; pasture is lush and milk production is high. We’re all familiar with fresh goat cheese and know where to find it, but keep an eye out for some of the new fresh, rindless sheep cheeses, like the excellent ones from Green Dirt Farms and Bellwether Farms. Put them to great use in Cakebead Cellars chef Brian Streeter’s Crostini with Garden Carrots, Fresh Cheese and Dukkah — a perfect hors d’oeuvre to enjoy with spring’s first rosés.