This is how I like to cook saag paneer - chopped spinach, golden-crusted paneer cheese, assertively spices, and finished with toasted sesame seeds and fresh lemon juice.

A sweet little buttermilk pie I made. The filling is pure, creamy, maple-kissed tanginess, and simple to pull together.

Lillet-spiked buttermilk shakes. Just a quick grown-up twist on the classic vanilla milkshake.

A rustic oat soda bread you can make in less than an hour. Seriously. Made from a simple ingredient list of rolled oats, flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk.

A buttermilk farro salad inspired by one I had at Clyde Common in Portland, Oregon - farro with shaved radishes, zucchini, and fennel tossed with a tangy herbed buttermilk vinaigrette.

A nice way to use up a good amount of summer squash. This soup is a soft, pastel shade of yellow, and aside from a hint of tang from the buttermilk, is quite mild in flavor. I finish it with a cumin brown butter drizzle that punches right through the creaminess, and plenty of chopped chives.

Inspired by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's soda bread recipe, this version is made with a blend of spelt flour and all-purpose flour. The dough is littered with seeds - sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, flax seeds, and fennel seeds. It bakes into a perfect, rustic, crusty loaf of bread with relatively little effort.

Poppyseed-flecked and made with a blend of barley, oat, and rye flours, these multigrain waffles are buttermilk-moist with a golden crust and a hint of tanginess.

These muffins are saffron-smacked and riddled with golden raisins, buttermilk battered and barely sweet. Said another way, Lucia buns reinterpreted as muffins. If you love saffron give them a try.

A pureed summer squash soup with a buttermilk twist. I used a hint of red pepper, a bit of rosemary for depth, some potato for body, garlic, shallots - and aside from the buttermilk, nothing too far beyond the usual suspects.

A moist, tender buttermilk cornbread packed with corn kernels and flecked with red pepper flakes. Simple and delicious.

A deliciously unfussy and relatively healthy apple cake recipe. Red-skinned apples punctuate a buttermilk batter and a final sprinkling of sugar before baking lends a nice top crust.

A wonderful coffee cake recipe made from fresh wild huckleberries using maple syrup as a sweetener instead of white sugar.

A rustic, cherry cobbler recipe made from fresh cherries - though you can certainly try this recipe with other types of summer fruit and berries.

A favorite buttermilk cake recipe, I love the way smashed berries bleed into the sugar-crusted top of this cake. Swap in whatever fruit is in season.

Favorite pancake recipe - tall stacks of golden butter-kissed pancakes with the best tasting blueberry maple syrup.

So simple, a fresh ricotta recipe should be part of every cook's repertoire. Made from just two ingredients - buttermilk and whole milk.

A tasty, no-fuss dessert - these might be the best tasting milkshakes ever.