One of the first new recipes I tried this fall was Butternut Squash Ravioli in Cider Broth. If you are interested in learning how to make your own ravioli, you can learn from this instructive recipe. Or follow my lead and simply use it as a cue for how to serve Whole Foods’ delicious pasta pillows stuffed with squash or pumpkin–floating in a slightly sweet but ultimately savory broth. My version of this dish pairs nicely with a mixed green salad accented by pears, nuts, and dried cranberries; you can have a festive meal on the table in less than 20 minutes.

I’m finally adjusting to the family’s new fall schedule. On several days in a regular week I have a block of time in the late morning or early afternoon, but the dinner hour feels tremendously rushed. I must not be alone, because my inbox has been packed with ideas for casserole dishes and crockpot meals–great saviors of the time-pressed cook.

I have a friend whose husband simply will not eat anything served in a casserole dish because they are “declassé.” Ahem. Meals baked “en casserole” can have endless personalities, from the canned soup concoctions of the 1950s to more complicated, delicate versions with from-scratch sauces. Baked Sesame Chicken Noodles are a perfect fit for families that like Asian flavors but don’t want to waste time, money, and calories on unhealthy Chinese takeout. This dish needs nothing more than a steamed green vegetable on the side, and it’s very unusual for a casserole idea.

One of my go-to recipes when I need to make something ahead and feed a crowd is Creamy Mac, Chicken, and Cheese, which is coated with a simple from-scratch sauce, laced with cream and parmesan. Serve with mixed greens dressed in a mustardy vinaigrette, a glass of chianti to the right of your plate. Declassé? I think not, but you decide.

Fall is the perfect time of year to experiment with more complicated cooked side dishes and vegetables. Whereas summer produce lends itself well to all kinds of simple salads, the fall bounty needs a little bit more coaxing to make it shine. My strategy for getting a savory dinner on the table is to make two-thirds of the meal very simple and then fuss over just one component. Roast Chicken is a very simple meal on its own, leaving your hands free to stir up Creamy Winter Greens Gratin or Butternut Squash Fries.

I make at least one soup or stew per week in the colder months. Chicken and Wild Rice Soup pleases my whole family, but Dijon Chicken Stew with Potatoes and Kale is appropriate for serving fireside to your favorite friends on game night. Autumn Minestrone is a great launch pad for me and my Le Creuset to make use of the knobby-skinned delicata squash in my CSA share. Sometimes a little kielbasa lands in there, thus making it the farthest thing from minestrone imaginable, but more of a bastard child of Portuguese and Polish parents. I always vary the vegetables based on what I have. I don’t recommend using straight water as the liquid for this vegetable soup–your end product will not have much flavor. Use your favorite vegetable or chicken stock instead.

Ready to warm up your oven? Muffins and coffee cakes such as Cranberry Apple Coffee Cake are great for beginning bakers. They’re usually pretty fast to throw together and can make Sunday morning feel a little more festive. You can sneak some whole grains into your family this way, too, and feel a little less guilty about the sweet breakfast treats.

Enjoy fall in the kitchen–before the first snowflake falls!

Read more by Robin Horrigan

Robin Horrigan writes the column Cooking from the Carpool Lane. She lives on Boston’s south shore and is a stay at home Mom to Ryan, seven, and Maegan, three. Her fascination with cooking sprouted from watching Julia Child cook on a little black and white TV; Robin helped her Mom in the kitchen until she was old enough to ask Santa for her very own copy of The Joy of Cooking. She experiments with all kinds of cooking and baking, from quick weeknight dinners and easy cookies to long simmering weekend stews and complicated, fancy desserts. Ryan thinks if his Mom will ever be famous, it will be “for her awesome cookies.” Her friends say it will be for the cocktails. Either way, if she’s not doing volunteer work or shopping for shoes, you’ll probably find her in the kitchen. Robin’s favorite recipe.

Photo courtesy of joiseyshowaa (flkr)

My husband’s favorite dish happens to be “casserole” (I knew this when I married him, so I’ve had some time to get used to it)–and he is not particular about what goes in it. But I’ve searched high and low for recipes that pass my test. They must be easy to prepare and somewhat healthy, but most of all flavorful and using some fresh ingredients. Here are a few comforting casseroles I’ve uncovered (pardon the pun!).

• Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina (Food Network / Giada)
• Baked Pasta with Spinach, Ricotta, and Prosciutto (Martha Stewart)
• Cheesy Baked Shells and Broccoli (Real Simple)
• Curry Chicken Pot Pie (Food Network)
• Baked Sesame Chicken Noodles (Cooking Light)
• Not Your Mama’s Green Bean Casserole (Food Network)
• More casserole recipes

What are your favorite fall and winter casserole recipes?

Sarah Fullerton, content marketing & editing. Armed with a masters in journalism from Northwestern, a passion for all things cooking, and a perpetual oven mitt, Sarah loves nothing more than to camp out in the kitchen with a new recipe, interpret it creatively (a dash of this, a dash of that), and then surprise her husband and daughter, her friends, and herself with the results. Sarah’s favorite recipe. She can be contacted at sarah [at] plummelo [dot] com.

Over Thanksgiving seven years ago, my husband suggested we get a crock pot. I have no idea where this came from since this is the man who cooks nothing but the occasional Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas roast. But I thought he was onto something. After all, we had an infant at the time and another mom friend of mine had been raving about the simplicity of dinner in the slow cooker prepared during naptime.

Next thing I knew, the slow cooker appeared under the Christmas tree, complete with a recipe book that I think contributes to the negative image of the slow cooker (read: lots of recipes using cans of soup and cheese sauce). I was a bit hesitant about embracing the crock pot, as I had a notion that they were relics leftover from the 1970s. But slow cookers seem hip now, with Williams-Sonoma selling $300 All-Clad versions and a plethora of more sophisticated cookbooks to maximize their results.

We are in prime slow cooker season, so I have been testing some recipes recently. Last weekend I made Real Simple’s Slow Cooker Smoky Pea Soup. The whole family enjoys split pea and ham soup, and true to its name, this one was really simple to make, and was tasty though it felt like cheating. Confession: technically I did cheat since I did not use a ham hock; I used a diced ham steak, but the results are equally good. It also provided enjoyable lunch leftovers for a few days.

Speaking of cheating, here is my favorite slow cooker trick: pulled pork. We invited some good friends over for a casual Sunday dinner a few weeks ago. I decided to make pulled pork in the slow cooker. I literally placed a boneless pork loin roast in the slow cooker and covered it with a bottle of barbecue sauce, put the lid on and let it go for about 7 hours. Once cooked, I shredded it, tossed it in the sauce, and served it on yummy, oversized pretzel rolls. Our friends raved. I had to confess it was a complete cheater’s meal. This dinner of pulled pork sandwiches, roasted sweet potato wedges and a green salad required literally a 5-item purchase at Trader Joe’s: the meat, the barbecue sauce, the rolls, a bag of sweet potatoes and a bag of salad!

Maybe next time I shouldn’t confess just how easy the slow cooker makes my life and just let everyone think I’ve been slaving over a hot stove all day.

Photo credits:

Today I overcame one of my longtime cooking fears. I’m sure many of you can relate — I tend to shy away from (read: avoid like the plague) recipes with more than, say, 10 ingredients.

But I adore a good eggplant parmesan so much, and I needed to have it so much, that in the end I was willing to do what it takes to accomplish the homemade flavor. I had saved Bobby Flay’s recipe to my Plummelo weeks ago, but kept staring at it with intimidated eyes. No, not this week. Too many ingredients. But at a certain point, you just need to have the eggplant parm. I reached that point.

My husband had done the grocery shopping this past weekend. Somewhat surprisingly, he returned with two lovely eggplants (he tends to bring home about 90 percent of what is on the list). The pretty purple guys stared at me from their lofty shelf in the fridge for a few days. Too many ingredients…

But today was their day.

Let me digress. I live in the North End, a quaint neighborhood that is Boston’s Little Italy. It is a place where people still shop (and vendors still sell) for their ingredients separately… the meat from the butcher, the vegetables from another guy, the cheese and cold cuts from the salumeria. To me, there is so much joy and old-fashionedness in procuring my ingredients from the specialty sellers. They know their stuff, and they have the highest quality ingredients. Quite often, they are also at competitive prices. But today I spent $30 on cheese. Fontina, two types of mozzarella, and parmesan. As the cheesemonger was serving up my portions, he inquired as to their ultimate destination, “What are you going to make?” “Eggplant parmigiana,” I said. “How many are you cooking for?” And I sheepishly replied, “Two.”

I spent $30 on cheese? And so it goes.

With my 20 or so ingredients on hand, I began. It required a good deal more attention and stamina than my standard five ingredient recipes, but none of it was as difficult as I had feared. It was a journey, and I aimed to enjoy the whole process. There was dicing, slicing, boiling, dredging, whisking, stirring, layering, and baking.

And then there was eating. (We called over some friends to share in the eating.)

My conclusion? It was worth the investment of time, and I tasted each one of my 20 ingredients.

Do you have any cooking fears you want to overcome? Share them with us.

All photos by Sarah Fullerton

You might want to pull it out of hiding. The slow cooker can be a busy person’s best friend, especially if yours comes with a removable pot that allows you to do the meal prep work at night, then pop the pot into the base the next morning to get the cooking started.

I enjoy making many things in my slow cooker, and nothing beats coming home after a long day at work to a hot meal that I didn’t have to spend hours cooking. Slow cooker meals also use fewer pots and pans, meaning quicker cleanup.

This time of year, soup provides an easy way to serve a complete meal that is healthy, economical, soul soothing, and provides leftovers that taste even better the next day. Chicken soup is the gold standard of soups, but there are certainly variations to jazz it up, which I highlight below.

Here is a basic recipe I use for slow cooker chicken soup, plus three ways you can take a chicken soup base and create an entirely new dish.

The night before you will be cooking the soup, prepare all of your ingredients by chopping the chicken and vegetables. Place the vegetables in your slow cooker pot (if removable; if not just use a bowl and transfer in the morning) and store in the refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, pour the stock over the vegetables, add the chicken, olive oil, and pepper. If you are cooking for less than four hours, use the high setting on your slow cooker. Otherwise, set it to the lowest setting. Half an hour to an hour before you are ready to eat, switch the setting to high. Ensure the chicken is fully cooked before serving.

Serve soup with whole grain rolls and salad for a filling winter dinner.

Here are three easy variations on the basic chicken soup recipe:

Italian style: before cooking, pour in a can of drained, rinsed white beans and 2 cups chopped escarole. Before serving, place a scoop of pesto, jarred or homemade, in the bottom of each bowl. The heat of the soup will melt the pesto and bring its basil and garlic flavors throughout the entire bowl.

Mexican style: before cooking, pour in a can of drained, rinsed black beans, a jar of salsa, and chopped jalapenos (if you are adventurous). For presentation and a delicious crunch, cut flour tortillas into thin strips, sauté in olive oil until golden, and arrange on top of the soup.

Thai style: before cooking, grate 3 tsp. ginger root into the rest of the soup ingredients along with 2 tsp. red curry paste. Before serving, add a can of coconut milk and juice of one fresh lime and stir thoroughly.

Soup can be made a little more fun for kids by adding alphabet pasta, something that our mom did when we were little.

Leftovers are good for up to three days (in the refrigerator). The soup can also be frozen in single-serve containers and reheated at a later date.

Stay warm and healthy this winter with an easy soup that is ready for you at the end of a busy day. What else do you like to make in your slow cooker?

Meghan Malloy is a guest blogger for Plummelo. She works as a Marketing Communications Manager in the publishing industry. On the side, she writes the blog Travel Eat Love, for the love of food, wine, travel, and the everyday adventures in life. She resides in Boston, MA with her husband and two cats. For more cooking ideas from Meghan, please check out her blog at traveleatlove.com.

Photo sources:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiwanja/ / CC BY 2.0

One of the biggest downfalls that occurs with these foods is the set of ingredients we put into them. Our instinct tells us to reach for the richest cheeses and the tenderest pastas in order to nourish ourselves through the cold. The problem there is that when grains are removed from their husks and processed, they lose a great deal of the fiber and protein that holds the key to their nutritional value.

What this means in practical terms is that you can eat helping after helping of macaroni and cheese, and it will taste delicious, but your body will not have received the nutrients it needs to let you know you’re full. Add in the sad lack of vegetables in much of these foods, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. These remixes of old favorites preserve the indulgent taste and mouth feel, while giving them the punch they need to deliver exactly the level of satisfaction that keeps us coming back for more.

Fresh Corn and Tomato Soup

This take on a classic keeps the tang and vibrant color of the tomato while eschewing the heavy cream which so often provides the base of the dish; fresh corn gives the soup a pleasantly firm and juicy edge.

Grilled Cheese with Apple and Leafy Greens

The best part of this dish is its flexibility. Apples provide an unbelievable amount of body and a pleasantly smoky flavor once they’ve been sautéed, and the greens can be swapped out depending on your preference: arugula, chard, spinach, or even kale all work wonderfully.

Quinoa with Black Beans and Cilantro

Quinoa is one of the heavy lifters of the cereal world. It is an incredible source of iron and fiber and has a balanced set of essential amino acids for human consumption, making it one of the most complete proteins we can digest. All this in a cute package! This recipe riffs on risotto or beans and rice to offer a creamy, spicy shot in the arm (or the belly, as the case may be).

And finally: chocolate! As a replacement for brownies, here are three options.

Moosewood Fudge Brownies

The overripe banana adds an extra level of sweetness and smooth consistency.

Amazing Black Bean Brownies
Again, mixing something with creamy-smooth texture (in this case, the black beans) into the batter provides a level of richness that may cause you to forget that these brownies don’t contain any refined sugar or flour–placing them pretty far along the chocolate spectrum toward fudge.

Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes
These have to be tried to be believed. You will not taste the zucchini (making this an excellent choice for picky eaters). And for those who are skeptical about a vegetable’s place at dessert, the aroma of the coconut oil rising out of the oven while these bake is enough to convert even the staunchest doubting Thomas.

Do you have any tricks to make comfort food healthy?

Photo sources:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnjoh/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/floodkoff/ / CC BY 2.0

Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong is a guest blogger for Plummelo. She works in communications at MIT. A transplanted Floridian, she’s lived in Portugal and Italy as well as New England, and finds inspiration in regional cuisine around the world. When she’s not cooking, she can often be found traveling: the sunnier the location, the better!

Does this sound familiar?

See below for photo source.

Note: Extra points for making enough to last for lunch leftovers, or better yet, putting a portion in the freezer.

This week my plan involves one pre-cooked rotisserie chicken. (In previous stages of my cooking life, I used to pass these birds by, writing them off as shortcuts for people who don’t cook. Now I run to them: “Please come home with me, delectable little bird!”)

On Monday morning, I walk to Whole Foods with the baby. I get a golden-and-crispy-on-the-outside, juicy-and-tender-on-the-inside rotisserie chicken, among other things.

Upon returning home, I first inform my work-at-home husband that there is a killed and de-feathered animal in the house, because he insists on picking off all the meat I discard as unusable. I am a meat snob.

I pull out a sharpened sudoku (no, not one of those puzzles from the newspaper) and a clean cutting board. For me, there is something therapeutic about chopping chicken.

I divide the chicken into two bowls. I put one bowl of diced chicken in the fridge and get to work on the first recipe, my adaptation of Everyday Food’s Broccoli Calzones (this recipe doesn’t include chicken; what a shame). The recipe makes eight calzones, so I always serve two and freeze six for later. It’s the perfect pull-out-in-a-pinch dinner or lunch. Whenever I make them, I pre-cook them (the recipe says not to) so I can just zap them in the microwave (on the convection/crisper function) and serve with some jarred pasta sauce on the side. I buy the pizza dough pre-made, which saves a lot of time.

On Tuesday, I doctor up Real Simple’s Chicken Curry in a Hurry. The chicken is already set to go! I alter many recipes, including this one, by adding some veggies (mushrooms, green peppers). I always add vegetables to any casserole-type dish that doesn’t call for anything green. If I’m feeling bold and wishing I was someplace tropical, I throw in some cubed pineapple. I serve it over jasmine rice.

What are your tricks for using one primary ingredient twice?

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevendepolo/ / CC BY 2.0

Sarah Fullerton is Plummelo’s editor. She enjoys cooking, knitting, skiing, and cycling. One of her favorite hobbies is sharing and talking about recipes and discovering shortcuts for healthy eating. She is especially enthusiastic about cooking for her baby girl. She can be contacted at sarah@plummelo.com.