Parsnip

Lentils and fresh and dried mushrooms give this vegetarian casserole its meaty character. You can prepare most of it in advance and bake it just before your guests arrive.

Soft, creamy risotto topped with warm roasted vegetables makes a complete meal in a bowl. If you don't like the idea of standing at the stove and stirring risotto to a perfect consistency, this is the method for you. Thirty minutes in the oven and this risotto comes out cooked to perfection while you and your beloved wind down from your day. If you've made Roasted Winter Vegetables earlier in the week, you can reheat leftovers as a topping here. If not, roast a favorite combination {mine is winter squash, yellow onion, and tomato} in the oven with your risotto.

{sweet and toothsome} Roasting is a no-fuss way to put a lot of vegetables on the table. Roasting brings out the natural sweetness in fall root veggies and winter squash. Roast them in big batches to top Baked Risotto , and throw them into fall and winter salads.

Brisket is the centerpiece of many holiday tables, but pot roast, cooked to succulent tenderness in a full-bodied braising liquid brightened with the tang of wine and tomato and enriched with a heady trio of cinnamon, bay leaf, and thyme is just as special without sacrificing tradition.

Roasting vegetables is just one of the things a sheet pan is good for.

In this recipe, a creamy parsnip purée stands in for a traditional béchamel.

The flavorful ginger dressing that coats the parsnips calls for tamari, a sauce made from soybeans that’s darker and richer than conventional soy sauce (it’s also gluten free). Serve the fish with a wedge of orange along with peppery greens, such as watercress or arugula.

Eating fresh produce in a variety of colors is key to good health, and this autumn medley of carrots, butternut squash, rutabaga, parsnips, and shallots provides an abundance of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients.

This recipe employs many classic techniques of braising. To finish the sauce, the liquid is first reduced (a common thickening method) and then a secondary thickener called a beurre manié, a mixture of flour and butter, is added. Beurre manié can be added to most any sauce that seems to need a bit more body. And since the flavor of pork pairs well with apples, hard cider is used to braise the meat. For variation, the standard French mirepoix of onion, carrot, and celery is replaced with parsnip, celery root, and leek. If you don’t have a pot with a tight-fitting lid, cover your pot with aluminum foil lined with parchment paper and then the lid (you can even use the lid from another, similar-size pot or pan). Check 30 minutes after placing the pot in the oven to make sure that the liquid is gently simmering; if not, raise the temperature by 25 degrees, return the liquid to a boil on top of stove, and return the pot to the oven to finish cooking. (If vigorously boiling, decrease temperature by 25 degrees.)

If soup-making is an indication of a cook’s talents, chicken soup is the truest test, since the soup should ideally offer warmth and nourishment as well as flavor. It is, after all, the ultimate comfort food. Once you’ve committed this basic soup technique to memory, the possibilities for variations—and other meals—are limitless. Making the soup is essentially a form of poaching chicken in an aromatic broth. The chicken should always be just covered with liquid—in this case, water—which should remain at a gentle simmer. Skimming the surface is critical to the soup’s success, since the impurities from the chicken would cause the broth to become cloudy. Straining out the aromatics will also help produce a cleaner broth; the vegetables will have become very soft and lost much of their individual flavors by this time, so it is necessary to replenish them with “garnish” vegetables, added at the end. The variations below provide flavorful alternatives to the basic soup recipe—one with matzo balls and the other with springtime vegetables, including green beans, peas, and watercress.

Even though eating a slab of baby back ribs isn’t an Italian tradition, I felt that, Italians being the pork lovers they are, we could justify serving ribs as long as they had an Italian sensibility. After much prodding by me and experimenting by him, Matt came up with these tender, juicy, peppery, fennely, vinegary, Italianish baby back ribs. It was his brilliant idea to saw the racks of ribs in half down the middle— something you’ll have to ask a butcher to do for you. The riblets feel a bit closer to the single rib you might be served among the unusual cuts on a mixed grill plate in Umbria or Tuscany instead of something you’d get in a roadside barbecue joint. Italian? Not exactly. Delicious? Very. The coleslaw recipe makes twice as much dressing as you’ll need to dress the slaw for four servings, but because it is an emulsified dressing made with one egg yolk, you can’t make less.

This recipe is inspired by ones that use flanken, a cut of beef from the chuck end of short ribs. In Jewish custom, the meat is boiled and served with horseradish. Our version uses braised boneless ribs and pairs them with earthy vegetables.

Celery hearts are the tender, pale-green inner stalks in a celery bunch.