Beverages

This festive, spiced toddy starts with a black tea base. English breakfast tea is especially good with the black pepper and star anise, but Earl Grey would be nice, too.

Even die-hard butter devotees admit that olive oil makes exceptionally good cakes.

Hard ciders can range from bone-dry to rather sweet, so take a sip and adjust the simple syrup if needed.

America's favorite pumpkin purée is actually made from squash, so why not turn to the earthy sweetness of fresh butternut squash? It's dead easy to prepare at home and tastes more vibrantly "pumpkin" than anything from a can.

What's the fastest way possible to roast a turkey for Thanksgiving? Skip the whole turkey: instead, roast bone-in breasts and legs. (If you don't want to butcher a turkey yourself, you can buy them in individual pieces or have your butcher break a whole bird down for you.) Once you put the pieces in the oven, they cook in about 1 hour and 15 minutes, and are so much faster and easier to carve and serve.

Think of this cocktail recipe as a more boozy, more delicious, and just as pretty Aperol spritz.

Burning sage, a common practice for ritual cleansing, is also a simple way to coax out the herb's essential oil, which gives this gin and pear juice cocktail a pleasantly smoky, herbaceous finish.

Bourbon-honey syrup and fragrant orange zest add rich flavor to this alternative to the usual Thanksgiving dessert.

It's not Oktoberfest without a soft pretzel—and once you've made a traditional German-style one from scratch, you'll never settle for those beer hall imposters again.