Think casseroles are outdated? Think again. After a whole week dedicated to casseroles last year, we've become devotees of the dish. With recipes like Chinese clay-pot chicken casserole, a round-up of ten fantastic breakfast casseroles, and tips for cleaning those casserole dishes, you will too. More

Shepherd's pie is quintessential comfort food: saucy meat and a few vegetables topped with buttery mashed potatoes. On a cold wintery evening, it doesn't get much better than that. But there's a whole other world beyond the utterly traditional beef and potoato version of the dish. More

Growing up on the coast of Southern California, I was pretty far removed from my father's native Brooklyn neighborhood. However my Mississippi-born mother made sure to close some of that distance with one delicious Jewish recipe she adapted from her mother-in-law. Savory noodle kugel is as comforting and cozy as it gets. More

We've never had oyster stuffing. Have you? Whoa, it's a lot of work if you're talking about shucking dozens of fresh oysters to chop and bake with your bread cubes. But the payoff (we hear) is that the bread soaks up the oyster liquor, and you get a richness that's beyond what sausage or a little chicken broth can offer. As for the origins of oyster stuffing... it's complicated. More

I'm a sucker for all of the holiday food coverage that comes this time of year. I do have to admit though, I never actually attempt any of the new recipes that come my way. I happen to be a Thanksgiving traditionalist, and come Turkey Day all I want are the familiar dishes of my youth.
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My favorite holiday meal isn't the Thanksgiving feast or the Christmas dinner. As much as I love these big meals where we congregate together around one long table, what I really love is brunch. In my house, brunch is the morning-after meal, a casual affair as people trickle downstairs in flannel pajamas with hair askew, rubbing sleep from their eyes, drawn into the kitchen by rich aromas of baked eggs and the irresistible scent of cinnamon rolls. It's a leisurely meal, as plates clatter and sleepy folks cradle mugs of hot coffee, relaxed and joking. Brunch expresses the best of everything I love about the holidays: Family, warmth, togetherness in the kitchen. More

Mashed potatoes are a Thanksgiving classic. No one can argue with that. But sometimes you want to mix it up. Sure, you can add sweet potatoes to the mix or mash parsnips or other root vegetables, but what if you want to stick to the good ol' white potato but yearn for a bit of variety this year? More

We're headed into the season of entertaining, when family sleepovers become common, before and after big holiday meals. I also think of this as breakfast casserole season; everyone is looking for easy, hearty ways to put breakfast on the table in the middle of the zaniness. Well, here you go: One of the simplest, heartiest breakfast casseroles I know how to make. More

To my mind, brown betties belong to that same class of obscure and creatively-named Early American fruit desserts as crisps, cobblers, and pandowdies. But the key ingredient in the case of a brown betty is not flaky pie crust or rich cake or even dollops of biscuit. No, for a brown betty, you need plain old sandwich bread. More

Since Thanksgiving is virtually around the corner, and now is the time for orange vegetables to assert their place, I felt it was high time to re-introduce you to my favorite sweet potato gratin recipe. This is a smoky, rich gratin, with a streak of caramelized onions and garlic sandwiched between layers of sweet potatoes baked in cream. I hate to sound like I am bragging, but just to put it in perspective, every time I have served this, grownups have literally licked their plates and groaned aloud.

What I can say? It's the power of sweet potatoes in cream. More