Meatballs! At big dinner parties and potlucks, meatballs seem to cause a stampede like nothing else. They're crowd-friendly, kid-friendly — and so convenient. Many of you ask frequently about meals to make ahead and freeze, and honestly, meatballs are at the top of my list. These meatballs are my all-time favorite: Warmly spiced with garam masala, fragrant with onion, ginger, and garlic, and so tender and juicy. More

Health counselor and organic foods chef Charita Singh is passionate about living a zero-waste lifestyle. So passionate, in fact, that she started her own company offering plastic-free lunch boxes, food containers, and more. More

Casseroles aren't usually a dish we associate with Indian cuisine, but what else would you call one-pot meal of rice, fragrant curry, vegetables, and meat? Biryani is Indian comfort food to the extreme, and it's a great dish to make on a lazy weekend afternoon. Do you have a favorite way to make it? More

At the beginning of Soup Week we asked our readers what soups they would like to learn. One soup that cropped up with surprising frequency was mulligatawny. I decided to tackle it myself, and so I turned to my latest soup handbook: Clifford Wright's The Best Soups in the World. I grabbed his version of mulligatawny and tasted it, tested it, and ultimately tweaked it for a gently spicy, fragrant soup chock-full of turkey, onions, ginger and garlic. More

Roasted, braised, puréed ... we love cauliflower in any form. Here's a preparation we haven't yet tried, though: stuffed! More

It's almost five o'clock — quick, what's for dinner? If you have kids (or, heck, any job at all) five o'clock is that witching hour when you either groan at the thought of supper plans, or start thinking about takeout. But this book, from the editors of the sadly defunct Cookie, aims to change that. They wanted to lift family dinner away from stress and logistics, and offer inspiration and help for making family-friendly, simple, yet truly delicious meals from scratch on busy nights. Sound terribly ambitious? It is, but they do a great job.

Here's a recipe, and a few more thoughts on this book, which is honestly just as good for busy singles as harried mommies. More

This is one of my absolutely favorite things to give away at the holiday time. It makes a great gift, especially if given with a hand-thrown mug and one of those long, involved novels that are best read in January. (Armchair optional.) It's also great to keep a few batches on hand as hostess or last-minute gifts. More

Here's a simple curry that can stay vegetarian (vegan even) or, with the simple addition of some shrimp or chicken, make a fine dish for the carnivore. The most important thing is that this delicious curry is built largely from your canned goods stash: coconut milk, tinned chickpeas and tomatoes. Just add a few fresh veg, some spices and Bob's your uncle! More

We can get a little nutty when coconut is anywhere on the menu. It’s one of those ingredients that pops up again and again across all the various Asian cuisines (not to mention many others around the world!), and we love it in whatever form it takes. Just take a look at these recipes and tell us if you don’t agree. More

Pongal is a fabulous, quick, any-time-of-day base for a healthy and hearty meal. It's sort of like an Indian risotto. More