Growing up my parents were great cooks. That said, I still had a serious soft spot for canned ravioli pasta. But since it's not exactly healthy, I'd consider a homemade version, especially this make-and-freeze mason jar version! More

There were not so distant times when a quick meal always meant a bowl of pasta. These were the days when everyone was touting fat-free eating and big bowls of pasta were seen as a healthy dinner option day in and day out. While I have nothing negative to say about a good bowl of noodles, whole grains are usually where I land for quick meals these days. As we find ourselves entering the cooler months, why not make bigger batches and freeze some for later? We showed you how to do this with brown rice, but it doesn't end there... More

I daydream about having a giant deep freezer to fill with harvest-time bounty and made-ahead meals for babysitter nights. The reality is that my freezer is the size of an accordion and is carefully jammed full with a menagerie of odds and ends: just enough frozen fruit for smoothies, a couple of random meats (goat cubes! a rabbit!), no more than one container of homemade ice cream at a time, and two mini ice cube trays. The door holds some leaf lard for pies, a few bags of nuts, a few sacks of grains, and the occasional bag of peas for boo-boos.

This doesn't mean I'm a stranger to cooking for freezers; a person in my age-group knows all too well the midlife cycle of births, deaths, and moves. Having babies, moving house, and nursing aging parents and all prime-time opportunities for homemade frozen meals and a new book called The Foolproof Freezer Cookbook will help you think outside the chicken soup, pesto, and lasagna box. More

My stepdad brought Indian home cooking into my life. He and my mother had been high school sweethearts, American students at an international school in the foothills of the Himalayas where my stepdad had grown up, stuffing himself on dal and pappadums throughout childhood and cultivating a lifelong craving for fragrant vegetarian curries. Thanks to him and to recipes like this mixed bean masala, it's a craving I now share. Quick, healthy and economical, it's an easy recipe to double and freeze in preparation for chilly winter nights, when the scent of onion, ginger and spices bubbling on the stove will warm up the whole house. More

I recently returned to school full-time, which means that instead of keeping my lunch cool in the workplace refrigerator, I'm now toting it around with me until midday. I've turned to my freezer to help provide healthy, filling vegetarian lunches every day with frozen meals that thaw out in my bag over the course of the morning and are ready to heat and eat by the time lunch arrives.

Whether you're running all over campus or working in an office without access to a fridge, here are eight ideas for straight-from-the-freezer vegetarian meals to make lunchtime easier. More

As if to turn on a dime, the little person I cook for and eat with most often went from proclaiming that oysters were her favorite food to announcing that her favorite food was in fact a hamburger. I knew this would happen.

So, in an effort to temper meat consumption, but still occasionally provide her with what she says she loves, we make a big stink out of it: clapping out our own patties, simmering sweet onions, and now, making our own ketchup.

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This is one of those versatile recipes that can serve more than one purpose — dip, sandwich filling, pasta sauce — and it makes use of all those beautiful eggplants that are in season... More

I am a self-professed granola bar fiend. Maybe it's an ingrained snacking habit from the countless bars eaten in the back seat of the car before ballet practice all through grade school. Or maybe it's the fact that I tend to get hangry if I go too long between meals. Either way, I nearly always have a granola bar or two close at hand. Making my own from the assortment of oats, nuts, and dried fruits that are always in my cupboard was a natural next step. More

Do you eat steel-cut oats for breakfast? This time of year I turn to them gladly: nothing like a bowl of hot, tender, pearly oats, all creamy and delicious. Steel-cut oats take a little longer to cook than rolled oats, but that's not a problem. Set them up the night before and you'll have hot oatmeal in the morning almost instantly. It takes only two or three minutes to heat them up. Here's how I prep my oatmeal the night before. More

This South American soup holds many good and tasty things, from the tender pieces of potato to sweet nibbles of fresh corn. But let's be real: the best part is the cheese. Queso fresco to be exact, which doesn't fully melt but rather softens into chewy morsels in the warmth of the milky broth. So good.