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Thanksgiving is a great time for those of us who love to cook. That is, until one of your guests announces he's a vegetarian or vegan. Suddenly the best laid plans have a wrench thrown into them. Should you buy a separate and expensive faux-turkey soy food shaped thingy just for them or just feed them extra starchy side dishes and hope they don't ask if there's turkey stock in the stuffing?

The solution doesn't have to involve highly processed soy products or short changing your vegetarian/vegan guests. I should know, I'm a cookbook author who married a vegetarian.

Apples, apples, apples! They're at their peak right now, so sweet and crisp. Are you craving some apple action in your kitchen this week? How about one of these recipes? From a simple lunch sandwich of cheese and apples to a sticky spiked apple cake doused with brandy, here's a look back at 15 terrific apple recipes.

We love kitchens that flow into the rest of the house. This kitchen from a favorite food blogger, writer, and illustrator, Pierre Lamielle, is a warm space that flows right into a sunny dining room, reading corner, and mini-office. We love how well it's integrated! Read on for more about Pierre's kitchen and to see the cover of his new whimsical self-illustrated cookbook!

This week's Kitchen Cure assignment is the last one. It's designed to get your pantry restocked with any basics you need, and also any tools or cookware you may be lacking. It's time to get revved up for holiday cooking, and this is your chance to make sure your arsenal is complete. What do you need to replace or supply in your kitchen?

• Donations: $3,514
• Goal: $10,000
• Donors: 40

We've teamed up with DonorsChoose.org and other top blogs during the month of October. We're asking you to help us buy much needed classroom supplies for public schools in need. Check out our Giving Page and help us provide students with tools to promote physical activity: Fit Kids are Learning Kids! ($267 needed)

• Donations: $1,991
• Goal: $10,000
• Donors: 130

We've teamed up with DonorsChoose.org and other top blogs during the month of October. We're asking you to help us buy much needed classroom supplies for public schools in need. Check out our Giving Page and help us provide students with tools to promote physical activity: Fit Kids are Learning Kids! ($272 needed)

The end of summer doesn't need to mean the end of fruity cocktails — we just need to use preserved fruits and emphasize some subtler, year-round flavors.

Art, paint and pattern: three spirit-raising tools that I use in every project. They exist in the kitchen as part of the fabric of the design. Can you have a happy or home environment without them? Color is their chief medium, albeit with texture and shape delivering their full presence.

So, we are ending this series on color in the kitchen by looking to the future and thinking about color, and how you can use it as part of your kitchen design over time. Do you have a crystal ball? I didn't think so. I don't either. But, hopefully, by virtue of my hindsight, insight and a bit of foresight, plus not having thought about much else over (cough) years (note to self, feed the kids) I hope I can provide a helpful perspective on a few ways to look at color over the long term.

The modern kitchen is not so easy to define these days. I can think of a variety of kitchen themes which could have the word or concept "modern" attached to it: the new traditional, modern/rustic, eco-modern, vintage modern, minimalism, even mainstream modern.

Modern cannot be pigeon-holed into one particular aesthetic. Not like it used to be. Not now.

For me, there can be a never-ending discussion on the virtues and properties of the white kitchen. We call a white kitchen classic. White IS a classic in kitchen design, for decades, and at this moment, a white kitchen is only getting more popular with homeowners. What's not to like — white is crisp, clean, classic, light reflective, and it seems to lift up the spirits, doesn't it?

You look at the kitchen and you immediately get groggy, with a big fly-catching yawn, and before you get totally cranky, you know something has to change. If change doesn't come, no court will convict you for your actions which follow as a direct result of a colorless existence. Here, just in time, pre-indictment, is color on the cheap! Yes you can!

We're celebrating color on the table and in the kitchen this month! We asked Susan Serra of the great site The Kitchen Designer to inspire us this week with some colorful kitchen spaces, and with some good ideas for bringing color into our own kitchens. Welcome, Susan!

Hi everyone! Long time reader/first time writer, I'm a serious fan of The Kitchn. Being a Certified Kitchen Designer (CKD) by profession, and always open to fresh ideas, with some great ones I've discovered from readers of The Kitchn, I humbly trust that I can give back a few nuggets of insight and information from my perspective, which I hope to be of value to you in the days ahead. Let's talk color!

Q: I have been told that its fine to use sterilized jars and put HOT soup in them — then turn them upside down and let them seal themselves.

Is this a good method for low risk foods?

— Question asked by Tara