Gluten Free

I adore Brussels sprouts but they can be tricky to cook just right, especially if one’s attention is on lots of other dishes, as in the case of a holiday dinner. This Thanksgiving I’ve found the solution: smoky, lemony shredded and sautéed brussels sprouts! The sprouts can be shredded a day ahead and then get quickly cooked just before serving, eliminating any worry about soggy, under-cooked, over-charred, or otherwise less than yummy Brussels sprouts.

Autumn is always a difficult transition for me, as I am the type of person who is happiest under a blaze of sunshine and who considers anything below 73 degrees to be “freezing.” But every year it’s the pumpkins that rescue me from impending gloom, reminding me just how wonderful and delicious fall can be. This is my first pumpkin dish of the season, made from roasted kabocha, or Japanese pumpkin, whipped into a creamy soup with sweet potatoes and miso.

I considered waiting until the holidays to share these salted tahini date caramels with you, but they are so swoon-worthy that I just had to post the recipe right now. Plus, if you can get your hands on caramel-like Barhi dates, which won’t be in season for long, they will make these confections all the more special.

Whenever I’m traveling near the little beach town of Morro Bay, California, I make it a point to stop at Shine Cafe to order their “famous tempeh.” You can get a scoop of this perfectly seasoned tempeh and quinoa in a salad, in taco form, or as part of a one-bowl meal — any way you get this dish, it’s tasty, healthy, and filling.

I have a confession: Until recently, I found the idea of grilling meat slightly terrifying. Maybe it’s because I’ve never owned a grill of my own. Or because I usually skip over the articles about grilling in magazines. Or maybe it was due to some ingrained sexism on my part, pushing “grilling” into the “things men cook” category.

Looking for something a little different from the usual crostini hors d’oeuvre? How about a sweet potato — sliced into rounds, roasted, and topped with a zingy miso sauce. It’s a flavorsome little bite to whet the appetite, plus it’s perfect for gluten-free and vegetarian folks. Sweet potato rounds are beautifully colored, and in size and shape they make a great stand-in for a baguette. However, there’s just one thing — they’re sweet.

Here in Southern California, winter is on its way out and I have never felt more ready to give kale salads a rest. Right now I am craving all that is crunchy, fresh and pale green — like this salad, which mixes a dill-flecked dressing with sweet sugar snap peas, crisp celery, chopped romaine and pretty, pink-edged radish slices that remind me of spring’s first blossoms winking to life. The crunchiness of this salad makes it a great candidate for lunch.

You probably already know that roasting winter vegetables turns them soft, caramelized and irresistible. But what you might not know is that tossing them with a three-ingredient dressing of miso paste, lime juice and walnut oil gives them a savory, bright and beguiling flavor that will make people wonder why the roasted vegetables you make are so much better than the roasted vegetables they make. What makes a recipe a keeper?

One of the remarkable things about this savory potato and leek galette is that it looks fancy, yet the ingredients are simple and inexpensive. The potatoes are plain old russets, the fat is olive oil instead of butter, and even though it’s gluten-free and vegan, the galette is pleasantly starchy and creamy — a perfect cross between comfort food and an elegant, company-worthy dish.

I don’t much go for the trappings of Valentine’s Day, but I do appreciate the excuse to cook something brilliantly, undeniably pink. Most often that means playing with beets, and this year I’m roasting them up to make a velvety, magenta-colored soup. From the looks of them, you’d never know that humble beets could be so luscious — romantic, even. But sweetened up in the oven and pureed with good vegetable stock, they make a gorgeous, almost creamy (yet vegan) soup.

Every Halloween I like to cook something warm and pumpkin-y for dinner. This year I’ll pair my favorite pumpkin tortilla soup with enchiladas de pipián rojo, a smoky, nutty, spiced (but not too spicy) sauce made with pumpkin seeds, chile peppers, and roasted vegetables. In Mexico, pipián is a type of mole or sauce served with meat or over enchiladas. Made with ground seeds or nuts, it may be green (verde) or red (rojo).

These whipped sweet potatoes are a great recipe when you need to get out of a vegetable rut. They’re a little more dressed up than the average weeknight side so think of them as a minimalist dish for your holiday feast. With coconut milk for interest and richness, and a swirl of vanilla bean paste, consider adding this to the Thanksgiving table when you want something on the sweeter side that still leaves the marshmallows out of the equation.

Eating a hot breakfast is a challenge in the fall as mornings get darker and colder and we snuggle into warm beds until the last possible second. But eating a hot breakfast just makes the whole day better, don’t you think? The answer is to make your evenings work for you, and to prepare a hot breakfast the night before. I have found that one of the best ways to do this is oatmeal. But oatmeal is mushy, you say! Reheated oatmeal for breakfast? No thanks. Well, hold on a minute.

A bowlful of brown rice, tempeh, kale, and other veggies has “health food” written all over it, but in our house we hardly think of this recipe as macrobiotic or vegan or anything else but satisfying. Brimming with the perfect balance of flavors and textures, it satiates the senses and even has my barbecue- and burger-loving guy requesting it for dinner.

We have been talking about family recipes all week — and not just family recipes, but classic, old-school, full-blast nostalgic recipes too. So, to cap things off, I thought I would tackle that archetype of family picnics and church cookbooks: Lime Jell-O Salad. It’s a recipe that most of us have given up as grown-ups, but do you ever have just the faintest wisp of nostalgic craving for it? So sweet and marshmallowy?

It took me a long time to warm up to quinoa. I felt like I was the only one not on the super-grain-(that’s-not-really-a-grain-but-who-cares) bandwagon. But my attempts at quinoa had all turned out sticky and faintly bitter, a health food to choke down. So how did I get from there to here, to this lemon-scented golden salad with crunchy bits of cucumber, radish, and almonds? (There are dates, dill, and Parmesan in there too, plus a secret ingredient that really makes it sing.

Call me crazy, but when the weather heats up, I don’t feel like eating big hunks of meat. Slow and sluggish might work for winter when everyone is half-hibernating anyway, but in the summer, salads like this are what I want to eat — full of freshness and crunch, with a salty-tart lime dressing and just the right amount of juicy grilled steak.

Silken tofu makes an excellent base for creamy dips without the use of sour cream or other dairy. In this bright and zesty green dip, we combined tofu with peas and Mexican-inspired ingredients like cilantro, jalapeño, and lime.Unlike dairy-based dips that can weigh heavy on the palate, the creaminess from the soft tofu is satisfying yet light. (Warning: this may cause you to eat more than you possibly should! We speak from experience.

Sweet blood oranges are some of our favorite members of the citrus family. During the season we use them in everything from drinks to desserts, like this cloud of syllabub. A syllabub is a traditional English dessert made with cream and wine or other spirits. Here we added blood orange for a sweet citrus note – enhanced by the addition of orange-flavored liqueur such as Cointreau. A splash of rose water adds fragrance without tasting too floral.

There are very few foods that feed a large crowd with little effort. Tacos may be the simplest option for feeding a lot of people, and today we are bringing you one of our favorite taco stuffings: barbacoa beef, tender and full of rich, complex flavors. Yes, did you know you can make that tasty stuff you buy at Chipotle in your own kitchen — and in your slow cooker, no less? I have a serious thing for barbacoa.

It’s the details that matter the most at fancy dinner parties and holiday meals. Take this recipe. Really, it’s just a warm beet salad. But assemble it in pretty layers, add some toasted walnuts and a citrusy vinaigrette, and suddenly you have a dish that elicits oohs and ahhs as you carry it proudly to the dinner table. Equally impressive is the fact that most of this recipe can be made ahead of time. The beets, sweet potatoes, and walnuts can all be roasted.

This soup is based on a favorite autumn dish where roasted acorn squash halves are filled with a white bean mixture and drizzled with an herby sauce. It’s a delicious and satisfying dish that just happens to be vegan. It also translates well into this soup, a delectable combination of sweet vegetables (roasted squash, leeks) and creamy beans, punctuated with a dollop of fresh, zingy, garlicky, herby pistou.First, what is pistou and why not pesto?

These pretty cups of spiced apple jelly topped with lightly sweetened yogurt mousse taste like apple pie in Jell-O form. But better than Jell-O — this spoon dessert is made with agar instead of gelatin, so even vegetarian dessert lovers can indulge. Combining the very Western flavor of spiced apple cider with the texture of an Asian agar-based jelly, this is a sweet that is both intriguing and comfortingly familiar.

When I was in Switzerland last autumn, our hosts served us a very simple dessert that nevertheless made me sit up and take notice. They told us that it is a favorite dessert in that region: Large, crisp meringues purchased from the grocery store, served with barely-sweetened whipped cream. Together the crisp meringue and soft cream melted together into one sweet yet simple, rich yet light dessert. This is just about the simplest dessert imaginable.

The writing of essayist and novelist Laurie ColwinIn More Home Cooking, one of Colwin’s collections of essays on food and cooking, she writes about Jell-O and other commercial gelatin desserts, and how she was disappointed by their artificial flavorings and taste. But her small daughter yearned for wobbly, brightly-colored gelatin desserts, and so Colwin started making them from fruit juice and plain, unflavored gelatin.

A sformato is a close cousin to the soufflé. It has all the same creamy custard-y goodness, but without the hassle of whipping egg whites or the anxiety of collapsing domes. It’s meant to be rather humble. This is also an easy dish to make gluten-free, and it works well as the first course for a fancy dinner or as a light lunch with a salad. Like a soufflé, a sformato starts off with a bechamel sauce.

I cook for a big crowd of people at least once a week — sometimes twice. And lately I have been relying on the grill, since it doesn’t heat up the kitchen. But sometimes I get a little tired of grilling individual pieces of chicken, or individual burgers that have to watched and tended. It’s nice to have some bigger, simpler options. This pork loin is one of those: Slap it on the grill, walk away, come back, feed a crowd. Well, that is a little deceptive.

We confess that mangos are one tropical fruit we’ll never be able to give up. No matter how tempting local pears, apples, and blackberries may be, the lure of the mango will always be right there with them. It’s just such a delicious fruit — golden, sweet, and a little tart at the same time. The last time we had a bunch of them we stirred them into a simple panna cotta for a fresh, do-ahead, super-easy dessert.