American

For all those who can't wait to nibble at the skin when the turkey comes out of the oven, these cracklings are for you. You won't believe how insanely delicious they are as the star of this salad. Don't be surprised if you start buying turkey thighs on a regular basis, just to make cracklings.

A cobbler is the easiest way to get to something similar to a pie—meltingly tender and juicy fruit with a crusty topping—without having to make, roll out, and crimp pie dough. Biscuit dough, in general, is easy and fast to assemble, but the cream dough below is a real cinch because you don't even have to blend butter into the flour mixture; you just pour in heavy cream and stir, then pat it out with your hands. A round cutter is your default shape but feel free to rummage through your cookie cutter collection for something fun, such as a leaf or diamond.

When you've got a native berry that's the foundation for a must-have sauce on every Thanksgiving dinner table across the country, you can count on lots of variations. Just check the Internet. This cranberry chutney is essentially a classic sauce, jazzed up with the more vibrant flavors of pineapple juice, pepper flakes, and clove. The good news is that while it's supermarket-friendly—not hard to find ingredients—it tastes remarkably more complex and nuanced than the short ingredient list would lead you to believe. Aim to make it several days ahead so that the flavors have time to mingle and mellow.

Turkey drumsticks do not take kindly to the dry heat of an oven, which causes the meat to tighten up around the bone and tendons. But treat those same drumsticks to a long, slow, moist braise in barbecue sauce, and the meat falls off the bones, revealing tough tendons so numerous, you won't believe it.

I love apples. I have this recurring dream where I leave the stress of the restaurant world behind and start a cider house, making exquisite hard cider. I start at sunrise and I finish in the mid-afternoon and retire to the farmhouse to cook a dinner for Mary and the girls. Apple brown betty is like a crisp made with bread crumbs. It's a wonderful dessert that is so simple and so rewarding in results. This is a good one for roping the kids into helping. Those apples aren’t going to peel themselves. Zabaglione is also known in France as sabayon. It is a custard-based dessert, cooked with a dessert wine. I stabilize mine with whipped cream and serve it cold, whereas in Italy and France you often see them served warm. Kind of like an eggnog in heaven.

This rich dressing spikes through the creamy goodness and answers that "why doesn't my dressing ever taste this good?" question. This recipe works as well with Mini Buffalo Chicken Balls as it does ladled over a thick wedge of iceberg lettuce topped with a few olives, carrot shavings, and crumbled bacon to create a more-than-satisfying classic salad. This dressing will keep up to five days in the fridge.

These balls will definitely get any party started. Buffalo's finest bar food minus the bones is the perfect food to serve for the big game, a surprising appetizer, or even passed as a fancy hors d'oeuvre. It's the best part of hot and spicy wings with none of the mess. If you like your balls extra spicy, you can always add an extra tablespoon or two of hot sauce to the recipe. Make one batch and you'll know why these are a staff fave and top seller at the Shop. Serve with Blue Cheese Dressing.

One-pot dishes are all about planning well and laying out your prep in a smart sequential order. The beauty of this dish is the vinegar, which is malty, nutty, and nuanced. I love a Philippine cane vinegar called Datu Puti. Great stuff, super-inexpensive, and readily available at most Asian grocery stores.

Treat this recipe as a basic template from which to have a blast mixing and matching different meats with different cheeses. The Parmesan is a must and not an option to switch out; it's the magic ingredient that will make the meat more savory and any cheese you stuff in your slider taste cheesier.
The recipe can be halved or doubled easily, so if there are a lot of kids in your crowd, you might want to cut back on the number you make. If a bunch of your drinking buddies are on their way over, however, you'll likely want to do 1 1/2 times the recipe, or even double it.
We've given you suggestions for toppers and meat-and-cheese combinations, but those are just ideas to get your imagination going. If the weather is cooperative, fire up your grill, but if you are grill-less, the broiler does a fine job. Any which way you do it, you can't help but have fun!

This variation on the "little swamp" theme features sourdough bread and those ever-appealing Southwest seasonings: fresh chilies, cilantro, cumin, and corn.

Pumpkin and pumpkin seeds are high in fiber, which helps keep your insulin levels low and in turn may shrink fat cells. Good gourd.

Savoring dark chocolate daily is linked to lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that can lead to excess belly fat. Chocolate and flat abs? Fab.

Offer your pals an excuse to snack and relax. Pistachios' potassium can lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Get ready to hear "Mmm…ahhh."

One rule of thumb governing utensil purchases is to consider the cost of the item in relation to how often you'll use it. Since cherry season is so short, a pitter scores pretty low on the price-use ratio. But the formula is badly flawed, not taking into account how this gadget affects your life when you put it to use. By that reckoning, if owning a cherry pitter moved you to make this soup just once a year, it'd be worth the ten dollars or so you can expect to pay for it.

NUT-FREE Thanksgiving dinner without pumpkin pie is almost unimaginable to most people, no matter what their dietary bent. To that end, I present two versions of this iconic dessert. Still, though it’s hard for us pumpkin pie fans to imagine, there are plenty of people who don’t care for it. (“Je n’aime pas le citrouille,” said the Parisian mother of my niece-by-marriage at a recent Thanksgiving gathering. My brother-in-law concurred, “I’m not a big pumpkin pie fan.”) Since I have two pumpkin pie naysayers in my family, I’m sure there are others out there. For them, I’ve provided a trio of additional desserts to choose from. This is just as good made with butternut squash as it is with sugar pumpkin. Once the pumpkin or squash is baked, which you can (and should) do ahead of time, the pie comes together quickly. It goes down very easily, which is why I recommend making two pies for practically the same effort as one.

Panino Muffuletta There are so many versions of the muffuletta sandwich around New Orleans, but it seems that Central Grocery in the French Quarter is the place to go. The store is charming enough, but at the back counter, seated on a stool with a muffuletta sandwich in front of you, is where you want to be. We sat down across from a man who told us he'd had his first muffuletta sandwich here fifty years ago and came back regularly for more. Next to him were a couple who have been coming to Central Grocery to enjoy the muffuletta sandwich for more than forty years. We ordered one without any hesitation. The large hamburger bun-like bread was soaked significantly with the olive-oil dressing of the olive salad; then layers and layers of the salad and col cuts were added. The sandwich was cut in four and wrapped in parchment paper. It was ten in the morning, one would say time for breakfast, but the two of us savored the muffuletta sandwich as did all the other customers.

We like to whip up this delicious tofu scramble with home fries made from Yukon Gold and sweet potatoes on lazy weekend mornings. Begin to cook the scramble just as the home fries are nearly browned to perfection so you can serve this hearty and soul—satisfying breakfast all at once. It tastes and looks great when accompanied by salsa or chopped tomatoes and a handful of garden—fresh herbs.

Without exception, this was the most sought-after recipe at my restaurant and bakery. You would never believe these incredibly fudgy brownies are made with beans but no flour. The beans provide great body and fiber without a "beany" taste. Keep the brownies in the refrigerator. They will slice much better if refrigerated for several hours or overnight. Find natural coffee substitute at natural food stores.