stew

We love a good pot of chili, and our kitchen has turned out dozens of variations over the years. My husband is partial to a meaty, Alton Brown-style version, while I tend to favor a chili with lots of beans and sometimes no meat at all. With the weather turning colder I decided to make chili my next project, and set out on a recent Sunday to come up with a version that would satisfy both of us. For the meat, I used boneless grass-fed beef short ribs, trimmed and cut into chunks.

I didn't grow up eating pozole, but I sure fell in love with it once I tried it at Nopalito restaurant in San Francisco. Pozole is a fantastic stew of chiles, pork, and hominy that is often served around the holidays.

What to make on Thanksgiving when turkey is a bit too much, when you are planning a romantic dinner for two, when your friends do not like white meat, or simply when you are up for something a little bit more adventurous than just a good old roasted bird. This is a dish that preserves the spirit of the Thanksgiving meal, without really having to do the entire thing.

I'm always ready for fall. I love the crisp weather, color change, football, and the re-emergence of comforting stews and soups. This was my dinner last night from my weekend farmers market haul, served with an end-of-summer white wine, and eaten on the porch with a blanket in my lap. Enjoy!

A lovely, simple, flavorful curry full of Southeast Asian flavors

At first glance, this thing looks daunting. But once you've assembled the ingredients, it really is pretty straightforward. I've taken a more than a few liberties on traditional chili. I've used inspirations from a Bon Appétit squash chili recipe, a Washington Post lamb chili recipe, and a Food Lab (Serious Eats) recipe. The short ribs give a heartiness that you just won't get from ground beef or even stew meat. I prefer bone-in ribs, as boneless meat won't give the chili the same complexity and texture. I like the hints of mole using the chocolate, and the background notes of coffee.

This flavorful dish was inspired by two of my favorite Moroccan ingredients- olives and preserved lemons. They work beautifully together in this dish to add a ton of flavor to the sauce. In addition, braising the chicken makes the meat wonderfully tender and juicy. Serve this dish over a bed of couscous to soak up all of the delicious sauce. —Sonali aka the Foodie Physician

In this dish I combine green olives with one of my favorite meats, lamb shanks, and two of my favorite vegetables, celery root and fennel. If you haven't used celery root or fennel before, this dish is a great way to start. Their mellow nuttiness combines perfectly with the tangy olives and the savory lamb. It's an instant trip to the Mediterranean on a cool autumn day, and you don't even have to buy a plane ticket. You can pull the meat off the bone and serve it as a stew, or keep the lamb shanks intact for a more elegant presentation.

Actually, I think the spicing of these shrimp is a little more Creole, but that doesn't make a slant rhyme with flamin' now does it? Anyways, this is actually a recipe from a college boyfriend of mine. I think I've said it before (I have a terrible habit of repeating myself), but I'll say it again, there is no relationship that doesn't wind up leaving you with something worthwhile, and this dish is certainly one of those things. It's one of my very favorite dinners—super fast, super easy, and super delicious.

Let's be honest—short ribs are great in any incarnation. I wanted to use them in a ragu that had a little more oomph than the typical braise so I went into umami overdrive with porcini mushrooms, Worcestershire sauce and anchovy paste. It's great over polenta or pasta, but maybe even better as leftovers in a po-boy.