What’s Cooking in November?

Image by shannon_turlington via Flickr

I have to say that this is one of my favorite times of year, especially for eating. When the days get a little chillier, I turn to warming, hearty, rustic dishes. We are going to dinner tonight at my favorite French bistro, and that is exactly the kind of food I mean: gratins, roast chicken, roasted beet salad. And we have the eating holidays to look forward to as well. Are you already thinking about Thanksgiving? We are!

If the holidays mean “pie” to you, you should check out my Mom’s new blog, State of Pies. Her retirement project is to visit every state to sample their specialty pies, made with local ingredients. I know she’s got a lot of apple pie posts coming up, so please visit.

Visitors to my blog have been looking for heartier recipes too, such as lasagna (always popular), tomato sauce for pasta and roasted chicken breasts. Check out this new technique I found for pan-roasting boneless chicken breasts — fast, easy and great results ever time. Roasted vegetables and cornbread are also popular as the weather cools down. That sounds like a great menu right there.

Here are some recipes from the Web that look particularly appealing:

• Make-ahead aromatic pastes (Cookthink)
• Pasta with beans and vegetables (Cookthink)
• Mini scones (1001Recipes.com)
• Spinach and gruyere scones (Two Spoons)
• Faster no-knead bread (Bitten)
• No-knead English muffin bread (Kitchen Parade)
• Homemade butter (Confections of a Foodie Bride)
• Be like Barack bars (Kitchen Caravan) — go vote!
• World peace cookies (How to Cook a Wolf)
• Chocolate chip Amish puff cookies (Erin Cooks)
• A banana meal for babies (Boing Boing)