Remember how I said that I didn’t want summer to end, that I wasn’t ready for fall? Wow, do I ever take it back. As I write this, the fluorescent yellow leaves on the honey locust tree outside my window are fluttering in the breeze, chuckling and shaking their heads at me. Fall is great, and I was a dummy for thinking I could resist its bountiful produce.
That’s where I am, though. This fall has looked and felt very different for lots of people across the country. Wherever you are, I hope you’re OK, and maybe finding some comfort in eating and cooking.
I plan to work my way through this collection of 10 excellent butternut squash recipes, starting with Ali Slagle’s pasta with butternut squash, kale and brown butter. Garam masala makes this all-star lineup of autumnal flavors even more warm and comforting, but, as Ali notes, you could swap in five spice, turmeric with chile powder or cinnamon with crushed fennel seeds. I love, too, that this dish calls for whole wheat pasta, durum wheat’s heartier, nuttier, spooky-season sibling.
Then again, maybe I want to kick off squash season with Sohla El-Waylly’s roasted squash with spiced onion gravy. Or Zainab Shah’s kaddu with greens and shrimp. Or maybe I just need a giant batch of roasted butternut squash to add to salads or eat with fried eggs (or, the most likely scenario, to snack on straight from the fridge while I decide what to do with it).
Featured Recipe
Pasta With Butternut Squash, Kale and Brown Butter
Sweet, crunchy cabbage isn’t the star of this tonkatsu recipe from Naz Deravian — that would be those golden breaded and fried pork cutlets, of course. But I can’t imagine the dish without the cabbage. How else would you get that extra dose of crispness and refreshing, green juiciness?
Celery is also shining right now, so I might add more than the three stalks called for in Ali’s chicken salad with lemon-sesame dressing. I’ll simply up the lemon-miso dressing to account for the extra celery and celery leaves, and eat the whole affair with rice for a light but filling dinner.
Fall is also when I start daydreaming about cozy, informal group dinners. Imagine placing Ifrah F. Ahmed’s xawaash braised lamb shanks next to a pile of roasted potatoes, a shallow bowl of simply dressed greens and a good, dry malbec from Argentina, your place already fragrant with cumin, coriander, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom by the time your friends arrive. (That wine rec, by the way, comes from my pal Eric Asimov.)
Or, for a more flexitarian crowd, maybe a pot of vegan chili? Kenji López-Alt’s recipe is no less flavorful than the meaty versions, thanks to a base of toasted and blended dried chiles, a couple of chipotles in adobo and a good splash of whiskey to wake everything up. To go with: Melissa Clark’s coconut cornbread, also vegan and very delicious.
Either way, there must be apples. I love a galette — what other dessert looks better for irregular pleating and singed edges — so this apple galette from Samantha Seneviratne speaks to me. Her recipe calls for three small Golden Delicious, Pink Lady or Honeycrisp apples; I’d add a fourth so that you have something to snack on while your galette bakes.
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