Like pumpkin pie, but more egg-y and without the crust; a perfect Thanksgiving Day—or fall or winter—dessert.

The ancient Romans and those living in Europe into the Middle Ages treated (furthermore, named) the apple as a “vegetable,” cooking it alongside various meats, especially pork and game, or serving cooked and oft-elaborately-spiced apples as its own course, alongside cooked root and green vegetables.

About cooking red cabbage, keep in mind that any red in it quickly turns to mauve on long cooking, then a slate blue, finally an unappetizing dirty green. However, cooking or preparing red cabbage with an acid (vinegar, for example, or wine, or citrus juice) preserves the red color.

On a voyage back from Europe to the United States aboard the Queen Mary 2, I tasted this creamed spinach in its steak restaurant. It’s delicious; you could eat it for dessert, it’s so rich and filling. I think the dual secrets are squeezing the spinach of excess water after it has been blanched and thickening the cream. 

Pastel de choclo is what we would call a layered casserole or a sort of shepherd’s pie, consisting of a topping of a sweet corn polenta over a savory ground beef filling, separated by and further flavored with a vein of chopped hard-boiled eggs, golden raisins, and sliced olives. When skillfully assembled, with the best ingredients, its simplicity is irresistible.

The chopped salad—typically, but not exclusively, a mix of vegetables chopped up into uniform size and mixed together—is close to perfect summer or warm weather fare.

The French word “mousseline” is used in a couple of culinary ways: it’s a mousse; it’s a sauce (a variation of hollandaise), but its original meaning is “muslin,” a fine weave of soft cotton. Making a mousseline in the kitchen turns anything into something that your tongue is happy to touch. Photo from Elena Leya on unsplash.

This piscine packet of pleasure roasts Alaskan halibut over a bed of bitter greens which become like steamed spinach but with a kicker of more flavor and texture.

A perfect summertime salad that uses the season's two most-appreciated red foods, accented with feta's tang and mint's cool.

This gazpacho is more a drink than a soup and is served that way in its place of origin, Sevilla, Spain. Unlike many gazpachos, this recipe uses no bread, a solid amount of Spanish extra virgin olive oil, and yellow tomatoes, not red.

This is a “bleached” twist on the standard tomato-and-red pepper gazpacho.

This is the classic Spanish gazpacho, originating in the southern region of Spain called Andalusia, home to all the traditional ingredients: its vegetables, sherry vinegar and, in this recipe, jamón serrano.

“It came from a cookbook that they gave me called ‘Chuck Wagon Cookin’,” says the author. “It’s ideal for chuck wagon days before the days of refrigeration because it will keep for days without breaking down. The honey and vinegar retard bacterial and microbial growth.”

Known in its native Catalonia, in the Catalan language, as “Pa amb Tomàquet,” this starter or nibble course of bread rubbed with ripe tomato is ubiquitous throughout Spain.

This is essentially a Salade Niçoise wrapped in a rice paper roll. It is delicious, in addition to being comely to the eye.

The pickled chiles and carrots that make up this escabeche can add buckets of flavor and texture to other foods such as enchiladas or tamales.

This firm yet flaky and moist textured fish is farmed in Alamosa by a family-owned company, Colorado Catch.

The simplest of preparations, to deliver a complexity of flavors, especially the play between salt and sweet, a killer combo.

The beginnings of a roasted vegetable ratatouille. Photo from Artem Smoldarev pon pexels.com

A vegetarian or vegan bruschetta using “the black kale” of Tuscany.