Wondering about good ways to use up leftover turkey? (Or leftover roast chicken?) Here's one recipe idea, an old favorite from my mother. It's home-cooking good and will be on the table in no time. And for anyone feeling less than svelte after the holiday? In Weight Watchers points, it's just six PointsPlus for a main dish serving, about as good it gets! My home ec-teacher mom was my personal cooking help line, as much as it pained her to answer my some times clueless questions. You see, I’d been allowed to pass out of Foods I, the beginning high school cooking class she taught, straight into Foods II taught by another home ec teacher. “Hello, Mom? How do I make … ” From the other end of the phone came the audible sigh I’d come to expect. With each gap in my knowledge, she’d berate, “If you’d only taken Foods I.” Luckily, it became our little joke, a private moment of shared history. Today’s young cooks have no idea what it’s like to face a mother like th

Recipe for jellied cranberry sauce made with fresh cranberries and softly gelled with the natural pectin in apples. A perfect recipe substitute for cylinders of canned cranberry sauce all jiggly-wobbly with high-fructose corn syrup. Quick and easy and nothing – nothing – like canned cranberry sauce. No gelatin so naturally vegan. The sad news that the pages of Gourmet shall go blank this month hit hard, like the loss of a family elder who seemed ready to live forever. Looking back, it was Gourmet’s 1986 or 1987 Thanksgiving issue that first revealed to me the concept of simple food cooked well, and in season, that expresses the food sensibility I call my own today. Who needs a can of mushroom soup when it’s so easy to slice mushrooms for Homemade Mushroom Soup ? Who wants a fridgeful of salad dressing when it’s so fast to mix a quick vinaigrette right in the salad bowl? Twelve boxes (one for each month) of back issues are testament to a long affair with food magazines, Go

A 'cousin' to Thanksgiving's apple pie and pumpkin pie, combining naturally sweetened apple butter and pumpkin purée in an easy press-in graham cracker crust and topped with dollops of whipped cream. The recipe comes from my family's cookbook, my sister says that people who don't like pumpkin pie (there are people who don't?! poor souls!) like this! Word on the street – wait, you know that today’s ‘street’ is Twitter, yes? – is that there’s a pumpkin shortage in 2009. Frantic bakers are searching from store to store, anxious to nab a can or two of pumpkin puree for Thanksgiving pies or a cartful for hoarding for year-round baking. This pie weds apple butter with pumpkin, a happy marriage, creating a naturally sweet filling. CAN WE MAKE A PIE WITHOUT SUGAR? The first time I made this pie, alors, no brown sugar in the house and no interest in substituting white sugar. A taste test was in order: good news, the unbaked filling mixture tasted plenty sw