If you’re anything like us then there are times when you don’t mind staying near the kitchen all day to simmer a batch of homemade soup on the stovetop—and there are other times when you really need from-scratch with less fuss. These are the recipes we reach for when we need a helping hand. By taking advantage of your slow cooker you can make everything from chicken soup to beef stew for hardly any effort at all.
One of our go-to recipes? This comforting classic. Slow-cook aromatic vegetables with chicken thighs to make a delicious broth. You can customize the soup by replacing noodles with your favorite cooked grains as well.
Celebrate the season with this treasure trove of cozy cooking and baking recipes, from soul-warming soups and simple dinners to showstoppers and weekend projects.
As the air grows chillier and nights longer, these dishes draw us to the table and the warmth of an active kitchen: Slow-simmered dishes like Cider-Braised Pork Roast, cheesy weeknight pasta like Unstuffed Shells with Butternut Squash, or a crusty bread like Fig and Fennel Bread.
When the flavors of summer fade, autumn and winter fruits and vegetables can be just as bold and bountiful. Find recipe inspiration from the season’s first ripe figs and plump brussels sprouts to roasty sides featuring celery root, kohlrabi, and kabocha squash, or a cranberry curd tart to brighten a winter’s night.
Themed chapters showcase all the reasons to love autumn and winter cooking:
Find new celeberation favorites with a chapter of centerpiece dishes like Turkey and Gravy for a Crowd or Swiss Chard Pie to wow your guests.
Picked apples on an autumnal adventure? All Things Apple covers both sweet and savory recipes like French Apple Cake and Celery Root, Fennel, and Apple Chowder to help you use them up.
Create the ultimate party spread with chapters devoted to Appetizers, Festive Drinks, and Brunch: Try fried Korean fried chicken wings, latkes with beet-horseradish applesauce, or Everything Straws.
Obsessed with pumpkin? So are we! In the Everyone Loves Pumpkin chapter you’ll find everything from Creamy Pumpkin-Chai Soup to Rum Pumpkin Chiffon Pie.
Bake to your heart’s content with chapters covering breads, cookies, cakes, pies, puddings, and more.
Give the gift of food with recipes for Rocky Road Bark and Fruits of the Forest Liqueur.
America’s Test Kitchen’s tips and tricks guarantee every meal is a success. Flip to the introduction for menus and entertaining tips. Plus, we’ve added seasonally themed spreads throughout so you can decorate the perfect holiday cookies or plan a charcuterie board with last-second appetizers.
Meat loaf, breaded pork chops and chicken pot pie were just a few of the go-to dinners in my mother’s recipe rotation. But of the many timeless family recipes she cooked, her beef stew with biscuits was always my favorite. The tender pieces of stew meat and a medley of carrots, onions, potatoes and green beans were smothered in a rich homemade gravy and covered in buttery, fluffy biscuits. It’s one meal I still request as an adult when I visit home.
My mother’s stew recipe is just like this one, cooked low and slow on the stovetop in a Dutch oven and then finished in the oven to bake the biscuits. If you’re looking for a shortcut, though, this easy stew recipe can also be prepared in a slow cooker or even in a pressure cooker, ensuring the comforts of home are always within reach.
Ingredients for Beef Stew with Biscuits
Beef stew meat: Beef sold as stew meat typically comes from a tougher cut, often the chuck or round, and benefits from braising or stewing to make it tender. Buy it precut, or cut the beef into chunks yourself.
Flour: Flouring the beef before giving it an initial sear helps give the meat pieces a nice, brown crust, which enhances the flavor and thickens the stew. In fact, it’s one of our top stew tips.
Canola oil: This neutral-flavored oil is perfect for browning the beef.
Bouillon cubes: To make the stew base, dissolve a few bouillon cubes in boiling water. Use your favorite boxed or homemade beef stock if you don’t have bouillon cubes.
Seasonings: The stew is seasoned with salt, pepper and a trio of fresh parsley, thyme and rosemary, which brings color and aromatic flavor.
Vegetables: A blend of homestyle vegetables—starchy potatoes, sweet carrots, crisp green beans and zippy onions—bulks up this beefy biscuit stew.
Cornstarch: Cornstarch mixed with water is best when it comes to thickening sauces, homemade gravy, stews and more.
Biscuit dough: This stew is topped with classic drop biscuits made from flour, baking powder, salt, canola oil, milk and melted butter.
These fall cookie recipes are the perfect treats for the changing season. From pumpkin and apple to cranberry and pecan, we’ve got fall cookies covered.
As it turns out, snickerdoodles are one ingredient away from becoming the perfect fall cookie. They already have the quintessential fall spice (cinnamon) in the sugar coating, so adding canned pumpkin seems like the perfect addition. Include a few other fall spices like nutmeg and ground ginger, et voila! Pumpkin snickerdoodles are chewy, pumpkiny and lightly spiced with the signature snickerdoodle tang and crackly coating. These are some of my very favorite fall cookies.
Ingredients for Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
Butter: Soften the butter to room temperature so it creams nicely with the sugar. Creaming the butter and sugar together the right way adds a lot of nice volume and chewiness to the cookies.
Sugars: Our pumpkin snickerdoodle recipe uses a mix of granulated and brown sugars. Granulated sugar creates a crispy outside, and brown sugar maintains a moist center and a subtle caramel flavor.
Canned pumpkin: At Taste of Home, we’ve found that canned pumpkin delivers more consistent results than homemade pumpkin puree. And yes, there is a best canned pumpkin brand that beats out the rest!
Egg yolk: We’ll need just one egg yolk to bind the ingredients. Egg yolks add richness and fat, while egg whites can dry out cookies a bit. Save your egg white for an egg white cocktail (like a pisco sour or gin fizz) or for tomorrow morning’s scrambled eggs.
All-purpose flour: All-purpose flour is the best flour for cookies. Its mix of hard and soft wheat creates a tender cookie that’s strong and sturdy enough not to break apart in your hand.
Cornstarch: Cornstarch soaks up some of the liquid in the pumpkin puree so the cookies stay chewy instead of becoming cakey.
Spices: Our pumpkin snickerdoodle cookie recipe has a lot of spice from cinnamon, nutmeg and ground ginger. I always like to grate my nutmeg fresh for the boldest flavor.
Cream of tartar: True snickerdoodles contain cream of tartar to give the cookies that signature snickerdoodle tang and pillowy texture.
Leavening agents: A perfect mixture of baking soda and baking powder makes our pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies even more pillowy soft.
I’m lucky enough to work from home full-time, which gives me the flexibility to make whatever lunch suits my mood. That might be a cozy bowl of turkey and black bean chili that simmers on the stovetop during morning meetings or a quick avocado grilled cheese between deadlines. But when I regularly went to the office, my lunch game looked a bit different, and I had to think about healthy lunch ideas that traveled well.
The best office-friendly lunches can be prepped ahead and are enjoyed either cold or heated in the microwave without sacrificing flavor or nutrition. Whether you’re working remotely or packing lunch for school or the office, having a few go-to healthy lunch ideas can be the difference between a productive, energized afternoon and nodding off as you fight the 3 p.m. slump. Bonus points if they’re no-cook lunch ideas!
This collection of healthy lunch ideas is packed with flavorful meals made from wholesome, minimally processed ingredients like whole grains, high-fiber vegetables, legumes and lean proteins. You’ll find a mix of satisfying meal prep recipes for busy weekdays and easy work-from-home lunch ideas that you can make in a flash. From soups and salads to wraps, bowls and sandwiches, these healthy lunch ideas will keep you energized, satisfied and ready for whatever the afternoon throws your way.
A guide to creating your own sweet or savory Jewish preserves, plus recipes to showcase your jams and pickles.
Come celebrate!
From apricot jam and lemon curd to kosher dills and pickled beets, preserves, both sweet and savory, are at the heart of Jewish cooking. Can you imagine a Passover without charoset, a deli sandwich without a pickle, latkes without applesauce, or blintzes without jam? Today home cooks are rediscovering the soul-satisfying pleasures of making these delectable preserves from scratch. In 75 brilliant recipes, all updated for the modern kitchen, Emily Paster shows how easy it is to make beautiful Jewish preserves at home.
Praise for The Joys of Jewish Preserving
“This is the book I have dreamed of for years! Emily Paster has flung open the larder of traditional and innovative multicultural Jewish pickles and preserves. Only a well-seasoned, well-traveled balabusta like Paster could have delivered this book. It will engage, enrich, and nourish anyone with an interest in home preservation or in Middle Eastern, North African, or Eastern European cooking.” —Karen Solomon, author of Asian Pickles
“A delicious collection of recipes whose flavors and stories are rich in heritage and culture. Her recipes preserve an important tradition and show how that tradition is alive and evolving today.” —Jenn Louis, chef/owner, Ray (Portland, Oregon), and author of The Book of Greens
“Paster taps into the bright, briny, and full-flavored potential of old-world food preservation, while expanding our understanding of what it means to ‘eat Jewish.'” —Leah Koenig, author of Modern Jewish Cooking
There’s a reason bake sales are timeless; they bring people together over sweets that spark smiles. Whether it’s a folding table in the school gym or a community fundraiser at the church, it’s the best bake sale ideas, like buttery cookies, gooey bars and sprinkle-covered cupcakes that draw the crowds. These bake sale recipes are made to travel well, serve easily and taste just as good as they look.
This collection stands out for its crowd-pleasing flavors, simple prep and budget-friendly ingredients. You’ll find bake sale cookies with nostalgic charm, like cinnamon roll cookies filled with warm spice or peanut butter blossoms with chocolate-kissed tops. There are also colorful creations that double as decor, including rainbow cupcakes and cute desserts for parties such as chocolate-dipped cone cupcakes and marshmallow pops. For something rich that stretches across a crowd, layered bars like Behr Track and toffee turtle offer that ideal mix of salty crunch and gooey caramel sweetness. Even quick, no-bake cherry cookies earn their spot for candy-shop flavor.
We chose each recipe for its simplicity. These desserts slice cleanly, hold their shape and don’t require fussy ingredients. You’ll also find plenty of quick baking recipes perfect for last-minute prep or doubling up when you need extra. A well-stocked table with familiar flavors and eye-catching surprises is often all it takes to make a bake sale memorable.
100 Easy, must-have Jewish recipes for any occasion
Jewish food is steeped in diverse cultural traditions, featuring a wide array of ingredients, flavors, and textures from all over the world. Capture the essence of this one-of-a-kind cuisine with The Essential Jewish Cookbook, filled with easy recipes for classic Jewish dishes made simple and modern.
From Challah French Toast and Classic Potato Latkes to Adafina and Doro Wot, these recipes highlight the breadth and depth of Jewish cuisine from different regions. You’ll find tips and tricks for getting the most out of each recipe, from preparing certain steps in advance to swapping ingredients for making dishes kosher.
The Essential Jewish Cookbook includes:
A culinary history—Learn more about where these recipes come from with a historical journey through Jewish cuisine, from the Middle East, to Europe, North Africa, the Americas, and beyond.
Holiday menus—Discover simple holiday menus that offer a starting place for planning memorable meals and forming your own delicious traditions.
Dietary labels—Explore vegetarian, kosher, and gluten-free recipes with labels that make it easy to find dishes that will work for everyone.
From weeknight dinners to holiday feasts, create delectable meals the whole family will love with this traditional Jewish cookbook.
These M&M’s brownies are the perfect marriage of decadent, fudgy brownies and the crunchy, colorful candies. They aren’t just fun to look at; they’re also easy to make, with a cocoa-based brownie batter that bakes up moist and chocolaty. To keep the candies from melting, don’t add the M&M’s until about halfway through the bake time, and lightly press them into the surface for a picture-perfect finish. Whether you’re baking for a birthday party, a bake sale or just because, this top brownie recipe delivers a pop of color and chocolate in every bite.
Good Food, Good Meat, Good God, Let's Eat! 