Rutabaga

Any root veg you have on hand will work for this easy dinner. Serve with eggs, fish, chicken, burgers, salads, or use it as a taco or quesadilla filling.

These root vegetable pancakes are a gift to eggs everywhere for brunch, served under a little crème fraîche and smoked salmon for a party app, or simply paired with sour cream and applesauce for an ideal sweet-savory combo anytime.

Chicken potpie is a dish many of us crave when we want to conjure up the warmth of home and hearth, and chef Ashley Christensen, owner of Poole's Diner in Raleigh, North Carolina, is no different. "This potpie is inspired by my mother's kind of cooking: dishes that shout out the classics, but with clean flavors and crisp textures," she says. Christensen grounds the pie in colder-month offerings of sweet potatoes and rutabagas and tender leaves of kale instead of the usual carrot and celery combo. Adding another bit of Southern flair, the chef uses a small amount of cornmeal in the crust, which provides a nutty, toasty flavor with an echo of sweetness to match the filling. "Though some potpies are encased in crust, I like the "island" approach, letting the gravy bubble up around the pillow of crust," Christensen says. "Crust is potpie's defining moment, no matter how delicious the filling."

Eating fresh produce in a variety of colors is key to good health, and this autumn medley of carrots, butternut squash, rutabaga, parsnips, and shallots provides an abundance of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients.

A cross between a cabbage and a turnip, rutabaga also belongs to the Brassica family and contains some fiber and potassium along with vitamin C. Peel away the tough exterior of the root vegetable to discover hearty, firm flesh that’s tasty and filling.

Ribollita is a classic Tuscan soup traditionally made with leftover minestrone thickened with chunks of stale bread. This version is something quite different, and it’s based entirely on the one they serve at Ristorante Da Delfina, a wonderful ristorante in a tiny village nestled in the hills just outside Florence. It was described to me as a fried soup, so the first time I ate it, I didn’t know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they’d turned the soup into something wholly unsouplike that I could eat with a knife and fork. The way we make it, after cooking off the liquid, we thicken the soup with bread, we chill it, and then shape it into patties that we pan-fry in olive oil. We serve it as an antipasto but it could be a side dish or, served with a green salad, a light meal. I often recommend it to vegetarians, and to make it vegan, just omit the Parmigiano rind. One of our inveterate recipe testers, Tracey Harada, tested this recipe about eight times to get the flavors perfect. Cavolo nero, a variety of kale, is one of the defining ingredients of any ribollita. You can find it at specialty food stores and health-food stores, but if you can’t find it, use another variety of kale.

This is a classic spring or fall dish, times when you can get good, fresh turnips but don’t mind long, slow cooking. Here turnips and pork are both browned for perfect color and then simmered in a little liquid until tender. Don’t ignore the instruction to preheat the skillet for at least a minute, then allow the butter and/or oil to become hot, and don’t crowd the meat, or it won’t brown properly. Make sure the first side of the pork cubes browns well and that the second is on its way to being browned before adding the turnips. The turnips themselves are so high in natural sugars that they brown almost instantly and continue to gain color as they braise.

When you’re making a pot roast, the vegetables you add at the beginning contribute to the development of the sauce, but those at the end draw on the sauce for flavor (like the turnip or rutabaga in this dish), often making them the best part. You can skip browning the meat to save time (and mess) if necessary. Yes, browning creates complexity, but there is so much flavor in this particular pot roast that subtle complexity is overwhelmed.

As good warm as hot, this is a nice homey casserole to go with a roast or other dish in the spirit of Sunday dinner. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: rutabagas are not only traditional but wonderful, but other turnips are great too, as are carrots, potatoes, parsnips, and celeriac (celery root).

Clint Eastwood was in for dinner one night while he was here in Savannah filming Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. That particular night, we had rutabagas on the buffet. He made a point to tell me that he was a ten-year-old boy the last time he had tasted this wonderful vegetable. He said that he really enjoyed them again after all those years. Rutabagas are a winter vegetable, and not always available, so enjoy them while you can.

The chicken is in the oven—heat forming a golden crust that seals in the juices, salt working its silent alchemy within, denaturing some of the proteins in tough muscles making those parts more tender and flavorful. Roasting is the easiest way to cook chicken and the tastiest. All that is required to reach perfection is time and the perfect salt. Sugpo Asin, a king among salts, glowing rose-cloud white, lush and firmly crunchy, with dulcet brine notes that play lavishly (but with discipline) against the sweet tamed gaminess of poultry, honors this basic meat and vegetable meal as all basic meals should be honored—asserting the preeminence of simple home cooking as the cornerstone of eating well.