Four takes on red sauce

The Splendid Table recipe specifies spaghetti, but the day I decided to make this I didn't have any on hand so I cheated and used the penne I did have.

A bowl of red sauced pasta is such a wonderful known quantity, even when they're all different. Here are four options for comfort in a bowl that demonstrate the variation that can be had around a common theme. The guest star ingredients range from salami to pancetta, and ground beef to mushrooms so there's a vegetarian option. So pull out a big can of San Marzano tomatoes, an even bigger pot and have garlic at the ready. The sauces are good to make ahead and reheat. One guess what's for Valentine's Day dinner.

Classic spaghetti with tomato-red wine sauce

A Lynne Rossetto Kasper "Splendid Table" recipe as published in the Minnesota Star Tribune Taste Section, first in 2007 and then again in 2025 when Rossetto Kasper was auctioning off some of her culinary collection. You can see the original recipe here. It's very precise and specifies things such as  5 quarts of salted water in a 6-quart pot. Very, very precise.

Ingredients

2 medium onions, diced
2 celery stalks with leaves, thinly chopped
2 ounces Italian salami, cut into ¼-inch dice
¼ to ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 large garlic cloves, minced

2 "generous" tablespoons tomato paste

⅓ cup dry red wine
½ torn fresh basil leaves

1 (again, generous) tablespoon dried basil
1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes with juice, plus 1 14-ounce can, drained
1 pound spaghetti

Grated cheese for garnish, such as Parmesan, Asiago or Pecorino

Method
Put a large pot of salted water on, ready to bring up to a boil when needed.

Film the bottom of a large, deep skillet with olive oil. Add chopped onion and celery, season with salt and pepper and cook until onion is golden. Add salami and pepper flakes and cook for 2 minutes, Add garlic, tomato paste, red wine and the basil. Cook over medium high heat, stirring often, while red wine is nearly cooked off. (Now would be a good time to crank up the heat under the pasta pot.)

Add the tomatoes to the salami onion mixture, crushing them as you add them. Simmer until mixture thickens, about 8 minutes. 

Add pasta to boiling water and cook until al dente Drain and add to sauce. Serve with grated cheese for garnish.

Rating: Yep, that's a classic for a reason.

Pasta alla Carla

It might seem incongruous to choose an Italian recipe from a cookbook called "The Little French Bakery Cookbook," but it's a recipe author Susan M. Holding learned on a trip to Tuscany from a woman named Carla. Holding trained on pastry at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and runs a cooking school in Wisconsin. 

Note: The basic gist of this recipe is that the vegetables get chopped so finely that they more or less disappear into the sauce when cooked, so when you think you've chopped them enough, keep chopping, and then some more. I contemplated using the food processor but worried I might turn them to liquid. The original recipe lists 1 to 2 pounds of pasta, and suggests starting with 1 pound. Since 1 pound was all I had of any one type, I went with that. My sense is that if you like your pasta drenched with sauce, that 1 pound would work, but if you prefer it to be more nearly dressed than drowned with sauce, that 2 pounds would be closer to the mark if you want to use up all the sauce. I just opted to save the extra sauce to use later on more pasta. I'd say this could serve 6 as a main dish using 1 pound of pasta.

Ingredients
1 (28-ounce) can San Marzano or plum tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 ounces pancetta, diced
1 red onion, finely minced
2 celery stalks, finely minced
1 carrot, finely minced
3 large garlic cloves, finely minced
1 cup parsley, finely minced
1½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon ground pepper
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 cup water

1 pound (or more) long pasta, like fettuccine or spaghetti (I opted for linguine)
Grated Parmesan for garnish

Method
Drain tomatoes, reserving liquid. Run tomatoes through a food mill, or if you're like me and don't have one, puree them in a food processor and drain through a fine mesh sieve. (I reserved the tomato sludge for another use; great to enrich a vegetable soup.)

In a large deep pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add pancetta and cook until crisp and golden. Add onion, celery and carrot and cook until softened, but not browned. Add garlic and cook for a minute. Stir in parsley, salt, sugar, ground pepper, pepper flakes and tomatoes. Add 1 cup water to the reserved tomato liquid and add that to the pot. Bring mixture to a simmer, and cook partially covered for 30 to 45 minutes until sauce is noticeably reduced and thickened, then cover and keep warm while pasta cooks.

While sauce cooks, heat up a large pot of salted water for the pasta and cook until al dente. Drain, return to pan to dry the pasta and toss with some of the sauce to coat. Transfer to serving dish, top with more pasta and serve with Parmesan for garnish.

Rating: No idea if I diced it fine enough since there was no Carla standing over me to judge. There's an unobtrusive background hint of heat from the pepper flakes and the pancetta flavor comes through. Dave approved. I don't know that I'm blown away by it, but it is a nice, basic example of a simple classic pasta sauce, which has a sort of clean quality to it. If you've got the time, it most certainly beats anything out of a bottle.

Black bean Bolognese

This is the cover recipe from the Winter 2026 issue of Bon Appetit. The black beans in question come in the form of black bean garlic paste, which I tracked down at Kowalski's without having to venture into any more exotic source. Serves 4.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 1½-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
¾ dry white wine
1 pound ground beef
⅓ cup black bean garlic sauce
2 teaspoons brown sugar
12 ounces pappardelle, bucatini or rigatoni
3 tablespoons butter, cut into chunks
Green onions, chopped for garnish

Method

Heat olive oil in a large deep pan over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger and cook until softened and fragrant. Add tomatoes, crushing them a bit as you go. Bring to a simmer and cook for 20-25 minutes until sauce is very thick. Add wine and cook until almost evaporated. If there are still larger chunks of tomatoes, try to mash those smooth. Add ground beef, black bean garlic sauce and brown sugar. Cook until beef is cooked through and simmer for 10-15 minutes to allow the flavor to develop. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove 2 cups of the sauce and set aside.

Cook pasta until just before al dente. Drain, reserving liquid. Toss pasta with sauce in pan and butter. Add sauce and cooking liquid as needed until the pasta is coated. Serve garnished with green onions.

Rating: Dave was emphatic about expressing how much he liked this dish, so it's not unlikely we'll make it again. It's not your traditional Bolognese, but it's a tasty entry into the genre. 

Leftover note: My package of pasta wasn't 12 ounces, so we wound up not needing much of the reserved sauce.  Good to use on another pasta or to turn it into a soup. I'm itching to try this recipe from Amy Sheppard that uses about 3 cups of Bolognese sauce, about a quart and a half of stock and Boursin round for creaminess, topped with a sprinkling of what looks on IG to be parsley.

Rigatoni with quick mushroom Bolognese

From Taste’s Sunday Supper in the Minnesota Star Tribune, taken from “Mostly Meatless,” by America’s Test Kitchen. The only adaptation I made was upping the amount of tomato paste by a tablespoon, partly because it looked like it could use it, and partly so it would get used, since I happened to have 5 tablespoons in a jar in the frig that would be good to use up. Oh, and another clove of garlic so I possibly could actually detect it.

Ingredients
1 pound rigatoni, cooked until al dente, 1 cup cooking liquid reserved
1 pound cremini mushrooms, trimmed and quartered
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
¾ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons tomato paste
4 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup white wine
¼ cup grated Pecorino Romano, plus more for garnish
Chopped chives for garnish
Crushed red pepper flakes for garnish

Method

Pulse mushrooms in food processor until finely chopped, about 10 pulses. Heat oil in a large deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms, onion, carrot and salt and cook until mushrooms have exuded their liquid and that liquid has cooked off.

Stir in tomato paste and garlic. Cook about 3 minutes until mixture has tightened. Stir in wine and cook until evaporated. Add cooked pasta, ¼ cup cheese and reserved 1 cup cooking liquid and stir well. Serve garnished with more grated cheese, chives and red pepper flakes.

Rating: If you're looking for a meatless version of a traditional Bolognese this sort of gets at that texture. It comes together fairly quickly once you get everything chopped. It's not a wower, but it's fine enough.

Also, too

All good choices. And instead of making me sick of red sauce, it makes me want to dust off  this Marcella Hazan recipe. So elemental, and so good.

Turnip soup that doesn't taste like turnips

 

I'm working to break the refrigerator cycle that I fall into annually at the end of the year. A frig packed with farmers market and garden bounty like cabbage and root vegetables that I haven't yet managed to cook my way through has to accommodate all the fixings for holiday madness. Eventually it gets to the point where I can cram all the ingredients I need in, but have no room to store any dish I make with those ingredients, and I have to slowly break the stalemate. 

I am very much hoping that more time to cook will alleviate the boom cycle, and doing my best to cook my way out of any lingering obstructions. Some turnips from the farmers market last fall had somehow survived the Rubik's cube phase of refrigerator storage without moldering, so I found this recipe in my file of soup recipes to try. So one thing out of the frig and one thing out of the clipping pile. 

Silken turnip and potato soup

From Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock, adapted from “The Gift of Southern Cooking” as published in the November 2023 issue of Food & Wine

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter
3½ cups sliced yellow onions
5 cups peeled and sliced turnips
2 cups peeled and sliced russet potato
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3¼ cup chicken stock, divided
⅛ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, plus more for garnish
Basil or other fresh herbs chopped for garnish

Method

Melt butter in a large sauce pan. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened but not browned. Add turnips, potatoes and salt and stir well. Cover and simmer on low until vegetables are almost tender, about 20 minutes, adding ¼ cup broth if it starts to stick. Add remaining broth and bring to a simmer. Cook until vegetables are tender. Cool and puree mixture in a food processor or blender. Reheat along with nutmeg and salt to taste. Garnish with a sprinkling of more nutmeg and chopped herbs if desired. The original recipe calls for a garnish of thinly sliced basil, but my house is not conducive to growing basil in the winter, so I opted for sage, since it holds up quite well under the grow lights in the basement. I think basil or parsley might have been a better choice since they're less assertive and less likely to detract from the fairly delicate soup flavor.

Rating: It is indeed silken, and quite tasty. Despite the fat that turnips are involved, for some reason I was mainly struck by how it somehow tasted of parsnips and reminded me of this Parsnip Apple Soup recipe I make about once a year. The potato seems to mellow the turnip flavor, which is a plus for those of us who generally like turnips to play a supporting role rather than in a star turn.

Another year, another chili

It seems like every year the Super Bowl ads get less funny, effective or otherwise useful as a sales tool. If Guy Fieri and a cute horse are your only slightly memorable bits, well, that's saying something. And you know you're going to have the requisite clop-clop horse ad.

But at least there's always a big pot of chili for half time. Dave gleefully dubbed this chili con corny.

Chipotle corn and two-bean chili

Adapted from Cooking Light, July 2006 issue.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
¾ teaspoon salt
1 pound ground beef
1½ cups chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano leaves
2 (14.5 ounce) cans chopped tomatoes
1 can corn, drained, liquid reserved (or use 1½ cups frozen plus 1 cup of water)
1 cup chopped zucchini
1 tablespoons chopped chipotle in adobe sauce 
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15-ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
Chopped green onions
Shredded Cheddar cheese
Sour cream

Method

Combine chili, cumin and salt in a small bowl. Put ground beef in a large pot (it filled my second largest pot, and I've got big pots to choose from). Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of spice mixture over beef. Break up with the back of a spoon and cook over medium heat until beef is browned. Remove from pot and set aside.

Add onion to pot and cook until tender. Add remaining spice mixture, garlic and oregano and cook for a minute. Add tomatoes and corn. Add enough water to reserved corn liquid to make 1 cup and add that to the pot. Bring to a simmer and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add beef, zucchini, chipotle and beans. Cover and simmer a half hour to give flavors time to blend.

Serve topped with chopped green onions, Cheddar and a dollop of sour cream.

Rating: I had a strong suspicion that this recipe was one of those that benefits from being made ahead, since it's basically a ton of canned goods waiting to absorb flavor. I didn't get around to it in advance, so I just assembled this before the game started, turned off the heat after the final simmer and then reheated it at half time. Decent flavor. Comes together with very few dishes, aside from all those cans. The chipotle gives it some heat but not an overwhelming amount.

Did I really need to try yet another chili recipe? No. But that way at least there's some innovation each year to keep me entertained amid the game Dave rightfully labelled puntorama.

Strata with prosciutto, rosemary and sun-dried tomatoes

Strata recipes are a great way to use up stale bread and all those ends of loaves that would otherwise wind up green and fuzzy. So in theory, they're frugal. Even though they use a lot of eggs, and egg prices have become more carefully monitored than the stock market in some quarters, eggs are still comparatively cheap protein given the price of a lot of animal sources of protein, at least in our community. So, still frugal-ish. 

But then practically every recipe I run into loads up the strata with some of the most expensive ingredients: truffles, imported Italian cured meats and cheeses, etc. My longtime go-to strata recipe for brunch guests is a case in point: Goat cheese, artichoke and ham strata from Bon Appetit in 1997 is packed with expensive cheese and other goodies. It is also intensely tasty.

I googled cheap strata, and aside from a bunch of guitar pictures (that would be strata, various), I got some AI hallucination that thinks mushrooms and sausage are cheap. Again, regional price differences might account for that apparent puzzling disconnect. (Also, I'm going to ignore the fact that technically strata is already a plural noun in other use cases and avoid that rabbit hole of stratas.)

This recipe definitely falls into the price (and calorie) stuffed category, but I made it anyway.

Fresh mozzarella, sun-dried tomato and prosciutto strata

Adapted from Cooking Light, June 2005. To make it lighter, opt for fat-free milk.

Note: The amount of bread cubes and dairy might seem like more than you'd think would fit in the baking dish, or at least I worried it would be, but the bread shrinks down a lot when it soaks up all that dairy.

Ingredients

1 pound focaccia, cut into 3/4-inch cubes, about 15 cups
3¼ cups milk
¼ cup crème fraiche or sour cream
8 ounces egg substitute (or 4 large eggs plus one egg yolk is a close approximation)
1 garlic clove, minced
¼ cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes
4 ounces prosciutto, chopped
4 ounces fresh mozzarella, cut into narrow strips
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread bread cubes on a large baking sheet in a single layer and toast for 10 minutes.

Combine milk, crème fraiche, eggs and garlic in a large bowl. Stir in toasted bread and let stand for 5 minutes.

Grease a 9-by-13 pan. Place half of bread mixture in the bottom of the pan. Top with prosciutto, mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes and rosemary. Top with remaining bread cubes. Cover and chill 8 hours or up to overnight. 

Uncover and bake in 350-degree oven for 20 minutes. Top with Parmesan cheese and return to oven to bake for another 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand 5 minutes before cutting and serving Serves 8.

Rating: Really pleasant rosemary flavor, which complements the prosciutto and Parmesan nicely.  Fast to assemble compared with some more elaborate strata recipes. Worth making now and again as a splurge. And like all strata dishes, having something prepared you can whip out of the refrigerator for brunch or dinner is priceless at that moment. Plus, lots of leftovers that reheat just fine in the oven. 

I'm thinking the next time I have a pile of bread cubes lurking in my freezer I'll have to try a strata with some of the frozen roasted farmers market vegetables I stash each summer. Layer in some feta and mozzarella and it might still qualify as frugal-ish.

A trio of soups to warm our hearts

 

Cream of spinach soup

When I signed up for a buyout at work, everyone seemed to wonder what magnificent plans I had. My internal response was something like "Plans? I'm required to have plans??) My external response was that making a big vat of soup and curling up under a mound of covers with a good book sounded like a great winter break to me. 

But first came Christmas and New Year's cooking/baking hoopla, and I found myself in January with no prepared soups or finished books to my credit and somehow not the inertia to get started on either front. So to get out of my rut, I turned to three women with bona fide credentials, all three of them with an ode to soup cookbook under their belt: Barbara Kafka, Mollie Katzen and Betty Rosbottom.

So now my refrigerator is stuffed with soups to weave into the weekly menu, and I've been making a slight dent in the stack of books at long last, although now punctuated by breaks for doomscrolliing. They may not all be chicken soups, but they're still good for the soul, and we need that right now. I love my adopted city of Minneapolis, and it needs all the soup and good will it can get. It has been supremely weird to not at least be on the sidelines at work during this crisis. and I wish my former coworkers all the vibes in their work to share truth. Covering a persistent, pervasive, mutable story is a sort of journalistic death march where the ground heaves beneath you while you get insufficient rest and still debate and refine every word choice. Wishing them all the soups.

Cream of spinach soup

Adapted from Mollie Katzen’s “Soups.” Serves 6 to 8 as a soup plate size serving.

Ingredients

1 large onion, chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
3 cups water
2 teaspoons salt
10-16 ounces of fresh spinach leaves, stems trimmed (I used 2 5-ounce boxes)
5 medium garlic cloves, peeled
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1½ cups hot milk
Pinch of white pepper
Pinch of nutmeg

Method

Place onion, potatoes and salt in a large pot. Add water and bring to a simmer, cooking covered until potatoes are tender. Add spinach and garlic and set aside until cool enough to puree the mixture.

Meanwhile, melt butter in a medium saucepan. Stir in flour and cook a minute. Slowly add milk, whisking as you go. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture is smooth and slightly thickened. It makes a thin white sauce. Stir into pureed vegetable  mixture and heat through before serving.(Alternatively, you can skip the butter and flour step and just stir the hot milk directly into the soup if you want to make it gluten-free.)

Rating: This makes a dandy soup I would make again. Tasty, and a bright, vibrant green. If you were looking for a garnish, maybe a dollop of savory whipped cream would do. It's reminiscent of this heavenly spinach vichyssoise recipe, but heavier on the spinach than the potato. I just used a stick blender, but if I was serving this for company, I'd recommend using a blender or food processor to get a finer texture.

I'm not sure why cabbage gets top billing in this recipe title since zucchini provides the largest share. 

Cabbage-dill potage

From Barbara Kafka's "Soup: A Way of Life," a truly lovely title. Serves 6 to 8 depending on preferred serving size.

Note: The recipe calls for using a zucchini base that you have made ahead in summer during its abundance and stashed in the freezer to pull out one of several soup recipes in the book that utilize it, but you can also just make it at the same time as the soup. Kafka calls for a food mill as the first choice for processing the vegetation, but I don't have one so I stuck with the food processor.

Ingredients
4 medium zucchini
1 tablespoon butter
½ pound mashing potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks (about two medium potatoes)
Half a small cabbage, chopped small, about 2 cups
2 large leeks, whites and 1-inch of pale green parts, cleaned and cut into ½-inch pieces
4 cups water
2 tablespoons chopped dill, plus more for optional garnish

Method

Peel zucchini and slice into quarters lengthwise, then ½-inch chunks. Heat butter over low heat in a large saucepan. Toss zucchini with butter, cover and simmer for 45 minutes. At this point you can puree the mixture and freezer it until ready to use, or proceed with the recipe.

Combine potatoes, cabbage, leeks and 4 cups water in a large pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, covered. Transfer cooked vegetables to a food processor to puree and then return to liquid in pot along with zucchini puree. If, like me, you're making it all at once, I just added the cooked, chopped zucchini to the soup pot and used a stick blender to mix the entire lot at once. 

Add chopped dill and salt and pepper to taste. (The original recipe called for 5 teaspoons, but I found 3 teaspoons to be a great plenty.) Drizzle with some olive oil if desired and garnish with extra dill.

Rating: Decent soup, flavorwise. Rather thick, but that's not a horrible thing in a soup in January by any means. Like many soups, the flavor improves with time. The zucchini base approach has merit worth revisiting in summer. My version of that is to chop up a zucchini with whatever else is in season and roast them, then freeze 3 to 4 cups of the mixture to add later to a frittata or to mix with beans, broth and pesto for a soup.

Forgot to put on the garnish when I was photographing the leftovers so you'll just have to imagine that bit.

Colorado chicken soup with black beans, corn and pepitas

From "Soup Nights" by Betty Rosbottom. Serves 8 heartily as main dish servings.

Note: Choose the biggest pot you've got for this one. I opted for a pretty big pot, but my Le Creuset #32 Dutch oven (aka Mega Blue)  was barely big enough to contain all of it so I wished I'd chosen the one we refer to as Bigger than Blue.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
⅔ cup chopped celery
½ cup diced carrots
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1½ teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon Spanish smoked paprika
6 cups chicken broth
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes and their juice
1 4-ounce can green chilis
4 cups shredded cooked chicken
2 cups fresh corn kernels, or frozen and thawed

½ cup roasted pepitas, optional
½ cilantro leaves

Method

In really large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion, celery, carrots and garlic and cook until just starting to soften. Add oregano, cumin and paprika and cook for about a minute. Add broth, tomatoes and juices and green chilis. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Add chicken and corn and heat through.

Optional garnish: Combine pepitas and cilantro in a food processor and use as soup topping. Or just garnish with chopped cilantro.

Rating: If I were to make this soup again, I'd either cut the amount of chicken in half or leave it out altogether. Dave, of course, was fine with the abundance of chicken involved since it made it very filling, but for me, the soup had an odd disconnect between the super thick chicken and beans and the thinness of the broth portion of the soup. I found that when I took bites that didn't have any chicken in it I liked it more, so I think it would make a not bad vegetable bean soup. I would opt for just using chopped cilantro as a garnish next time or else add oil to the pepitas and cilantro to make a pesto; as it is, it didn't really work for me as a garnish. The cilantro flavor is a nice addition, but if you're one of those who finds that off-putting, chopped parsley would do. It is a comparatively fast fix and pantry/freezer friendly, so it has that in its favor.

Soup's on. Stay warm, stay whatever safe looks like to you and carry on. 

Three winter salads, plus a whine about a Gmail setting

Roasted squash salad with bacon and pumpkin seeds

A trio of salads: Kale cobb salad, radicchio salad with blue cheese dressing, roasted squash salad with bacon

All of these salads were brought to you by winter: They combine sturdy ingredients into robust salads while we wait out the season where lettuce won't grow with grace. So instead, think kale, and its obliging partner, bacon. Radicchio and roasted squash. Greens with roasted squash AND bacon.

One of the salads was also brought to you by a combination of irritation and opportunity. Dave flagged a Huffington Post article alerting that there was an automatic opt-in for Gmail users that could allow Google access to your messages and attachments to train AI models. Ish. It shared instructions for the two places to turn off smart features that allow this harvesting, and since that seemed like something I don't want in place, I dutifully turned it off.

And then found out, of course, just what all is joined at the hip in smart features. I could possibly live with out grammar check or autospelling, but everything all in one email inbox? Ugh. Plus, they only let you tailor your inbox notifications if you enable smart features. Double ugh. That leaves you with the option of either opting out of most promotional email (gasp, how will I find out when Harney's and Penzey's have a sale when I need to stock up??) or risk missing an actually vital email amid all the crud. 

So, for now, I've caved and am on a mission to kill down my overall inbox before I try again, opting out as I go. To say that I've never been an inbox-zero person for anything other than the equivalent in Slack is putting it mildly. My promotions box had ballooned to more than 17,000. I've now got that down below 2,500, but I'm loath to just kill out everything without looking through, because hello, recipes! Like the recipe for radicchio salad with blue cheese, below. Sure, I got the magazine in October, but it apparently didn't trigger my interest until I saw it promoted in my Gmail and remembered that I have both radicchio and gorgonzola in my frig that need using.

So I'm wading through the rest of the messages, and really irritated by one trend that can't be over soon enough: Promotional emails designed to trade on shame, guilt, anxiety and other malaise. I'm looking at you, Martha Stewart minions. Amid the potentially useful how-tos like how to make sour cream or reuse old sheets are these stink bombs: 

9 hosting habits that guests secretly despise

12 sneaky reasons your home never feels completely clean

The 6 worst front door colors for curb appeal

7 home decor mistakes you should avoid

6 outdated garden trends

She's not alone in the negative phrasing, by any means. A quick search for "never" in my promotions box unearthed a trove of headlines destined for inbox trash. Colors to never paint your bathroom, etc. A cleaning step you always miss. "Wrong" is another big offender, along with "mistake," as in "You're making scrambled eggs wrong," instead of "how to make terrific scrambled eggs."

Along with umbrage. I have taken delight in killing out these joy zappers. I would paint my bathroom one of the never-do colors, but I've forgotten what they were already, because you should be able to paint your bathroom whatever color makes you happy.

But I did get at least one decent recipe out of the inbox before deleting it. Only 2,500 to go, and then it's off to zapping NextDoor rants.

Roasted squash salad with bacon and pumpkin seeds

Adapted from Cooking Light. I can't find the original recipe to link to but I believe it was in the October 2005 issue. If you’re looking to restore its lightness, go for cooking spray instead of olive oil, 1 slice of bacon instead of 3 and half the amount of dressing.  Serves 6 as a side course or 4 as a main dish.

Ingredients

4 cups cubed and peeled butternut squash (1-inch cubes), half of a medium squash

2 teaspoons olive oil

3 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

3 slices of bacon

1 medium shallot, minced

10 cups mixed salad greens, about 10 ounces

Toasted pumpkin seeds for garnish

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss squash with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Place on a rimmed baking sheet and roast for 30 minutes or until tender, stirring once half way through cooking time. 

Combine vinegar, mustard and a sprinkling of salt and pepper in a large bowl. 

Cook bacon until crisp. Remove from pan and chop into pieces when cool enough to handle. In bacon fat, cook shallots until just tender. Add shallots and some of the bacon fat to vinegar mixture in bowl and combine. Add greens to bowl and toss to mix. 

Place mixed greens on plates. Top each plate with bacon and pumpkin seeds. 

Rating: A nice tasty main course for lunch along with a bowl of soup. The bacon fat helps temper the sharp tang of the vinegar and mustard and the squash mellows things out. A fairly fast fix and reasonably pantry friendly, so I might pull this one out again.

Kale cobb salad

Adapted from Rachael Ray Magazine July/August 2015

Note: The original recipe specified turkey, but I no longer see cooked turkey breasts in stores the way I used to, so I opted for chicken. Depending on the size of your bacon, you may find like I did that three slices of bacon would overwhelm the salad. If your bacon is the thin spindly type, opt for three slices, but if it’s Midwestern farmers market-cut bacon, two is plenty. Serves 2 amply as a main dish salad.

Ingredients
 ¼ cup olive oil
 ¼ cup chopped shallots
 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
 1 bunch kale, stems removed and leaves roughly chopped (Dinosaur kale works well here)
 2-3 slices bacon, cooked and roughly chopped (see note)
 2 ounces cooked turkey or chicken breast, chopped
 2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
 1 avocado, chopped
 2 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese (I used Deer Creek’s Blue Jay since I had part of a wedge to use up)

Method
Combine olive oil, shallots, vinegar and mustard in a small bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste.  In a large bowl, combine kale leaves and all but about a tablespoon or so of the dressing. Massage in dressing to mix well and soften kale.

Put dressed kale on two plates. Top each with half the chopped bacon, turkey, eggs, avocado and blue cheese. Drizzle top with remaining dressing. Season top with cracked pepper.

Rating: Dave really liked it, possibly because it's a very sturdy salad. It didn't blow me away, but it is a good sort of salad for using up bits of things.

Radicchio salad with blue cheese dressing

From Bon Appetit, October 2025

Note: If you can’t find blanched hazelnuts, the recipe suggests walnuts, pecans or almonds can also work. If you can only find raw hazelnuts and want to blanch them, heat a quart of water in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil and add 1 tablespoon of baking soda per cup of hazelnuts. Once the fizz dies down, add raw hazelnuts and boil for 4 minutes. Then drain the hazelnuts and plunge into ice water. At this point, the skins will largely slip right off. But while it’s easy, it’s still time-consuming, because it’s amazing how many individual hazelnuts are in a half cup, so I highly recommend this as a do-ahead step, Is it absolutely necessary to remove the skins? Technically, no, they are edible. But once you try toasting them you’ll find out that the skins are then sort of half on half off and the loose skins aren’t generally the texture you’re looking for in most recipes. There are some recipes that call for skin-on, but I’d advise following whatever the recipe suggests for blanched vs. raw.

The recipe also suggests you can use a mix of the standard reddish-purple radicchio we tend to see in stores locally with the less commonly seen castelfranco radicchio, a very pretty burgundy-dappled green leaf variety, which I might have to try from seed, because gosh, that’s lovely.

Ingredients

4 ounces blue cheese (I used Gorgonzola)
½ cup olive oil
¼ cup sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
½ cup blanched whole hazelnuts
½ medium butternut squash, peeled, seeds removed and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon rosemary leaves, lightly chopped
¼ teaspoon salt
1 medium head radicchio, separated into leaves
1 medium head endive, leaves separated and torn if large
1 small shallot, thinly sliced, divided

Method

Combine blue cheese, olive oil, vinegar, syrup, Dijon mustard and ½ teaspoon kosher salt and pepper in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. (it will be thick-ish.) This can be made up to a couple of days ahead; it stays emulsified.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and toast blanched hazelnuts (see note) on a rimmed baking sheet for 8 to 10 minutes until nuts pick up a slight color, shaking once as it bakes.  Set aside to cool.

Leave oven at 400 degrees. Toss squash cubes with 2 tablespoons olive oil, rosemary and ¼ teaspoon salt. Arrange in a single layer on rimmed baking sheet and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the cubes are tender and pick up a bit of color.

Combine radicchio, endive and a pinch of salt and generous grind of pepper in a large bowl. Add squash and about half each of the dressing, the hazelnuts and the shallot slices, tossing to combine well and coat leaves with dressing. Add more dressing if needed. Mound onto plates or a platter, then garnish with remaining hazelnuts and shallots. You can pass the remaining dressing on the side if you like or save for another use.

Rating: I would describe this recipe as better as a sum of its parts than any individual component. The blue cheese dressing is very unlike your standard white stuff out of a bottle. Unlike some dressings that you would marry, drench anything with or engage in other obsessive behavior, on its own it's interesting but not one you would write home about. It makes copious leftovers, and my first thought was what the heck am I going to use that for? But after trying the salad, I would say it works. The main impressions of the salad are crunchiness and really nice residual flavor.  It's a good choice paired with an otherwise mild meal, like roasted pork tenderloin and brown rice. Not the lookiest of salads, and some of the flavors might be a little assertive for less adventuresome eaters, so I don't know that I'd trot this one out for company as is.

Leftover note: I opted for cutting down the fresh ingredients to make a more consumable portion, since I figured the mixed salad wouldn't really keep well. That meant I also had some roasted squash with rosemary leftover to use to make a pizza topping with goat cheese and bacon. As for that dressing, it takes sturdy greens like kale and shaved Brussels sprouts to stand up to it. It doesn't really lend itself to being repurposed as a dip or spread.

Golden raisin honey quick bread

This recipe was brought to you by freezing rain. I realized that we didn't have enough bread on hand for breakfast and had no wish to slip-slide my way down the hill to the bakery on foot or four wheels. Dave of course went out for a walk anyway, but at least this way I didn't feel responsible if he fell, which I would have if he'd fallen on the way there or back. He did admit to ice surfing in an attempt to stay upright while out for a walk. Always glad to find another likely what's-in-the-house quick bread recipe to meet such minor natural disasters.

Golden raisin honey loaf

From Country Living’s “Country Mornings Cookbook.” This 1989 tome is still available new.

Ingredients

2 ½ cups flour
1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup vegetable shortening
1 cup golden raisins
2 large eggs
½ cup milk
½ cup honey
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

Method

Preheat oven to 325. Flour and grease a loaf pan.

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Cut in vegetable shortening with a pastry blender or two knives until it resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in raisins.

Beat together the eggs, milk, honey and lemon zest. Stir into dry ingredients until just combined. Spoon into loaf pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a cake tester like a toothpick comes out clean. (I would err on the side of longer if in doubt; it took all of an hour to get rid of the soggy center.) Cool in pan for 10 minutes and then completely on a rack before slicing.

Rating: Nice flavor, fast to mix up and pantry friendly. I could see making it with whatever dried fruit and fruit zest is in the house as needed.