Onion

A light and flavorful way to cook fish.

Called chakchouka, this specialty is perfect for brunch, lunch or even a quick supper.Traditionally, it is prepared with a slender, spicy beef or lamb merguez sausage, and a soft bread is used in place of a fork to "grab and eat".

Here's a new take on calabacitas, a traditional Mexican side dish with zucchini, onions and peppers.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

At Thanksgiving, rice stuffings are standard on many southern tables. This one, a combination of white rice and wild rice, gets more regional notes from collard greens, pecans and ham.

Jim Fobel, cookbook author, says, "My mother always added lots of sage and nutmeg to her stuffing. I loved those flavors when I was a kid, and I still put them in the stuffings that I make today."

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Ever since R.C Van Dyne from Wilmington, NC tasted farinata in Alessandria, Italy, he has been wanting to make it. We obtained this recipe from Rose Pistola restaurant in San Francisco, where they serve their own farinata. Farinata is a thin, crisp, pizzalike pancake made from chick-pea flour. When we called Rose Pistola, we were thrilled to learn that the recipe had already been reworked for the home cook by Peggy Knickerbocker, coauthor with chef Reed Hearon of The Rose Pistola Cookbook: 140 Recipes from San Francisco's Favorite North Beach Restaurant (out October, 1999 from Broadway Books). The following recipe makes three farinata, but they must be baked one at a time. We suggest opening a bottle of wine, hanging out in the kitchen with friends, and eating the farinata as they come out of the oven. For best results, use a 10-inch seasoned cast-iron round griddle, about 3/8-inch deep, that can hold about 1 cup batter. Farinata can be made in a regular cast-iron skillet, but it won't be quite as crisp or easy to remove.

For this traditional Asian fondue, raw strips of chicken are cooked quickly at the table in a pot of boiling broth. Guests then place the cooked chicken strips on lettuce leaves, add noodles and whatever garnishes they choose, roll up the leaves and complete the packages with a bit of the Sweet-and-Spicy Dipping Sauce. When all of the chicken has been eaten, divide the remaining broth among the guests.

Salsicce con l'Uva While this dish makes for excellent dinner fare, I personally prefer it served on a crusty roll for lunch along with a glass of Chianti Colli Aretini.... If you don't have good crusty bread on hand, make a few mashed potatoes while these sausages are roasting in the oven.

"Cooking with friends — that's pretty much what my life has been about," writes Louise Pickerel of Muskogee, Oklahoma. "When I moved here from Texas ten years ago, it was hard to leave the people I'd known for so long, but I've probably met two hundred new people since then. I have always entertained, but now that I'm retired, I finally have more time to play bridge and cook." Louise likes to serve this chunky soup with ham or roast beef sandwich wraps.

Many people consider stuffing the best part of a Thanksgiving meal, and they can be quite particular about it — some like it dense and moist from the turkey juices, others fluffy and browned from the oven. We've made sure everyone will be satisfied: This recipe makes enough stuffing for the turkey and the onions, with plenty left over for another baking dish of stuffing. You can easily adapt the recipe to suit vegetarian guests — simply eliminate the bacon (use olive oil instead of bacon fat for sautéing the vegetables) and substitute vegetable stock for the turkey stock. Active time: 2 hr Start to finish: 3 1/2 hr

Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 3 1/4 hr

Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 2 hr