Quinoa Salad with Avocado, Tomato, and Pickled Mustard Root

It's not all meat and cheese here in the Piepan household, as much as we'd like it to be. When hot weather hits and we want something cool and refreshing, a giant steak or a pot of stew isn't gonna cut it. We've been kind of messing around with quinoa lately, testing its malleability as an ingredient. We've got a quinoa chili that we like to make from time to time, and this quinoa salad was our first effort to bring quinoa into the realm of cool dishes good for spring and summer weather. Then we put some meat and cheese on a plate and ate it with the quinoa salad. Nobody's perfect.

Boozy Sweet Potato Casserole

Sweet potato casserole! Oh God, I think I'm gonna throw up. Today, the Piepan household had Thanksgiving with some dear friends a day late, as service industry/retail people often have to, and I am TOO FULL. TOO FULL!!! But it was awesome, and we made all the requisite dishes, including my very favorite (besides stuffing, because DUH), my sweet potato casserole. It's such a simple thing, and people looooooovvvvve to fuck with it, and end up adding too much...everything. I've had some BAD sweet potato casseroles, folks, and I'm here to make sure you never have a bad one again. Also, who knows? Maybe you'll have me over for dinner and make some sweet potatoes. Maybe you'll try to jazz it up with something Rachel Ray told you to use, and I'll have to say it's good, and I'm a terrible liar. It'll be embarrassing for us both. So, let's keep it simple, okay? Here's how you can make it awesome, and this recipe gives you an excuse to buy a bottle of Grand Marnier, which makes lots of dishes life better.

Here's what you need:

7 or so medium sweet potatoes

4 Tbl butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

zest of 1/2 an orange

1/4 cup Grand Marnier, plus three tablespoons, plus a shot for the chef

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

mini marshmallows 

Udon Noodles

Udon noodles are a thick, perfectly chewy Japanese noodle. As an adult, when I first had udon, it reminded me of the thick, pillowy noodles my Grandmother would put in her chicken soup. A great toothsome noodle is comfort food, no matter where you're from. I didn't get to learn my Grandmother's noodle recipe, but I bet the ingredients were a hell of a lot like the ones from this classic udon recipe.

Pumpkin Gnocchi with Creamy Gorgonzola Cider Sauce (Bonus: Baked Pumpkin Seeds!)

So, it's fall, and time for everyone to carve up the harvest of the season and put it on their porch to rot. Unless you're us, of course, in which case you add pumpkin to nearly every dish for about two months or so. Our first endeavor this season started over at Saveur, whose Squash Gnocchi with Meat Sauce provided the genesis for this recipe.