Fruit

Adorable Seckel pears are on display in this showpiece, but the essence of pear permeates the entire tart. Musky, honeyed Bartletts are juiced into white wine, creating a poaching liquid for the Seckels. Doubly infused with pear, that syrup becomes the base for the poire William-spiked pastry cream and glaze.

Classic stuffed cabbage is a time-consuming endeavor. This unorthodox version, which uses dried cranberries and a combination of beef and pork, is much easier—and, we like to think, even better.

Before the storm of desserts comes the palate-cleansing calm. This playful, snowy mound of savory celery with hints of green apple and tarragon refreshes after the preceding spread. Counterintuitive as it may seem, taking a break before dessert¿to eat a pre-dessert¿will help you enjoy the sweet abundance that awaits.

Cranberries might seem out of place in a salsa, but their zesty crunch anchors this mix of roasted pineapple, onion, and cilantro. Besides, what would Thanksgiving be without cranberries?

Frisée often pops up in salads, but like its cousin escarole, it’s also great for cooking.

To the traditional orange-cranberry combination, we’ve added Mediterranean touches: dates for their honeylike sweetness and a splash of balsamic vinegar to balance the flavors.

Cranberries, pears, and apples form a sweetly irresistible autumn trinity beneath a crisp oat topping.

Anyone who swears by wet stuffing is likely to sidle over to the dry camp after a taste of this Thanksgiving classic. Beneath a crunchy crust is an amalgam of yielding bread, meaty chestnuts, and softened celery, apple, and leeks.

Nothing evokes the fall season like a plate of pork chops and apples, but we upped the ante with spicy horseradish, which adds new verve to this timeless dish.

Throw everything in the pan, and voilà! Cranberry sauce. It’s just five ingredients simmering on the stove, but it tastes beguilingly complex. Tangerine juice and zest, fresh ginger, and plump golden raisins add a citrusy, spicy sweetness to tart, bursting cranberries.

We took a regular apple-pie recipe and sweetened the filling with Mexican piloncillo, an unrefined brown sugar. What a difference a sugar makes. This one has a lot of character and adds syrupy molasses notes to a blend of sweet and tart apples.

The combination of condensed milk and lime gives this dessert a bit of tropical flair.

Yellow tomatoes bring a touch of sunshine to this delicious chilled soup, which can be made as spicy or as mellow as you like.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Crescent Dragonwagon's book Passionate Vegetarian. Dragonwagon also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. This is my favorite Thanksgiving stuffing — in fact, this is my only Thanksgiving stuffing. I've made it for at least twenty-five years, and it's always pleased me, friends, family, and inn guests. To my taste, it wouldn't be right with margarine or oil, just butter. But probably it wouldn't be bad with less fat or a different one. I make the vegetarian version with vegetable stock, for use in a pumpkin; when I cooked at the inn, where the majority of the guests were meat eaters, I also did a batch with turkey stock. I dedicate this recipe to the memory of Sondra Krecker, a friend from my earliest years in Eureka Springs. Every Thanksgiving as I make it I hear her telling me again, earnestly, "You have to toast it dry, bone dry, hard dry." You'll need to do a lot of tossing and tasting to get the seasonings just right. Stuffing can be made ahead of time, but don't stuff it into the pumpkin until you're ready to bake it.

If plums aren't available, pears are an easy alternative. And with calories this low, go ahead—indulge in seconds!

Cheery news: You can even work farmers' market finds into a drink!

Juicy Asian pear and a balsamic reduction play against the bitter edge of frisée—further mellowed by leeks hot from the pan.

This rich side dish gets unexpected encouragement from orange, cream, and Chinese five-spice powder.

I particularly like this sweet potato casserole because it isn't candy-sweet—no marshmallows, no canned crushed pineapple, no honey, and not very much sugar. I don't boil the sweet potatoes before I mash them; I bake them so they're less watery and have better flavor. Here's how: Pierce each sweet potato with a sharp-pronged kitchen fork, set on a baking sheet, then bake on the middle oven shelf for about 1 hour at 400° F. or until you can pierce a potato easily with a fork. Cool the potatoes to room temperature, peel, then mash until light and fluffy.

Next to brown sugar pie, this is my favorite chess pie. There are several theories as to how these pies came by their name. Some say that "chess" is a corruption of “chest,” meaning that these pies were so rich they could be stored in chests at room temperature. Others offer a different explanation: It seems that long ago when a good plantation cook was asked what she was making, she replied, "Jes pie," which over time became "chess." Still others insist that "chess" derives from “cheese,” as in the English lemon "cheese" (or curd). According to food historian Karen Hess, "cheese" was spelled "chese" in seventeenth-century England. In her historical notes and commentaries for the 1984 facsimile edition of Mary Randolph’s Virginia House-wife (1824), Hess writes: "Since the archaic spellings of cheese often had but one 'e' we have the answer to the riddle of the name of that southern favorite ‘Chess Pie.' " When I lived in New York, I baked dozens of lemon chess pies for the annual Gramercy Park fund-raiser and they sold as fast as I could unpack them. From that experience, I learned to buzz up the filling in the food processor. I even grate the lemon zest by processor. Here’s how: Strip the zest from the lemons with a swivel-bladed vegetable peeler, then churn it with the sugar to just the right texture. I next pulse in the lemon juice, then the eggs one by one. Finally, I drizzle the melted butter down the feed tube with the motor running. That’s all there is to it.