In Portland, middle October ushers back in the rainy season. Which means you can often find me bundled in my robe, slippers, and my heating pad ( in case you’re wondering, thats exactly what I’m wearing). All in all though, fall does also have some of my FAVORITE flavors. It’s a season for slow cooking, and meals that warm you to your very core; food that feels and tastes like home.

ALSO, it’s the season that leads into Thanksgiving, which is basically my Super Bowl. Oh my goodness, mi gente I LOVE when I get to start planning my Thanksgiving table. As I was thinking through this list of foods I wanted to share with you all, I wanted to give you a few options—some easy crockpot meals for the middle-of-the-week rush, some hearty meals for cold-to-the-bone days, a good Paleo/Whole 30 option, and a dessert. A few of these are good sides for Thanksgivings, or other times throughout this season you might find yourself with a house full of your people (in our house, that’s Football).

Because I never want to get in the way of another person and their food, I’m going to stop talking, and just move on to the food and recipes:

Vegetable Loaded Chili:

This is a great meal for whenever you need some good leftovers, or just need to throw something in the crockpot and come home to a warm meal. If you have picky eaters, a great way to get your crew to eat this, is to sauté the vegetables together with the diced tomatoes and blend them together before pouring into the crockpot—sometimes a little out-of-sight-out-of-mind magic works wonders to get us to eat our vegetables.

Serves: 6

Active time: 25 minutes

Passive Time: 4 hours

Ingredients:

1 Can Pinto Beans

1 Can Red Kidney Beans

1 LB Ground Meat of Choice

1 16 oz Can Diced Tomatoes

1 Onion Finely Diced

2 Carrots Finely Chopped

2 Celery Stalks Finely Chopped

1 Acorn Squash Cubed

2 Cups of Chopped Kale

1 TSP Fresh Oregano—Chopped

2 TBSP Cumin

3 TBSP Chili Powder

1 TSP Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Directions:

1. Sautee onions until translucent (about 5 minutes over medium heat). Add meat and cook until it is no longer pink. Add meat, beans, and spices to the crockpot.
2. In the same pan that you used to brown the meat, add carrots, celery, squash, kale, and tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes. If you have picky eaters in your house, you can blend these together before adding to the crockpot. If not, simply pour into the crockpot, stir to combine all the ingredients, and cook on high for 4 hours OR on low for 8. Serve with desired toppings

As a leftovers variation, place chips in a castiron, add leftover chili and cook in the oven at 450 F for 10 minutes. Top with cheese, sour cream, cilantro, and green onions.

Chicken Pot Pie

This is a great meal when you need to feel warm to the core of your being—and for whenever you have leftover chicken from earlier in the week. You can make Chicken Pot Pie as from-scratch or easy as you like. You can ALWAYS use store-bought crust if you’re on the run, and a rotisserie chicken. OR you can also roast a chicken at the beginning of the week and use the leftovers for pot pie, and use the pie crust recipe at the end of this blog post.

Serves: 6

Active Time: 25

Passive Time: 30

Ingredients:

2 TBSP Butter

2 Lbs Cooked chicken—Cubed

1 Onion Finely Diced

3 Carrots Finely Diced

3 Stalks of Celery Finely Diced

1 C Frozen Peas

1/2 TSP Dried Oregano

32 oz Chicken Broth

1/2 C flour

2 Pie Crusts

Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Melt butter in a large saute pan. Cook onions until translucent, and add carrots, celery, peas, chicken, oregano, and flour. Cook together for a few minutes, and then add in chicken broth. Stir constantly and simmer until thickened.
2. Line a dish with crust, pour in filling, and top with second crust. Score the top crush by cutting about 4 slits into the top so that steam can escape. Cook in the oven for 30 minutes, allowing the top to get golden brown. Serve and enjoy!

Macaroni and Cheese

I’m going to go ahead and say that for this meal, you should invest in some good cheese. This is a creamy and decadent recipe. I like to use Tillamook Extra Sharp White Cheddar, but any sharp cheddar cheese will work just fine. Cook this for a snuggle in evening—or for a long day full of football.

Serves: 6

Active Time: 20 Minutes

Passive Time: 12 Minutes

Ingredients: 

3 C uncooked Macaroni

1 TBSP Butter

1 TBSP Flour

1.5 C Milk

3.5 C Shredded Cheese

3 TBSP Bread Crumbs

1 TBSP Parmesan Cheese

1 TSP Garlic Powder

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. In a medium saucepan, cook macaroni.
2. In a large saucepan, melt butter and add garlic powder, and flour. Cook over medium heat, making a roux (fancy term for a thickening element in sauces made from flour and butter). Stir continually for 1-2 minutes, and cook until golden brown. Add the milk to the saucepan and stir well to evenly dissolve the roux into the milk. Simmer for a few minutes, until mixture has thickened, and remove from the heat. Add in the cheese and stir until most of the cheese is melted into the mixture.
3. Add macaroni and sauce to a baking dish. Combine parmesan cheese with bread crumbs and sprinkle on top of macaroni. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Rest for 10 minutes, serve, and enjoy! Eat with salad, or live your own life.

Stuffed Butternut Squash

HI WHOLE 30/ PALEO PEOPLE! You are strong. You are so strong to eat well through this season. I didn’t forget you. This is a hearty meal that makes a minimal mess, and it makes you feel so, so good because you ate so many, many vegetables in the process. NON-WHOLE 30/PALEO PEOPLE, you WANT to eat this. Not just to feel good about life, and your netflix choices, but because it genuinely tastes good.

Serves: 6

Active Time: 20 Minutes

Passive time 20 Minutes

Ingredients: 

1 TSP Olive Oil

1 Large Butternut Squash

3 C Brussel Sprouts—Chopped

3 Rainbow Carrots Finely Chopped

1/2 Red Onion Finely Diced

1 LB Ground Turkey

3 TSP Balsamic Vinaigrette

1 TSP Garlic Salt

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Cut Butternut Squash in half. Scrape out seeds, and hollow out squash with an ice-cream scoop, leaving a little bit of margins around the sides of the squash.
2. In a medium saute pan, heat oil over medium heat and cook onions for 2 minutes. Add the Turkey and cook until no longer pink. Add in remaining ingredients and sauté for 10 minutes. Transfer for a baking pan lined in aluminum. Spoon in filling into butternut squash, place on pan and tent with aluminum. Cook for 20 minutes covered. Serve warm and feel good about your life.

Apple Pie

Let’s be totally real for a second: I HATE PUMPKIN. I told you all that last year, but I’ll say it again because nothing has changed. It tastes like bad baby food to me. I will forever and always choose apple pie as my fall/winter dessert of choice. It is tart, and warm and smooth, and you get to eat it with ice-cream. It was one of the first big things I cooked for Ben (ask me about the time I baked him pie for his birthday sometime—its one of my fave stories), it is delicious, and easy, and I shouldn’t have to convince you to eat a lot of pie this season.

Serves: 8

Active Time: 20 Minutes

Passive Time: 45 Minutes

Ingredients:

2 Pie Crusts

5-6 Granny Smith Apples–Peeled, Cored, and Sliced

1 C Brown Sugar

1/2 C Sugar

1/8 TSP Salt

1 TBSP Lemon Juice

2 TSP Cinnamon

1/2 TSP Nutmeg

1 Egg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine apples in a large bowl with sugars, salt, lemon juice, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
2. Line a pie dish with the first crust, using a fork, puncture a few holes into the bottom of the crust. Add in pie filling, and cover with second crust, and use the egg to make an egg wash and brush onto the top crust. For a few top crust inspirations, click here. https://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2015/09/07/pie-crust-decorating-basics/
3. Cook in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 F, raise heat to 400 F and cook for an additional 15 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving, and enjoy with ice cream.

BONUS RECIPE: All-Butter Pie Crust

Makes 1 Double Crust

Ingredients:

2.5 C All Purpose Flour

8 oz (2 sticks) Salted Butter (I use Kerrygold that I cut into cubes and put in the freezer 15 min before using)

1 TSP Sugar

1/4 C Ice Water

Directions:

1. in a food processor or blender, add flour, butter, and sugar. Pulse about 8 times, or until butter and flour mixture is grainy and can stick to itself. The largest peaces of butter in the mixture should be pea-sized. Add contents to a bowl and add ice water 1 TSP at a time until the dough sticks to itself and forms a ball.
2. Pour mixture onto a clean, floured surface and divide into two disks. Wrap in clingwrap and place in the fridge for  at least an hour before using OR up to two days.

I hope these bring some easiness to your transition into fall and winter, and some delicious gatherings about your spaces!

Love, love, love

Mary-Beth Johnson

Mary-Beth is a creative, food-obsessed, Georgia transplant living Chicago. She is proudly and fiercely Latina, and more specifically Chapina. In her day to day she is a food educator to students around Chicagoland aged 3 to 80+, both virtually and in-person. She is passionate about cultivating the truth that every person has an understanding of food that deserves being brought to the table, and that time in the kitchen can be sacred, passionate, and an act of love for self and others. Outside the kitchen you can find her at the intersections of infertility, chronic illness, and a deep love for the dignity of all humans. She hopes to create a space that is holistic about the role of food in the social, political, relational, and physiological dynamics of our world.