A slightly spicy but flavorful tomato-based stew, this Indian dish rocks and is perfect for anyone wanting to try Indian food for the first time. Tomatos, spinach and chickpeas are familiar foods but the spicing is true to Indian cuisine. This dish takes almost no effort to make, yet it tastes like it was gently simmered all day. It also gets more flavorful as it ages, so look forward to leftovers.

Red Lentil Dal is my favorite Indian dish. It's a great recipe for beginners - whether you're new to Indian food or to cooking in general. It uses quite a bit of spices, but these same spices are used over and over again in Indian cuisine, so they are well worth the small investment. This recipe is incredibly rich in flavor and like most Indian foods, it only gets more flavorful over time so you'll *love* leftovers. Aside from the …

After gorging ourselves on the Thanksgiving Teaser at Real Foods Daily (on Wednesday *and* Friday!!) and eating more "holiday" food than we could stand in September and October when I was writing my e-cookbook Pudge-Free Holidays, our actual thanksgiving meal was pretty boring as you can see -- but I did whip up a killer cranberrysauce! It was so good splattered over baked tofu (we like extra-firm super protein tofu).

Every year I buy fresh cranberries as soon as I see them... and then they hang out in my freezer for weeks. Eventually, I start feeling wasteful and use them to make a relish or sauce - even though I'm not really a fan of either (we all have our preferences, right?). Like clockwork, I bought a bag of cranberries about 3 weeks ago and they've been hanging out in my crisper ever since. I checked on them this morning …