"Now this is how oxtails should taste," my father declared after taking a bite of these glazed oxtails. I couldn't agree more. We have a thing for oxtails in our family. Oxtail stew was a favorite winter dish my mom prepared when we were growing up. If you are unfamiliar with oxtails, they are tails of steers, typically sold cut into segments. Most of what you buy is bone, and the meat is well exercised and fatty, so oxtail preparations lend themselves to slow cooking. Much like short-ribs, but in my opinion, even better. Think of the best pulled pork imaginable, but with beef. In this recipe the oxtails are first browned, then slow cooked with red wine and stock. Then the segments are removed so you can strip the meat off of them and the liquid is reduced to a glaze. It's actually pretty easy to make, most of the cooking time is hands-off while the oxtails are simmering.

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Gobsmacked. I thought I was pretty well versed in what one could do with cabbage, addicted to the stuff as I am. Whether it's braised, in stewed, stuffed, boiled, or made into coleslaw, we eat cabbage in every which way around here. But this my friends, this has to be the easiest way to prepare cabbage and still have it taste great. (Boiled cabbage is probably the easiest, but then what you have is just boiled cabbage.) My mother made something like this the other day with curly cabbage. You just simply blanch the torn or roughly cut cabbage leaves in boiling salted water, drain them, and toss with butter, and seasonings. Butter and cabbage together? A dream team. And caraway and celery seeds just make them dance.

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Years ago in Manhattan, there was a rather famous German restaurant by the name of Luchow's. It was established in 1882 and operated continuously for a hundred years, finally shutting down in 1984. In its heyday Luchow's was well known as a hang out for musicians and entertainers such as Steinway, Dvorak, and later, Oscar Hammerstein. It even had a room named after Diamond Jim Brady, a regular.

I don't recall how it happened, but my father came across a used copy of Luchow's German Cookbook, a compilation of recipes from that now long gone restaurant. He quickly zeroed in on the recipe for an Austrian goulash with sauerkraut, also called Szegedine Goulasch in the book. I often accuse my dad of having sauerkraut in his veins, and not without reason. He just can't pass up an interesting recipe that calls for that fermented cabbage. This "goulash" is chunks of veal, cooked with onions and tomatoes in a paprika sour cream sauce, served over sauerkraut. So so good.

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"Got knots?" Simply Recipes contributor Hank Shaw does, and boy are they good. Enjoy! ~Elise

When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, one of my absolute favorite after-school treats would be to walk over to Ferraro's, dig through my pockets for loose change and buy some garlic knots — garlicky, buttery rolls made from stray bits of pizza dough. At 25 cents apiece, I could buy a lotta knots with a little change.

Garlic knots are a pizzeria favorite, and in New Jersey, their presence was a sign that the pizza joint you just walked into was legit. Making knots is a thrifty way to use scraps of dough and the leftover garlic-butter-parsley sauce most pizzerias would use for their white pizzas or garlic bread.

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Updated. First posted in 2005.

Now here's a good one for a cold winter day. Talk about melt-in-your-mouth delicious! A hefty pork shoulder is slathered with a rub of fennel seeds, pepper, thyme, rosemary, and garlic and set to marinate for a day or two in the fridge. It is then nestled in a bed of sliced apples and onions, first browned on high heat in the oven, and then covered and allowed to cook low and slow, until it is almost falling apart. You don't need a knife to eat this slow-roasted pork shoulder. Just a big appetite.

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Although at first glance it may not look like it, with our Northern California sunny skies and green lawns, winter truly is here. The leaves have all fallen. The fish in the pond are half asleep. Several of the lettuces in the garden have succumbed to frost, while the chard and parsley thankfully are thriving. It's still, quiet, and chilly most days. Perfect weather for a hearty soup. Even though this bread soup is meatless (if you use veggie stock), it is thick and filling. In fact, it's really more of a stew than a soup. The bread absorbs much of the liquid. It's called a panade, or panada, from the Latin base "pan" for bread. The recipe is based on one introduced to me by my friend Ann Martin Rolke, cookbook author, Sacramento local, and co-founder along with Amber Stott, of the California Food Literacy Center, a recently formed non-profit with the mission to help us understand the impact of our food choices.

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Hank Shaw is back, tempting us with pumpkin ricotta gnocchi. It's crazy good, and actually not as hard as you would think to make. Enjoy! ~Elise

Pumpkin ravioli with brown butter and sage is a classic for a reason: The color, the texture and the flavors of winter squash, fried sage and browned butter are a match made in heaven. But making ravioli requires a fair bit of skill. Gnocchi, however, are easy to make once you get the hang of it.

The key to making any dumplings is to make them as light as possible. We've all had leaden lumps of unhappiness before; they're memorable, and not in a good way. What keeps these gnocchi fluffy are the ricotta cheese and a light hand with the flour. Gnocchi dough is often sticky, and it's the ability to resist the urge to keep adding more and more flour that separates a good dumpling from a heavy one.

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Homemade stock almost always tastes better than boxed or canned, and this is never more true than with vegetable stock. In the case of chicken or beef stock, the stock comes from cooking bones in water on low heat, for several hours. With vegetable stock, there are no bones to cook, so the richness of the stock comes from the variety of vegetables you use. It helps to brown the veggies first, so the stock gets infused with some of the flavors from caramelization. Unlike chicken or beef stock, which needs time to extract all the goodness from the bones, with vegetable stock, you cook the stock for only an hour to an hour and half. Beyond that, the flavors begin to disintegrate.

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Edamame (eh-dah-MAH-may) are nothing more than fresh soy beans. Typically cooked in heavily salted water, they are usually found in the shell served at Japanese restaurants. Having first encountered them in bars when I lived in Japan, I've always thought of them as the Japanese version of a beer nut—they're salty and go great with beer. They've recently become more popular in the states and you can usually easily find them frozen, both shelled and shell-on. They are rather tasty beans, so I thought we would make a simple bean dip with them. So good! This dip includes cilantro, lime juice, yogurt, and a whole avocado. Also just a little bit of Tabasco and dark sesame oil for some sparkle.

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Chicken soup doesn't need to take hours to make. This is a simple, light chicken soup that is richly flavored with shiitake mushrooms, and brightened with fresh ginger and soy sauce. The stock is very light, and comes just from the cooking of the ingredients for less than half an hour. But the combination of the ginger, chicken, mushrooms, soy sauce and a touch of salt and sugar is just lovely, and I highly recommend trying this soup. The recipe is an adaptation of one I discovered in a most curious cookbook, The Cultural Revolution Cookbook by Sasha Gong and Scott Seligman. One doesn't usually think of this rather painful period of Chinese history, when millions of Chinese urban youth, children of "intellectuals," were forced into the countryside to work as farmers, for its culinary legacy. But during this period, people learned to make do, and to create nourishing, satisfying food from simple, local ingredients.

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