In early October, when the new crop is harvested, I am eager to enjoy fresh cranberries. This ruby soup, which pairs their tart-sweet flavor with apples and cider, is good with any autumn dinner as a prelude to a pork, venison, or chicken main dish. When fresh cranberries have disappeared, you can make this soup using frozen ones, which helps you serve this antioxidant-loaded fruit right through to spring.
Fast Fact: Cranberries are a North American native, with most of today’s commercial crop grown in Massachusetts and Michigan
Quick Tip: A cast iron frying pan works best for cooking the apple croutons; a non-stick pan slows their browning

If you love Indian food but think making it at home seems complicated, try this golden soup. The red lentils called for are available in most supermarkets, at Wild Oats, and other natural foods markets, and they cook quickly, so this soup is ready in 30 minutes. If you want this main-dish soup to pack heat, include some cayenne pepper along with its other aromatic spices. Vegetarians can use vegetable broth.
Fast Fact: The fennel in this spice blend rounds out its flavors and works as an aid to digestion
Quick Tip: To add even more vegetables to this a one-dish meal, mix in chopped spinach along with the tomatoes

Made with canned spinach, no fear of E-coli. Also, this is a sneaky way to get kids to eat their spinach.

This delicious, vegetable-filled broth can be served by itself or used as a base for other soups. The vegetables used in this soup are often just added to soup liquids for cooking. This recipe oven-roasts them first, enhancing their flavor. Your kitchen will fill with the aromas of the roasting vegetables evoking old-fashioned, home-style meals. Comfort food at its finest.

This is a very easy recipe using ginger and turmeric, two of my favorite seasonings.

This light, low-carbohydrate breakfast or lunch dish combines two of Dr Weil’s favorite ingredients – greens and fresh ginger. Baby spinach or other baby greens work great in this recipe.

This side dish makes four servings; it’s perfect to keep in your fridge to add to stir-fries or pasta dishes. Use as many different mushrooms as you can find, especially the healthier varieties like shiitake, enoki and oyster mushrooms. The dried porcini or cepes really add a lot of flavor. You’ll find them in little packages near the produce stands.

This delicious and easy soy-based dressing can stand head to head with everyone’s favorite – ranch dressing. Look for silken tofu in shelf-stable cardboard containers. It has a different texture than regular tofu and is good for dressings and desserts. This dressing is good on a tossed green salad (remember to pick dark green salad greens), but equally at home on a baked potato or as a dip for raw vegetables. Add a bit of fragrant bleu cheese if you like.

This old-fashioned recipe makes a muffin batter that can be kept in the refrigerator so you can make 1 or 2 muffins at a time. Or you can make them all at once and freeze them. They thaw in just a few minutes if left on the kitchen counter.