Stew

Use alphabets or little stars, orzo, or tiny circles. Or use a combination of them all. The child in your life will love this, and so will the child in you.

Hoisin adds complexity to the flavor of the sauce. You can save some time — and some tears — by chopping the onions in the processor in two batches.

Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 15 minutes A simple ragout of shellfish and sausage, so easy to prepare it's almost a heat-and-serve dish. Cook the shallots and garlic, then the sausage, add the wine and rosemary, then the mussels, which will release their juices into the pan, and finish with the parsley and bread crumbs — a rustic, spicy, brothy dish to be eaten with good crusty bread.

(Beef Goulash Soup)

In Austria, warming bowls of goulash soup are served in all kinds of establishments — from quick-service restaurants along the Autobahn to Vienna's elegant Hotel Bristol. This hearty beef and vegetable soup can be found in many areas of central and eastern Europe, especially in regions that were once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Our satisfying rendition has chunks of beef and potato plus red peppers, bacon, onions, and garlic, all fragrant with paprika.

The grill adds a sophisticated smoky quality to this dish, but you can make it from beginning to end using only the oven.

Great with veal or roast chicken.

This hearty stew is great served over egg noodles. Bitter greens with a creamy Gorgonzola dressing would be a good side salad. Have sliced bananas and strawberries drizzled with honey and balsamic vinegar for an elegant dessert.

All Southern cooks have their own ways of making gumbo. Our recipe contains neither okra nor filé powder, producing a thinner, lighter gumbo.

Serve this flavorful chili with chopped green onion, cilantro and red bell pepper.

This Portuguese classic cooked in the style of the Ribatejo region, consists of pork and shellfish in a red wine sauce. The recipe comes from Antonio's restaurant, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where they accompany the stew with fried potatoes.

Active time: 1 1/2 hr Start to finish: 3 1/2 hr This recipe, which accompanied our 1954 article on Tunisia, called for what were then two very exotic ingredients. One, the granular pasta called couscous, is now commonplace in supermarkets across America. The other, dried rose petals, is available by mail order.

If you can't find one type of the greens for this recipe, you can either increase the other two kinds proportionally or substitute kale and/or chard.

Pre-marinated pork tenderloins can be found in the supermarket meat section. To round out the meal, add a romaine salad dressed with Dijon vinaigrette and a basket of warm cranberry-corn muffins; finish with wedges of apple pie and sharp cheddar cheese.

Offer seasoned tortilla chips alongside, as well as bagged lettuce tossed with ranch dressing. Try vanilla pudding topped with diced pineapple for dessert.