Vegan

Jam making doesn’t always have to be a big production. I sometimes make small amounts and keep it in the refrigerator instead of canning it for unrefrigerated storage. Apricot jam is especially versatile as a glaze for an apple tart or almond cake, or as the base for a soufflé.

Try this syrup mixed with sparkling water to make fruit sodas, or add to lemonade with a sprig of mint to make pink raspberry lemonade. For an aperitif, pour a little into a glass and add white wine, Champagne, or spirits.

Jellies, also known as fruit paste or pâte de fruit, are beautiful bite-size confections with intense fruit flavor. Fruits such as apples, quince, and plums are slowly cooked with sugar to a concentrated purée, then cooled in a mold or pan until set and firm. The jellies can be cut into all sorts of shapes, rolled in sugar, and served as candies. Without a sugar coating, fruit paste is a delicious accompaniment to cheese.

This is a delicious way to use the peels of citrus after they’ve been juiced. Candied peel, either plain or dipped in chocolate, makes a zesty ending for a meal. Candy only unsprayed, organic citrus fruit.

Almost any combination of dried fruits can be refreshed this way and turned into a dessert to be served alongside a slice of cake, or with a little crème fraîche. Fresh winter citrus fruits also make beautiful winter compotes when soaked in syrup flavored with their zest.

A court bouillon is a quickly made aromatic vegetable broth for poaching fish. (In French, bouillon means “broth,” and court means “short.”)

Pumpkin, Delicata, acorn, butternut, spaghetti, and kabocha are a few of the many sweet-fleshed winter squashes available in the markets. These are all squashes that are eaten after they have matured and their skins or rinds have hardened. Squash continues to sweeten off the vine. Choose unblemished squash that are firm and heavy. They don’t need to be refrigerated unless they have been cut open. Cut squash in half carefully with a heavy knife on a stable surface. Scoop out the seeds and fiber from the inside cavity. The halves can be roasted until tender, cut side down, or they can be peeled (a swivel-bladed vegetable peeler will work on most squash) and cut up to roast, steam, or sauté. They’re delicious made into soup, by themselves or with other vegetables in a flavorful broth, or puréed.

For a very colorful ratatouille use different colored peppers, squash, and tomatoes. Don’t hesitate to double this recipe, as any ratatouille left over will taste even better the next day.

This is a very simple preparation to satisfy that wintertime craving for deep tomato flavor. Exact proportions are unimportant.

Nothing compares with a vine-ripened, fragrant, colorful tomato. Farmers’ markets (and your own backyard!) are the best places to go for tomatoes. Most of the supermarket varieties sold year-round have been bred for structure and not flavor. They can be shipped around the world, but they won’t make a tasty meal. There are many, many tomatoes to choose from. Little cherry tomatoes ripen quickly and are the first to market. They come in many colors; the golden and red ones are the most flavorful. Plum tomatoes are good for sauce. And then come all the other types, many of them called “heirloom tomatoes” to remind us that they are tomatoes our forebears planted in the days before produce was shipped globally. There are yellow, golden, orange, green, purple, striped, and, yes, red tomatoes to choose from. They come in as many sizes as there are colors. Choose deeply colored tomatoes that are neither soft nor too firm. Tomatoes will continue to ripen off the vine, and do so best out of direct sunlight. Don’t put your tomatoes in the refrigerator; the cold really steals their flavor. Wash the tomatoes and cut out a cone at the stem end to remove the core. If the skin is thick, tomatoes may be better peeled. To peel, plunge them into rapidly boiling water and remove them once the skin is loosened, which will take between 15 seconds and a minute or so (check the tomatoes oft en to know when to pull them out). Cool the tomatoes quickly in ice-cold water and slip off the skins. To seed a tomato, cut it in half horizontally and gently squeeze each half, coaxing the seeds out of each little cavity with your fingers. The juice can be strained to use in cooking, or to drink. Cooking tomatoes this way concentrates and intensifies their flavor. Each one is like a spoonful of sweet sauce.

There is a spectacular array of varieties and colors of sweet peppers and chiles, all from the same genus. For the most part, sweet peppers are larger and fleshier than spicy chiles. All peppers start out green and then change colors as they ripen; the palette extends from green to purple to red with all the shades of yellow and orange in between. The most common sweet pepper is the bell pepper, but there are many others: Hungarian wax peppers, which are small and pale yellow; lipstick peppers, also small, in brilliant shades of red-orange; larger, less fleshy gypsy peppers; tiny red cherry peppers; long pointy Corno di Toro peppers; and fat fleshy pimientos, to name just a few. All these peppers are sweet, but they have many nuances in flavor as well and are especially suited to the Mediterranean cooking of the South of France, Italy, and Spain. Select peppers that have ripened beyond the immature green stage. A green pepper has not had the chance to develop its full flavor and is much harder to digest. Peppers are tasty whether raw or cooked, roasted or peeled. There are even more varieties of chile peppers. They vary in flavor and spiciness as well as size and color. Chiles are eaten immature and green, fully mature, and dried. Choose shiny, bright, fresh peppers and chiles. Avoid any that have spots or blisters on their skin. Peppers and chiles are prepared the same way, regardless of size: either roast them whole to remove the skins and remove the cap, internal veins, and seeds (the veins and seeds are the spiciest part of a chile); or cut them up without cooking them fi rst, removing the cap and stem, carving off the tough internal veins, and shaking out all the seeds. When using dried chiles, split them open and discard the seeds and stems. Th ey can be toasted briefl y in a hot oven or pan and then rehydrated in water for a sauce or can be added directly to a stew. Sautéed peppers are good on pizzas and pastas, in omelets, or on croutons. If you like, mix hot and sweet peppers.