White Wine

Butternut squash and a variety of beans give this vegetarian dish its hearty texture.

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 45 min

This cinnamon-and coriander-spiced chutney combines wine, raisins and citrus. Serve with the Barbecue Turkey with Maple-Mustard Glaze, or as an appetizer with goat cheese and crusty bread.

Pine nuts provide a buttery contrast to the tart capers in this sophisticated veal dish.

"My husband and I ate dinner at the Dilworthtown Inn, a colonial-style restaurant in West Chester, Pennsylvania," writes Judy Kamp of Oxford, Pennsylvania. "I'd love to know how to make the creamy mushroom soup we both had to start the meal."

This can also be prepared with duck breasts, which is how it is often made in Tuscany. Either way, the dish is good with rosemary-flavored mashed potatoes and sautéed artichoke hearts.

Our food editors agree that this is one of the best-tasting and most elegant shepherd's pies they've ever had. The recipe is not as complicated as it appears at first glance—the different components all come together to make a complete meal in a single dish. The potatoes are stiffer than the average mash because they will be forming the crust for the pie.

Mark Taylor of West Hartford, Connecticut, writes: "I started cooking out of necessity when I first graduated from college, since I couldn't afford to eat out. Having grown up watching my mother cook for our large family, I used her recipes. She was always trying new dishes whenever we had guests and sharing her adventurous attitude toward eating. These days, even though my wife and I both work, we still cook several times a week. Now I tend to rely on recipes I've picked up from restaurants and friends. I enjoy experimenting with different ingredients and figuring out new ways to improve a recipe, as I've done with the one here." Serve the fish and sauce over couscous.

Donna Knowlton of Atlanta, Georgia, writes: "As the oldest of five children growing up in rural West Virginia, I was always helping in the kitchen. Today I mostly cook pasta and seafood dishes because they're so easy. My husband is a doctor and works long hours, but we still like sharing a meal at the end of the day. I don't want to be in the kitchen late at night making something complicated, so I rely on dishes that can be ready in minutes."

Indigo's chef and owner is Glenn Chu, who was born in Hawaii and learned to cook from his Chinese grandmother — and by watching Julia Child on television. The result: Eurasian cuisine, which Chu showcases in selections as eclectic as goat cheese wontons with four-fruit sauce, and grilled shrimp with Thai macadamia-nut pesto. The romantic dining room has a tropical-island motif, with ceiling fans, bamboo, and bird-of-paradise.

Wild striped bass is an incredible delicacy on the order of wild king salmon. To complement its robust flavor and steak-like texture, we serve it with a beautiful and aggressive squid vinaigrette. This is not a dish for people who are on the fence about eating fish.