I’ve been thinking a lot about my Bubby and Zayda recently and sometimes when I do, I wear my Zayda’s shirt or my Bubby’s hand-knit sweater or necklace. Other times, I make food that reminds me of them. It makes me feel close to them, like they’re here or they know what’s going on in my life. Enter my Bubby’s roast beef / her signature dish. For years I had no idea that it was also called brisket or that roast beef could be served any other way besides in a big roaster with potatoes, carrots and a spicy tomato sauce gravy. Whenever she was serving it, or my mom would make it at home, we would all get so excited. The tenderness of the meat. The sweetness of the sauce. The comfort of potatoes. Best of all: how the house smelled… like love. That’s the power of grandparents. It’s magical, isn’t it?

Now that I’m eating some meat again for the first time in about 8 years, I decided to make Bubby’s roast beef for Rosh Hashanah. When it turned out even better than I had remembered, I invited friends over to break the fast after Yom Kippur and made it again. (No bagels for this girl; I don’t eat any grains.) Everyone loved it.

Not only is Bubby’s roast beef delicious and satisfying, it’s also crazy easy to make. Consider it for your next dinner party because once you throw everything into the roaster, you’re done! Imagine that, Host with the Most: not being stuck in the kitchen with your head in the oven while everyone else is enjoying cocktails. Bubby would never want you to miss a cocktail.

Bonus for when your guests arrive: the house will smell amazing… like love.

When Brian woke up and told me he thought he felt an itch, a scratch, a something funny in his throat, I immediately ran downstairs to the kitchen where I keep my cookbooks. I knew exactly what my husband needed: Alicia Silverstone’s Magical Healing Soup. (The Kind Diet was my original bible when I first went vegan, years ago. It’s now a whole delightful community: The Kind Life.)

I riff on her original masterpiece a bit by not using daikon radish, ginger juice or shoyu… but instead adding kale. Lots of it. You can throw in whatever vegetables you like (bok choy is always good here, too) and of course feel free to use soy sauce instead of Tamari. I choose Tamari because the soy sauce has gluten and soy, both of which I avoid. But the two taste almost exactly identical.

If you don’t have a cold or sore throat yet, or think it’s just too soon for soup, then bookmark this recipe for later in the season; you’re definitely going to need it. Otherwise live a little! Make it now, on one of the first chilly nights of fall. A bowl of warm, fresh vegetables always does a body good.

Get this: B hasn’t complained about his throat since he had the soup Tuesday night.

Magical.

We love brussels sprouts in our house: shaved raw in a mustard vinaigrette, roasted with apples, sauteed with shallots in a hash, you name it. And now we can add crispy in a salad to that list. I actually made the mistake of making this as a starter before a big meal, not realizing a) how filling it would be and b) how much we’d love it that anything coming after would pale in comparison. So consider yourself warned: this will be your new favorite go-to salad entree. Next time I may even add a piece of plain grilled fish or shrimp on top.

Oh, and not all of the roasted carrots in the picture below made it into the salad — some were for snacking while I prepared the rest of the meal. Dip those in a bit of greek yogurt and onion dip and hello, heaven. Or you could save yourself the roasting time (about 25 minutes) and just throw ’em in the salad raw. Either way, this one’s a keeper.

Since B is at work writing his second Page One story in two days (I know, he’s somethin) I’m testing out  a new veggie recipe here in the lovenest. My mom cut this out of the Philadelphia Inquirer for me while I was home last week and I’ve been wanting to adapt it a bit — more veggies, more flavor — so tonight’s the night. If B were here, I would’ve cooked a piece of fish alongside this — any kind, really — so my man gets his protein. But it’s just me! No one else to worry about! So you know what that means, right? While he’s hunkered down writing a follow up to this Al Gore/Al Jazeera story [feign your intrigue here] it’s time for me to live on the edge. And what says wild, crazy, sexy more than a girl home alone, in her sweaty Lululemon, oven-braising some veggies? Exactly. Best part about this recipe is that you really can’t screw it up — it’s so simple — and so healthy, too.