The Orange and Clove Snowballs I made recently were cookies that featured the flavors of both orange and clove, chosen because I often made orange pomander balls around the holidays as a child (and still do!) and I really associate the season with the warm, spicy scent combination. As good as the cookies are, I still couldn’t resist making some real pomanders to set around the house and spread their Christmasy aroma.

Pomanders are very easy to make. All you need are some fresh, ripe oranges and a jar of whole cloves. Simply insert the pointy ends of the cloves into the rind of the orange in any pattern that pleases you. If you have a knitting needle, you can stick a piece of ribbon just underneath the skin, then tie a loop so you can hang the pomander, on a tree or elsewhere. This is a great project to do with kids. It’s fun, smells great and there is no cleanup because the clove-studded oranges can sit out just about indefinitely because they dry-cure with the cloves in them.

While you can make your own pumpkin puree, the easiest and most common thing to do when you need to bake a pumpkin pie (or make another dish that requires canned pumpkin) is to buy a can of pumpkin puree at the market and go from there. By and large, canned pumpkin is pretty good and is certainly both consistent and reliable - which homemade puree isn’t always. I prefer to use it when I’m developing a recipe because it gives me peace of mind to know that others will at least be starting with the same product as I am. Of course, not all canned pumpkin is created equal and Cook’s Illustrated held a taste test to see which canned squash was the best for pies. They tested Farmer’s Market Organic Canned Pumpkin, Libby’s Canned Pumpkin and One-Pie Canned Pumpkin.

Libby’s and One-Pie came in at a dead heat for first, with both having good consistencies and pumpkin flavor to them in a finished pumpkin pie. The Farmer’s Market brand didn’t come close, with testers noting an unpleasant “chalky” flavor and vegetal notes that they weren’t looking for in a pumpkin pie. It’s worth trying another brand when one you have isn’t quite delivering the result you want.

CI didn’t test too many brands, so if you have another favorite, leave a comment about it below this post so other can have a reference for what is - and what isn’t - a good canned pumpkin. I’ve been buying Trader Joe’s, which has a nice smooth consistency and a good pumpkin flavor, as well as a nice orange color (not too pale) that looks great in a finished pie slice.

Pumpkins and other firm winter squash can seem a bit daunting the first time you set out to cook one at home. This is largely because they’re a bit foreign looking when compared to other fruits and veggies, with an intimidating outer peel. Fortunately, they can actually be very easy to cook and once you’ve done it once, you’ll find yourself doing it again to enjoy the sweet, tender flesh of the gourd as a side dish with dinner.

To begin, take your squash (acorn, butternut, etc.) and wash it well. Then, trim off the top and bottom stems. Slice the squash down the middle carefully, using a very sharp knife, then use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and pulp. There is no need to remove the skin because the flesh will be so tender after roasting that you can scrape it off of the skin with a spoon, but this is the time to peel it if you prefer to cut your squash into chunks before roasting.

Place the squash on a lightly oiled sheet of aluminum paper or directly on a lightly greased baking sheet and slide it into a 375F oven. Cover loosely with a sheet of aluminum foil to keep the flesh tender and roast for 60-80 minutes. The timing will depend on how thick your squash was to begin with, so check it and make sure that it is fork-tender before you take it out of the oven regardless of baking time.

At this point, I brush mine with a little butter and salt (or butter, salt and maple syrup if I want something sweet) and serve it as is. The squash can also be pureed into a mashed potato-like dish or used in baking at this point, as well.

Most recipes that call for pumpkin recommend using canned pumpkin puree. There are a variety of reasons for this, including the facts that pumpkin puree is relatively inexpensive, easy to find, convenient to use and very consistent in color, flavor and texture. Having a standard ingredient to recommend helps cookbook authors and recipe writers to help you achieve the desired results with their recipes. You can find both regular and organic pumpkin puree pretty easily these days at both regular and specialty markets. That said, it is also very possible to make your own pumpkin puree and this is a great option or those of us who like to eat squash and pumpkin on a regular basis.

First, start out with a whole pumpkin. It’s best not to have one too large, or it will be difficult to work with. Peel it, slice it open and seed it. Bring some water to a boil on the stovetop. Cut up the pumpkin flesh into chunks and drop it into the boiling water. Cool the pumpkin pieces until they’re tender, exactly the same way you would with potatoes.

Drain and cool the pumpkin pieces, then put them in the food processor. This is the only part where making your own gets tricky. Pumpkin can be fairly fibrous, and canned pumpkin puree is very smooth, so make sure that you process your pumpkin as much as possible. Sometimes, I add back a little bit of water to the puree so that I can process it more easily. I aim to get the consistency close to that of the canned puree (fairly thick, but not dry) so that I know it will work out in the recipes that call for it.

When I make it, I use pumpkin puree within a day or two of making it, storing it in the refrigerator in the meantime.

For a long time, figs were a very mysterious fruit to me - and I’m sure they were to many others who did not see them regularly. Although many people in my area had fig trees, I rarely saw anyone harvesting or eating the fruit when I was growing up, so the first item I was faced with a basket at the farmers’ market, I hesitated before picking them up. Figs are actually not berries, as you might expect. They are the flowers of the fig plant, where the seeds and petals grow together into the edible fruit that we recognize.

There are many different varieties of fig, each with a slightly different color of skin and flesh, but all can be handled in pretty much the same way. Figs are eaten whole (after washing, of course). There is no pit or other large seeds to get in the way of their sweet, jammy flavor. Their skin is very thin and tender and puts up basically no resistance. A ripe fig is slightly soft and gives under light pressure. Figs can be used whole in recipes, can be cooked down into a jam with sugar and water, or can be dried and used in recipes that way.

White peaches are my favorite type of peaches to eat plain, so I often stock my kitchen up with them when they are in season. This means that white peaches make it into my desserts and baked goods more often than standard yellow peaches do. The two fruits are absolutely interchangeable in recipes, but there are a few flavor differences between white and yellow peaches that are worth noting.

White peaches tend to have paler skin than their yellow cousins, but have the same blush, softness and overall look as a standard peach. The real difference is that they have a white or champagne-colored flesh that is a clear departure from just about any yellow shade. They look beautiful sliced, as the white contrasts nicely with their reddish center (the same red center around the pit as in a standard peach). These peaches were not commercially cultivated in substantial numbers until the 1980s because they were considered to be more delicate than yellow peaches and had a much shorter growing season, meaning that they were not usually as profitable for farmers. These days, selective breeding has made white peaches a bit more resilient and has given them a longer season, so they are showing up more and more in regular markets.

In addition to the color, there is a distinct difference between white and yellow peaches. White peaches have a soft peach flavor, but are much more floral tasting.  This translates to a delicacy in their flavor that isn’t quite there in a yellow peach, and I think that they taste a lot sweeter for it. These subtle flavors come out when you eat the peaches on their own, but they will also make it into a cobbler or a pie if you choose to use white peaches for those dishes.