My mom told me about an unforgettable dessert she had recently while on a trip to Santa Fe: a rich chocolate cake served atop a pool of fruity extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt. “Oh, I am totally stealing that,” I told her. And as you can see, I wasn’t kidding. Rich dark chocolate, olive oil and salt? What could be bad?

One of the many wonderful things I’ve learned since I started living with my roommate Kristina (and there are many) is the magic of cooking with pink Himalayan salt. I can’t describe why or how, but it tastes so much better than regular sea or table salt. And, despite its exotic appearance and name, it costs a measly $1.99 at Trader Joe’s for 4.8 oz. with a built-in grinder, making it an easy and inexpensive way to give simple food a touch of expensive flavor. It’s truly the pink salt that puts this simple dessert over the edge. If you don’t have it on hand, feel free to use regular sea salt, but if you happen to be at TJ’s any time soon, consider dropping the $2 on a container of pink salt—you’ll thank me.

This is not the kind of thing I ever thought I would make, but then my best friend and I took a road trip through the south of the country and I had no choice but to embrace the magic of biscuits and gravy. And ohh, is it magical.

The addition of sweet potatoes to the biscuits helps keep them super-moist but not overwhelmingly rich. As for the gravy, I like to use lean chicken sausage to keep it light(er), but if you happened to make it with a higher-fat content pork sausage, I’m sure it would be delicious too.

I will admit it: one of the perks of being a food writer is the free stuff. Food companies will send me samples of their products in hopes that I will write about them, thereby increasing their business or, at the very least, their web presence. I live by a simple rule: if it’s good and I think my readers will benefit from learning about it, I’m happy to write about it. If not, I won’t.

Well, let me just tell you, Kodiak Cakes Flapjack and Waffle Mix mix is good. Really, honestly delicious. Normally, I wouldn’t be interested in using a mix, but this one is made with whole grains (oatmeal and whole wheat) and honey. It has a whopping 4 grams of fiber per serving (fiber-rich pancakes!), just 1 gram of fat and a nutty, lightly sweet flavor. You need only add water (no eggs or oil) for fluffy flapjacks or toothsome waffles. Upon receiving my mix, I followed the directions exactly to make traditional flapjacks and they were definitely yummy, but you know me—I don’t really like following directions. So, this morning when my friend Lisa came over for breakfast, I added coconut milk, ginger, cinnamon and honey to the batter and topped the cakes with toasted coconut. We ate our tropical-ish pancakes with Kodiak’s decadent raspberry syrup and a gorgeous fruit salad with shaved red onions while we talked about somatic awareness, interpersonal integration and the power of patience—among other things. Delicious, in every sense of the word.

Butternut squash puree soup gets tired fast. It’s a culinary trend that returns every Fall, almost always featuring the exact same accessories: sage, garlic and cream (I know, I’m guilty of it too). The thing about most culinary trends though, is that they come about because they’re based on good ideas (the molecular gastronomy foam trend notwithstanding—I don’t want to eat foam unless it’s on top of a cappuccino), and creamy, pureed butternut squash paired with classic autumnal flavors is, essentially, a very good idea.

I wanted this soup to be classic but interesting, so I combined the very lovely butternut squash I had picked up on my last trip to the farmers market with a nearly 1:1 ratio of ripe Granny Smith apples from my backyard, smoky paprika and just a touch of nutty aged white cheddar. The resulting soup is a velvety without being too rich, and features a layered flavor profile that develops with each bite.

Make sure to eat it with warm, crusty bread for dipping.

I am loving pumpkin lately. It adds an earthy richness to dishes, plus lots of fiber, few calories and zero fat. Since I’m constantly reinventing mac and cheese, I figured I might as well try it with pumpkin.

The result was a creamy, satisfying mac with a rich sauce that will make you want to lick your plate. Brown butter, aged white cheddar and nutmeg perfectly complement autumnal pumpkin and taste so rich, you will forget that this dish has less than half of the fat and calories of regular mac and cheese.

Want step-by-step videos of this recipe? Cook it along with me on Appetites for iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch!