Blog Posts by Sarah McColl, Shine staff

I don't even host Thanksgiving, but flipping the calendar to November is enough to give me anxiety. This is the time of year when it's hard not to succumb to the flurry of busyness (parties! holidays! baking 'round the clock!). Deep breath. In an effort to stay zen for as long as humanly possible, we're streamlining dinner even more than usual. We're asking all home cooks and Shine readers to share your favorite one-dish dinner. Think casseroles, stews, and skillet suppers. Best yet: you could win an iconic red Dansk Kobenstyle 4-quart casserole from Crate and Barrel for all your future one-pot meals. Here's how to join us:

1. Write a blog post, on Shine or elsewhere, telling us about your favorite one-pot meal by Sunday 11:59PM PST, November 25th. Be sure to include a photo and a recipe.
2. Mention and link to the Shine Supper Club in your post: http://shine.yahoo.com/supper-club/
3. Tweet @YahooShine with a link to your post and include the hashtag #shinesupperclub. Aren't on

Perfect for fall, this chocolate cake has a layer of creamy pumpkin filling. Swoon. A few years ago, after my aunt married a dashing Texan on a wooden dock suspended over the green Guadaloupe river, our small wedding party marched up a sloping lawn to eat chocolate cake. It was not even 11am, and we hadn't yet eaten the lunch of tamales and jicama salad laid out on the back porch. But the bride insisted. "Life's so short, you never know what's going to happen," she explained. "Eat dessert first." Having herself gone from a dusty west Texas town to TCU's sweetheart of Sigma Chi to state senator, only to arrive years later at the kind of post-midlife twists in love and career that give the staunchest cynics hope that life can be, on the contrary, long and filled with unexpected blessings, she knew what she was talking about. I was first in line for a slice.

This is why, when The Back in the Swing Cookbook landed on my desk in honor of women's breast cancer awareness month, I was immediately charmed. The first chapter, all about desserts, is inscribed with a like-minded

October Shine Supper Club WinnerMeet Laura, the blogger behind Ring Finger Tan Line (tagline: "maybe I'll be better at blogging than marriage. Or maybe I'll just eat some chocolate.") and the winner of this month's Shine Supper Club for her crazy-good Baked Rigatoni recipe (below). Peak inside the mind of this cook-comedienne:

What ingredient are you currently obsessed with?

I go through definite phases, as you can see on my blog. Chocolate mode. Bacon mode. Chocolate bacon mode. Right now I am on a serious cheese binge. I don't think anyone really needs a reason to love cheese, it just happens. But I suspect there is a new ingredient on the horizon. I'm not sure how much more I can test the lactose gods before they strike me down.

Favorite food memory?

I was on vacation with my ex visiting his Italian family. They took us to this tiny shack on the side of a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. The view was gorgeous, and the only menu items were different variations of fresh mozzarella. We each ordered our own

There were so many creative, cozy, fall-flavored pasta dishes contributed to this month's Supper Club, selecting finalists was like choosing a favorite Halloween candy: possible, but no pleasant task. Now it's time for the community to vote on the best recipe. The winner gets a copy of the fabulous cookbook, Weeknight Fast + Fresh, and is profiled in our Shine Supper Club winner's circle. Be sure to check out all the links below before you vote; there's lots more where this cold weather comfort food comes from.

Shine Supper Club October Submissions:
Average Betty: Pappardelle with Meat Sauce
Crispy Bits & Burnt Ends: Butternut Squash Bacon Pasta
Dining with Dostoevsky: Tokyo Turnips with Soba and Miso Butter
Feed Your Soul: Baked Pasta
Girl Makes Food: Sneaky Mac and Cheese
Heather Likes Food: Pasta al Forno
Jessica Gavin: Thai Shrimp Vegetable Pasta
The Pajama Chef: Mom's Lasagna
Rikki Synder: Penne with Butternut Squash Pasta & Kale
Ring Finger Tan Line: Baked Rigatoni

This trio of pasta recipes for this month's Shine Supper Club really raises the comfort food quotient! Thanks to this month's pasta theme, we are now officially armed with all the cozy recipes to help us welcome cooler days ahead.

Stay tuned: Later today the voting period for this month's winner opens, and the winner receives a copy of Weeknight Fresh + Fast!

Mom's LasagnaThe Pajama Chef keeps this simple in this version of her mom's beloved lasagna; there's no sausage, fancy cheese, or special veggies in this recipe. She recommends subbing cottage cheese for the usual ricotta: "I promise promise PROMISE that using cottage cheese is not only a more frugal choice, but actually a creamier choice that highlights the flavor of the smooth mozzarella, sharp parmesan, chewy noodles, and sweet, bold tomato sauce"

Recipe: Mom's Lasagna



Sneaky Mac and CheeseGirl Makes Food shares her recipe for a sneaky mac and cheese that's hiding butternut squash and cauliflower: "Picky eaters can be really tough to convince to eat veggies

I hope you're planning on cooking this week, cause we're in the home stretch of this month's open call for pasta recipes for the Shine Supper Club. Get yours in by Sunday night at midnight, and you could win a copy of Weeknight Fresh + Fast. Here's how:

1. Write a blog post, on Shine or elsewhere, telling us about your favorite pasta recipe by Sunday 11:59PM PST, October 21st. Be sure to include a photo and a recipe.
2. Mention and link to the Shine Supper Club in your post: http://shine.yahoo.com/supper-club/
3. Tweet @YahooShine with a link to your post and include the hashtag #shinesupperclub. Aren't on Twitter? Email the link to shine_sarahmccoll@yahoo.com. We will compile the links for all participants to include in their posts so all Supper Club members can share in the link love.
4. The community will vote on the winning recipe to be featured on the Shine homepage and added to our winner's circle!
5. The winner gets a copy of Weeknight Fast + Fresh!

Meat Sauce with PappardelleAverage Betty says,

You know what's made my week? That Shine Supper Club entries are rolling in fast and furious and they look fantastic! Throw your hat in the ring with an amazing pasta recipe and you could win a copy of Weeknight Fresh + Fast. Here's how:

1. Write a blog post, on Shine or elsewhere, telling us about your favorite pasta recipe by Sunday 11:59PM PST, October 21st. Be sure to include a photo and a recipe.
2. Mention and link to the Shine Supper Club in your post: http://shine.yahoo.com/supper-club/
3. Tweet @yahooshine with a link to your post and include the hashtag #shinesupperclub. Aren't on Twitter? Email the link to shine_sarahmccoll@yahoo.com. We will compile the links and send them out to all participants to include in their post so all Supper Club members can share in the link love.
4. The community will vote on the winning recipe to be featured on the Shine homepage and added to our winner's circle!
5. The winner gets a copy of Weeknight Fast + Fresh!

Thai Shrimp Vegetable PastaJessica Gavin calls this

The head might react to statistics, but our hearts respond to stories. Rather than spread awareness for World Food Day, a global initiative established by the U.N in 1979 to end hunger, by reciting the statistic that 1 in 7 people suffer from undernourishment worldwide, we sought out the story of a woman who suffered from homelessness and hunger in the US.

Diana JohnsonMeet Diana Johnson. Just a few weeks following September 11th, after being laid off from her tourism job in Hawaii, Diana moved out of her apartment and into her car. She had about $100 in her bank account. "The only food I bought for an entire month was a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread'" Diana writes on her blog, Eating Richly. She attended potlucks at her church and picked lychees and grapefruits outside after services. "I knew all the different places around the island where there were mango, papaya, guava, banana or other trees I could pick fruit from," she said.

Looking for a job in a tanking economy is hard enough.