Meet/5 recipes

Pumpkin bran muffins with chocolate chips, warm spices, and brown sugar. A fiber-rich fall muffin where cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice meet melty pockets of chocolate.

Everything tastes better with bacon. Needless to say when bacon meets beef tenderloin, it's an ultimate combination. We made this during the weekend, it was delicious.

German fest pizza layers crumbled bratwurst, sauerkraut, swiss and mozzarella on a prepared crust, then tops with mushrooms, peppers, and olives. Oktoberfest meets Friday pizza night.

Stuffed meatloaf rolled jelly-roll style with layers of capicola and pepper salami inside, finished with a white wine pan gravy. Italian deli meets comfort food.

Coconut pecan upside-down cake with chocolate chips, dark brown sugar, and a tender vanilla butter cake. Like a German chocolate cake meets a skillet dessert.

Old-world warm beer soup spiced with cloves, cinnamon, and lemon zest, thickened with milk, flour, and egg yolk. A traditional European comfort drink-meets-soup.

Rich fettuccine Alfredo with lump backfin crabmeat folded into a butter, cream, and Parmesan sauce. A luxurious Chesapeake-meets-Italian pasta in just five core ingredients.

Crispy cornmeal-crusted fish fillets pan-fried golden and topped with a brown-butter pecan sauce with parsley and lemon. Southern fish-fry meets classic meunière.

Mint chocolate fudge brownies made with melted mint-chocolate chips for intense minty richness, plus chopped nuts and a dense, fudgy crumb. Thin Mint meets brownie.

Papaya lamb salad pairs stir-fried lamb chops with sweet ripe papaya, roma tomatoes, bean sprouts, and warm rice for a tropical-meets-Asian main-course salad. Served with lemon wedges and crusty bread.

A chilled bulgur salad tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, soy sauce, diced tomatoes, cucumber, and fresh cilantro. An East-meets-Middle-East tabbouleh twist served on lettuce with yogurt.

An autumn cheesecake with cinnamon graham cracker crust, creamy vanilla cheesecake center, and a topping of cinnamon-sugar apples and toasted pecans. The flavors of apple pie meet New York cheesecake.

Veal chops in spicy sauce: braised with cumin, saffron, coriander, and cayenne, then finished with a cool cucumber-yogurt spoon sauce. Warm spice meets bright tang in one Dutch oven.

Shepherd's pie meets chili night! Ground chicken breast simmered with crushed tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, and oregano, topped with whipped potatoes and baked until golden. A Tex-Mex twist on a classic.

Grilled chicken and pineapple kabobs brushed with soy sauce, served with a curried orange marmalade yogurt dip. A tropical-meets-Indian skewer dinner ready in 30 minutes.

Homemade pineapple upside-down cake from scratch with butter, mace-spiced vanilla batter, and caramelized crushed pineapple topping. Tender crumb meets sticky-sweet fruit in every bite.