A Home Cook's Guide to Fall Produce

Apples, pears, squash, sweet potatoes, sprouts and cranberries: how to pick them, store them and use them while they're at their best.

Fall is one of the best times of year to cook from the produce section. Across much of the Northern Hemisphere, late-season crops come in all at once, prices drop, and the fruits and vegetables that keep well start to fill the bins. Here's a guide to six of the most useful ones.

Apples

Choosing: look for firm fruit with no soft spots or wrinkled skin. Color varies by variety, so don't judge ripeness by redness alone.

Storing: apples last weeks in the fridge's crisper drawer, but only days on the counter. They give off ethylene gas, which speeds ripening in nearby produce, so keep them away from leafy greens.

Using: for pies, firm, tart apples such as Granny Smith hold their shape, while softer apples such as McIntosh break down into sauce. Many bakers mix two or three varieties for both texture and flavor.

Pears

Choosing: pears are picked before they're ripe and ripen off the tree. To check, press gently near the stem. If it gives slightly, the pear is ready.

Storing: ripen hard pears at room temperature, then move them to the fridge to slow them down.

Using: Bosc pears hold their shape well for poaching and baking. Bartlett and Comice are best eaten fresh.

Winter squash

Choosing: butternut, acorn, delicata and kabocha should feel heavy for their size, with dull (not shiny) skin and an intact, dry stem.

Storing: whole winter squash keeps for a month or more in a cool, dry spot. Once cut, wrap it and refrigerate it for up to about five days.

Using: roasting brings out the sweetness. Halve the squash, scoop out the seeds and roast cut side down at around 400°F (200°C) until tender. Delicata's skin is thin enough to eat, so there's no need to peel it.

Sweet potatoes

Choosing: pick firm sweet potatoes with smooth skin and no soft or sprouting spots.

Storing: keep them somewhere cool, dark and dry, not in the fridge. Cold temperatures can give them a hard core and an off flavor.

Using: roasted whole until soft, they're nearly sweet enough for dessert. Sweet potato pie is made much like pumpkin pie, with mashed sweet potato in place of the squash.

Brussels sprouts

Choosing: small, tight, bright green heads are the sweetest. Avoid yellowing leaves.

Storing: refrigerate unwashed sprouts in a bag for up to about a week. Sprouts sold on the stalk stay fresh a little longer.

Using: boiling them for too long releases sulfur compounds and makes them taste bitter. Halve them and roast cut side down in a hot oven until the edges brown, or shave them thin and eat them raw in a salad.

Cranberries

Choosing: fresh cranberries should be firm and bounce when dropped. That's because of pockets of air inside, which is also why commercial bogs are flooded to harvest them: the berries float.

Storing: they keep for weeks in the fridge and freeze well for months. Frozen cranberries can go straight into recipes without thawing.

Using: cranberries are very tart and are almost always cooked with sugar. A basic sauce is just cranberries, sugar and water simmered until the berries pop, about 10 minutes. They also pair well with apples in pies and crisps.

Shopping tips for the season

• Farmers markets often have varieties you won't find in grocery stores, especially apples and squash.
• Buying more than you need is fine for the hardy crops. Apples, squash, sweet potatoes and cranberries all keep well.
• Cranberries are cheapest and easiest to find in November and December. Buy extra and freeze them for the rest of the year.