Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Red lentil soup with lemon.

You need more than a shovel and a pair of boots to prepare for a storm like the one forecast for the Northeast Thursday and Friday. You need a pot of something warm on the stove, or a pan of something bubbling in the oven, preferably with cheese.

Never fear: the Dining staff has suggestions.

Julia Moskin recommends Regina Schrambling's lasagna recipe, adapted from "Good Friends, Great Dinners" by Susan Costner (Crown, 1987), which ran in the section shortly after 9/11. "The long process is just what appeals . . . in these crazy times," Ms. Schrambling wrote in the article accompanying the recipe. "Eating the stuff is not exactly stress-inducing, either."

Michael Moss said he would be making spinach pie with phyllo dough. This recipe from David Tanis uses an olive oil-based pastry instead, but will do in a pinch.

Florence Fabricant had a few ideas, including duck choucroute, or duck fried rice using the choucroute. But she acknowledged you might not have the ingredients on hand and so settled on split pea soup using the end of the ham from Christmas, or, as in this recipe, using bacon.

Melissa Clark followed the same tack — pantry cooking — suggesting her red lentil soup with lemon. And if you don't have red lentils? "Then just use the green," she said.

And Eric Asimov will be drinking the rest of a Wind Gap Old-Vine mourvèdre from Bedrock Vineyard in Sonoma that he opened Wednesday night. "I'll finish it off, and who knows what comes next?" he said.