Dairy

Here is a quick and tasty way to cook young artichokes: thin-sliced, slowly braised in a skillet in their own juices, and served with a shower of soft pecorino. The method is simple, and will yield delicious results even with the larger, more mature artichokes you'll find in the supermarket. This dish makes a great vegetarian sandwich, or, for a carnivore, a topping for a juicy hamburger. Artichokes prepared this way are also a great appetizer topped with a poached egg or a thin slice of prosciutto.

To prevent curdling, be sure to cool the ice cream custard to room temperature before adding the buttermilk and crème fraîche.

In this decadent side, rosemary-Roquefort mashed potatoes are scooped back into the potato skins, topped with Gruyère cheese, and baked. Serve with steak or chicken, or make a meal of one all on its own.

A little cornmeal gives the cake a crunchy texture. The sweet-tangy ice cream and the tart compote help dress up the dessert for this holiday dinner.

Capers, a common ingredient in traditional Sicilian cooking, give this gratin a tangy, briny flavor. Serve alongside whole roasted fish, roast pork, or sautéed chicken breasts.

Simple to prepare but impressive when served, this is spring elegance at its best. The salad is shown with purple watercress, a beautiful, rare variety you might find at farmers' markets. Green watercress works great, too.

Roasting broccoli brings out its earthy sweetness, and sprinkling it with cheese will guarantee that the kids clean their plates.

You can make the veggie filling a day ahead and refrigerate. Simply reheat 1 1/2 hours before filling the tacos.

This is one of our most popular cakes at the bakery. Half of the customers love it because they haven't eaten it since their grandmother made it when they were kids, and the other half because they think the red color is really neat. But everyone thinks it's delicious.

This recipe, based on Elizabeth David's GNOCCHI DI RICOTTA in her book Italian Food, has become one of our most-often-requested house formulas. Requiring fresh, curdy ricotta, it yields succulent, tender dumplings that always beguile. But since fresh ricotta varies in texture, flavor, and moisture content, depending on the season, what the animals are eating, who is making it, and how long they drain it, we often need to tinker with the recipe, adding more Parmigiano-Reggiano for flavor, or butter for richness. If the cheese is particularly wet, we add a little more egg, or we hang it overnight in cheesecloth, refrigerated (or we do both). Very wet ricotta can weep 1/2 cup liquid per pound. Don't substitute machine-packed supermarket ricotta; flavor issues notwithstanding, mechanical packing churns and homogenizes the curds and water—you'll have trouble getting enough water back out. Tender fresh sheep's milk ricotta, if you can get it, makes delicious gnocchi and is worth the extra expense. Having offered ricotta gnocchi four or five evenings per week for more than a decade, we have a large repertory of accompaniments for, and variations on, this dish. We sometimes add freshly grated nutmeg, chopped lemon zest, or chopped sage stewed in butter to the batter before forming the gnocchi. Or we form thumbnail-sized gnocchi and poach them in chicken broth for a delicate soup course. One of the nicest variations is to fold flecks of barely cooked spinach into the batter. These Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi recall the Florentine mainstay, variously called ravioli verdi ("green ravioli"), ignudi ("naked" ravioli), or malfatti ("poorly fashioned," which they needn't be), and are sublime. Although these gnocchi are delicious and delicate enough to serve with just a cloak of melted butter, I list my favorite seasonal accompaniments at the end of the recipe to provoke you to think of serving ricotta gnocchi often, and year-round. Wine: Chehalem Willamette Valley Pinot Gris, 2000

Reduced-fat ingredients create a light, creamy cake.

Little bites of cauliflower add wonderful texture to this open-face omelet; salty-tangy feta gives it character.

Perfectly textured inside and out, these scones truly are the real deal. Just a touch of butter or your favorite jam is all the embellishment they need.

This country-style quiche has a crunchy crust, thanks to the whole grain cornmeal.

These are best served warm.

Whole wheat flour gives these clever cookie S'mores a graham-cracker flavor. Leave the marshmallows out for a day or two on a plate to get stale—they'll hold their shape better during baking.