Dairy

The simplicity of this pasta dish lets the escarole shine. Excellent as an entrée or as a first course served before roasted chicken or beef.

Katy Hees of Santa Fe, New Mexico, writes: "Eating local, fresh, organic food is important to me. It doesn't get much more local than the eggs I use, which come from our own chickens. I came up with my fried eggs on toast recipe as a great way to dress them up for dinner."

Rosemary and black pepper make this bread anything but typical. Wedges are delicious with plenty of butter and your favorite preserves.

Coconut milk enhances the taste of the white chocolate; kumquats add tang.

Parmigiano-Reggiano enriches canned broth for a quick, hot, and truly delicious meal in a bowl.

Truklji These unusual dumplings — fashioned with noodle dough — make a refined dish that isn't at all heavy.

Katy Hees of Santa Fe, New Mexico, writes: "Eating local, fresh, organic food is important to me. Lamb is one of my favorite meats, so I'm always trying to think of new ways to prepare it." Here, lamb's classic partner — mint — is incorporated into the burger.

Editor's note: This recipe was included with two others from our roundup of great cookbooks for Dad. Tangy goat cheese pairs well with spicy salsa for a quick and delicious appetizer or vegetarian entrée. Serve these with extra salsa and guacamole.

Editor's note: This recipe was included with two others from our roundup of great cookbooks for Dad. Lasagna needs to be constructed. That doesn't mean you need blueprints or permits, but it is a whole production. Pizza Noodles are like a sloppy lasagna. You can throw everything together, practically blindfolded. And what kid can resist the name?

Olive oil in a dessert might seem a little odd, but try to think of it as a flavorful ingredient rather than a fat...as long as you choose a delicious extra-virgin oil. I first had something like this in Jabugo, Spain, when I ate slices of orange simply drizzled with a grassy local oil as a dessert. It was a revelation. If you want to go dairy-free in this dessert, then skip the yogurt and mix the mint in with the grapes.

Here's a kind of mac and cheese without any effort. Adding goat cheese gives American ricotta the tang it has when it comes from sheep's milk. I learned this trick from Sicilian cooking teacher Anna Tasca Lanza.

As its name implies, this dish was once thought to be worthy of a blue ribbon. Over the years, however, in its overly meaty interpretation at numerous hotel restaurants and wedding receptions, it lost some of its original delicacy. Here, we make the veal and the layers of cheese and ham much thinner, which results in a truly refined version that's not too heavy — and that's equally suitable for dinner parties and simple family suppers.

Barbara Edwards, the reader who sent us this recipe, wrote that every time she served this salad, the men in the group would "lick the platter clean." We found the women in our test kitchens were crunching on it as happily as the men. The creaminess and tang of cottage cheese and mayonnaise offset the edge of onion and the crispness of cabbage.

Get ready for the most deliciously tangy adult nibbles that have ever made you lick your lips. These are not only easy to prepare, but the dough can be frozen and kept for when guests drop by unexpectedly.