Parmesan

This is the classic dressing for romaine lettuce, but it is delicious on any tossed salad. Drizzle it on steamed vegetables for something special.

A perfect balance of flavors and textures, this salad is sure to become a favorite first course to enjoy while supper cooks. Replace the pecans with Sweet Spiced Nuts (page 261) for a special touch.

This polenta, chock-full of earthy spinach, contrasts beautifully in both flavor and color with the sweet-tart tomatoes. (See photo)

In this delicious omelet, we borrowed the taste of garlic, caraway, and coriander from harissa, the classic Tunisian seasoning. The omelet can also be cut into wedges and served as an appetizer or as part of a tapas or antipasto platter.

This creamy, cold-weather casserole with a golden, crunchy topping can be assembled ahead and baked when you’re ready.

In Comfort Me with Apples, Ruth Reichl attributes the original recipe to Danny Kaye, but lemon and cream seems such a simple, natural combination that we suppose people were putting it on pasta long before Danny Kaye was born.

I love mashed potatoes as much as the next person, but most recipes take a long time—and a lot of elbow grease—to make. So I smash the unpeeled, cooked potatoes with a fork to save time, and I add olive oil and Parmesan cheese to make them rich and velvety. And that’s it!

Note that the ingredients here are something of a hodgepodge: potato and sweet potato, zucchini and carrot, onion and bell pepper. That’s because this is a pretty loose recipe, and you should feel free to substitute whatever you prefer. Just be sure to cut any vegetables to roughly the same size, to ensure that they’re all fully cooked—but not overcooked—at the same time.

I often serve these tomatoes at room temperature, and believe me, it’s a real relief to be able to serve a dish to which you have to do absolutely nothing while your guests are in your home, other than put it on a plate. That’s truly Everyday Italian cooking.

These breaded cutlets are usually made with veal, but I’ve found that it’s an excellent treatment for pork chops. As kids, my siblings and I loved this dish—what kids don’t love fried meat? And it makes for a tasty sandwich the next day (see page 184).

The secret to the intense mushroom flavor in this recipe is that not only are mushrooms themselves part of the mix, but the risotto is cooked with mushroom-flavored broth. In order to use dried porcini mushrooms—or any dried mushrooms for that matter—you have to reconstitute them by allowing them to sit in hot water for a few minutes, absorbing that water and plumping up. Then the mushrooms are ready to cook with, and you have all this flavorful liquid as a by-product. By all means, take advantage of it: Here, it works as a flavor booster to the chicken stock; but you can also use it as the base of a wonderful soup or sauce.

Like a pizza, it’s crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside. Nearly any pasta shape with any sauce will do; as long as you liked the original serving, you’ll like the leftovers prepared this way.

This famous cream sauce is named after its creator, Alfredo Di Lelio, who made it for his wife when she lost her appetite after the birth of their son. Alfredo’s dish was made of egg-rich fettuccine, butter, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and it became a hit in his restaurant (Alfredo’s) in Rome. In 1927, two Hollywood movie stars also fell in love with it and brought the recipe back to the States. The dish had to be adapted because the butter and Parmesan that were available here weren’t as rich as they were in Italy. So chefs added heavy cream. I’ve added my own twist with the addition of lemon juice and zest. Fresh pasta is a must, because dried pasta can’t stand up to all the rich ingredients.

There’s only one thing I can say about this dish: It’s so good you won’t believe it.

The literal translation of torta di pasta is “cake made of pasta.” What I particularly love about this recipe is that it makes for great finger food: All the ingredients bind together and can be cut up into easy little servings, and it can be served at room temperature. You probably won’t want to tell your guests that you’re serving them leftovers, and they’ll never know the difference.

Wild mushroom ravioli are my very favorites, so I always have a box of them in my freezer. In the time it takes the water to boil and the raviolis to cook—no need to thaw or defrost them—I can make this sauce, and have this great dish on the table in a flash.

One of the easiest pasta dishes you’ll ever make, this is great as a light meal or as a side dish, especially for grilled fish.

A spicy sauce that’s perfect tossed with pasta. Be sure to wash your arugula thoroughly, in at least two changes of cold water, to remove any soil and grit, which you definitely don’t want in your pesto.