Squash

Think of these as open-faced Mexican sandwiches, topped with grilled summer vegetables, tangy feta cheese, and fresh tomato salsa.

Use any salsa you like in this dish: mild, medium, or hot. For the best flavor, buy the fresh variety sold in the refrigerator section of grocery stores. To add more heat, cook 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes with the corn and garlic in step 3.

A cup of this soup is delicious, served hot or cold. Try packing it in a thermos for a light picnic lunch. To chill quickly, place the soup in a bowl and set that bowl into an ice-water bath. Stir frequently until cool.

Rich and creamy, risotto is Italian-style comfort food. If you like, replace the wine with an equal amount of broth. Arborio rice makes the creamiest risotto, but you can substitute medium-or long-grain white rice.

This is a recipe that I first tried out a really long time ago for a friend in high school who had decided to become a vegan. A pie with tofu may sound odd, but silken tofu is very smooth when you blend it, and helps make vegan desserts rich and satisfying without dairy products. Although the texture is a little different than traditional pumpkin pie, the taste is almost exactly the same. The only way to make this better is to find vegan whipped cream to put on top.

We use vegetable bouillon cubes to add to the flavor in a lot of our recipes, and they really make all the difference here, adding body and depth to this risotto. Don’t get too concerned about size when you are cutting up the butternut squash. If you have different-sized pieces the smaller ones will soften as they cook and mix in, enhancing the creaminess, and the larger pieces will retain their shape, giving the risotto more texture.

You can prepare this dish mostly in advance—which lets you focus on getting ready for your date rather than fussing around in the kitchen. I’d suggest you serve it with a green salad with balsamic or some other light vinaigrette.

Here’s another recipe Jill and I discovered in France (you know how they love their cute little finger foods). These rolls are light and refreshing, making them great for parties, barbecues, or picnics—anywhere you need something that’s easy to transport and fun to eat.

This dish is like fried zucchini—minus the actual frying, but just as delicious. The zucchini are super simple to prepare, and you don’t have to worry about last-minute preparation because once they come out of the oven, they’re finished. I especially love the recipe we came up with for the sauce. It really tastes like what you would get in a restaurant.

I used to be very apprehensive about different ethnic foods until I studied abroad. The first time I had a tagine was in France and I wondered where it had been all my life! That first tagine was the furthest thing from being vegetarian-friendly, as it came with every kind of meat you can imagine, but an all-vegetable version is just as good. This is a great meal for when you have friends coming over or to take to a potluck.

You can make these empanadas whatever size you want. If you want to have something a bit more substantial, you can make them bigger and have fewer of them, or you can make them smaller and take them as an appetizer to a party. Either way: yummy.

This soup is perfect for a chilly autumn night, when you just want to wrap yourself in a warm blanket and watch television. It is as easy as cutting up the vegetables and waiting for them to cook. And the best part is, because the vegetables get puréed in the end, it doesn’t matter how big or small or funny shaped they are. But do be careful not to put too much in the blender at a time, unless you’re trying to redecorate your kitchen.

I got the idea for this recipe from a Greek restaurant I worked at. The horseradish sauce is my favorite thing about them because I love that rush of spiciness that clears the sinuses.

So, I know pasta and winter squash sounds like a strange combination, but I promise it’s really good. Not only that, but all the colors make this a beautiful dish as well. The easiest way to peel the squash is to cut it into quarters first, then scrape out the seeds and cut off the peel. Because they’re so hard, if I do it any other way I’m afraid my knife will slip and I’ll cut myself

For me, spaghetti sauce usually means a jar of whatever is on sale at the grocery store, so I wasn’t sure about how a spicy spaghetti sauce of my own creation would turn out. I have a tendency to forget that a little bit of spice goes a long way and end up sweating my way through meals. But this time I kept it under control and came up with something that isn’t particularly spicy at first but has a bit of a kick at the end. Spaghetti squash is the perfect way to keep calories in check. It has a taste and texture similar to pasta, but only about one-quarter of the calories.

These are light and healthy, and so packed with flavor that everyone will love them. The sauce has a classic combo of Southeast Asian flavors that go so well together—salty, sweet, sour, and spicy. Just be careful with the chili paste. It’s hot . . . really hot.

This recipe is a spin on something I tasted in France, and I don’t mind saying that we’ve done a way better job than they did. Cooking the polenta from scratch gives the best results, but you could also buy a roll of cooked polenta (find it near the pasta in the supermarket). Trim a little off the ends of the roll and slice it into eight slices. Brown two slices for each serving.