Faith Willinger

Caprese salad thrives on simplicity and using the freshest ingredients possible: heirloom tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, and extra-virgin olive oil–that’s it!

This recipe should be made with traditional Sicilian chocolate (which contains wheat starch) as made by L'Antica Dolceria Bonajuto in Modica, Italy. It's available via their website at http://ragusaonline.com/bonajuto/_index.htm

This recipe is from Willinger's cookbook Red, White & Greens. She was inspired by chef Fabio Picchi of the Florentine restaurant Cibréo, where creamy-yet-creamless soup is his signature first course. Picchi likes to use meat stock as the base for the soup, but Willinger thinks the flavor is nearly as rich using only water. Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 1 hr

Massimo's Aunt Enza has played an important role in my life as a born-again Tuscan. We often dine at her home on Sunday, for a traditional family lunch, prefaced by Enza's statement that she hasn't prepared anything. This means that there's nothing new on the table and that we're in for our usual treat of a Florentine meal. The main course will probably be what Enza calls magro, literally lean or fatless, a choice cut of beef used for roast beef, sliced thin, lightly sauced with meat juices, topped with whole brown cloves of garlic. Since Italian home cooks in the city rarely had ovens, meat is often roasted on the top of the stove. It's faster than oven-roasting, perfect for those who love rare roast beef. Turning the meat is the hardest part.

Preserved tuna, packed in extra-virgin olive oil, is paired with white beans in Tuscany, a speedy dish to assemble if you've got beans on hand. Canned beans work well and simplify this preparation — open a few cans and chop an onion. Quality tuna makes a big difference in the success of this dish. Leftover grilled or poached tuna can be used instead of canned, but it should be marinated in extra-virgin olive oil. All choices will work better than insipid tuna packed in water. Scallions can be used in the spring, red onions for the rest of the year. Torquato, my farmer and muse, suggested combining green beans with tuna during his glorious green-bean season, a fantastic variation.

The extra-virgin olive oil from Countess Lisa-Contini Bonacossi's estate is a favorite of mine and an important element in Lisa 's great cooking. She has an easy going style, changing recipes according to what's in the garden and larder, and is hard to pin down about quantities. Lisa slices her zucchini with an electric meat slicer. I use the 3-mm. blade of my food processor to slice by hand, not with the machine. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

(Garlic Roast Beef) My husband's Aunt Enza has played an important role in my life as a born-again Tuscan. We often dine at her home on Sundays for a traditional family lunch. The main course is usually what Enza calls magro, which can actually mean meatless but in Enza's lexicon signifies merely a lean or fatless choice cut of beef, sliced thin, lightly sauced with meat juices, and topped with golden brown cloves of garlic. Because Italian home cooks in cities rarely had ovens until the postwar period, meats were often cooked on top of the stove, as is Enza's. It's faster than oven-roasting and a perfect technique for people who love rare "roast" beef.

Vary this yellow cake according to your mood and what's available. For instance, add sliced and lightly sugared fruit on the top of the unbaked batter, or top it with crushed nuts before baking, or split the baked and cooled cake to spread it with a layer of preserves, then dust it with powdered sugar.

I, who struggled for years to achieve perfectly cooked, lively green beans love Aunt Enza's overstewed green beans, soft, almost creamy, tasting of bean, cooked far beyond crunch. Although Aunt Enza cooks the green beans in an onion and garlic-flavored tomato sauce she pointed out that leftover green beans can be subjected to the same treatment. Aunt Enza has a heavy Tuscan hand with extra virgin. I've cut down on the oil but my husband Massimo always adds a little extra at the table.

Florentine summers are hot and sticky — no time to even think about eating a plate of hot pasta. So, when Torquato Innocenti, whose produce I seek out in my local market, mentioned cold garlic pasta I raced home with his vague hints and produced the following dish. As we compared notes the next day, I realized that Torquato's garlic sauce, and not the pasta, was cold. But no one at my table complained. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional unattended time.

For this dish, fresh spring-summer zucchini are imperative. I use a 1-mm. food processor-blade as if it were a mandoline to hand-slice the tender zucchini. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Nudies? In Florentine dialect they’re called gnudi, nudies, poking fun at a dish from the Casentino, a neighboring area that makes their greens and ricotta gnocchi with the same filling Florentines use for ravioli. Nudies because they’re not wearing pasta. Pronounced YNOO-dees. Spinach is used in Florence but wild greens are common in the mountainous Casentino. And ravioli are stuffed with wild greens in many regional recipes. Use wild greens if you can get them, otherwise use chard or spinach, whichever is fresh and tender. Traditionalists may want to search for sheep’s milk ricotta, which yields richer results, but everyone else can get by with whole cow’s milk ricotta. Drain watery ricotta in a metal sieve for 30 minutes if necessary. Cooks in search of a labor-intensive experience can form nudies by hand, one at a time, or use the 2-spoon French quenelle method. I prefer to pipe the mixture from a plastic bag onto a floured countertop, sprinkle the blobs with flour, and lightly roll to form walnut-sized, roughly shaped balls. Serve the nudies with melted butter or tomato or meat sauce, sprinkled with Parmigiano, and baked in the oven to melt the cheese.

I love many versions of baked stuffed tomatoes, but the simple recipe of Torquato Innocenti, who sells tomatoes in Florence's Piazza Santo Spirito market, is my favorite. Nothing more than garlic, basil or parsley, and "good oil" fills the tomatoes.

Almost all tomato-sauce recipes call for at least 30 minutes of cooking, but you can make this tomato sauce in less than 10 minutes by using a large skillet instead of the conventional saucepan. The tomatoes cook faster on the larger surface of the skillet and taste fresher than sauces subjected to 45 minutes of heat. Pasta is added to the sauce in the skillet to finish cooking both pasta and sauce together. This basic tomato sauce can easily be prepared while waiting for the pasta water to come to a boil. Ripe seasonal tomatoes, preferably plum or sauce tomatoes, which have a lower water content, should be used when available, but first-rate canned tomato pulp is a fine choice for the rest of the year. Those who wish to peel fresh tomatoes should, though it's not necessary.

Fabio Picchi, owner and chef of the restaurant Cibrèo in Florence, cooks like a Florentine granny with a spicy palate. He takes full advantage of seasonal abundance from the Sant' Ambrogio market next to his restaurant. Fabio's recipes are wonderful but imprecise, quantities are vague, and I've got to pay strict attention so he doesn't skip an ingredient or a step. His refreshing summery tomato aspic is simple and uses traditional ingredients in a novel way, creating a spicy tomato sauce with a wiggle, barely jelled, more fun than a formal aspic. Bright red, speckled with herbs, zapped with chili and garlic, Fabio's appetizer is a far cry from the ladies-lunch image of conventional, transparent consommé aspics. Even my gelatin-hating husband and son love this dish. Double the extra virgin for more authentic Tuscan flavor.