Blender

This dish is best when the tomatoes are fresh and ripe, but it will be almost as good with canned plum tomatoes. It makes a complete one-pot meal, including vegetables and protein. I used spinach, but escarole is a good Italian American substitute.

Mackerel is not a popular fish, but I love it: it is flavorful and very nutritious. As with all fish, but especially with mackerel, the freshness of the fish is the key. This dish is very good eaten hot, but also at room temperature.

Everybody loves meatballs. I think meatballs are an example of Americana and they belong on the American table. This is a great and simple recipe. It calls for three types of meat, but a combination of any two—or even a single meat—will work as well. The recipe makes four dozen meatballs, but you can cut it in half and it will work just as well. The sauce and meatballs freeze well, but are best frozen in smaller quantities (1/2 pint, or six to eight meatballs and sauce) so that they reconstitute quickly.

The important thing is that pesto is a raw sauce and should not be cooked when dressing the pasta. Just toss the hot pasta with a little of its cooking water and the pesto. Stir well, add some cheese, and dinner is ready.

Spinach and walnuts go well together and make a great pesto to dress pasta. This recipe is ideal for a quick meal; sometimes I like to add a few tablespoons of fresh ricotta to the pasta.

Everybody loves a quick and tasty pasta dressing, and there is nothing better than a pesto. All you need is a blender. Combine all the ingredients, and—voilà—you have a sauce. Everybody by now is familiar with pesto made with basil and pinoli nuts, but during one of my visits to Sicily, I enjoyed a pleasant pesto surprise: the pinoli were replaced with pistachios. Although Sicily is known for its delicious pistachios, 98 percent of the pistachios eaten in the United States come from California. So do try this pesto rendition.

Make sure the meat is patted dry before applying the rub. This rub is great to flavor roasted potatoes as well. Toss 2 or 3 tablespoons of it with cut-up potatoes in a roasting pan, and roast as usual.

This is not an Italian salad at all, and you would not find it in Italy. Nevertheless, it was very popular in Italian American restaurants in the 1960s and ’70s, and has made a strong comeback today. You can find it in any deli or fast-food locale, often topped with grilled chicken, shrimp, or turkey. With all its different renditions and toppings, it is a great salad if made well. This recipe will produce a delicious, tangy Caesar salad.

When in season, soft-shell crabs are a big seller in all of our restaurants. People just love them. We make a light batter, fry them nice and crisp, and set them over a salad for our guests. During one of my trips to Baltimore, I wanted to go visit Crisfield Seafood in Silver Spring, Maryland, known for its soft-shell crab sandwich. The experience was good: the soft-shell crab, nice and crispy, was the best part; the sesame bun and the coleslaw were the usual suspects. In this recipe I’ve added my own twist to the bread and ingredients. Get a good semolina roll, and top the crabs with an arugula-and-egg salad, an Italian American solution. If you want to serve this as a salad, double the salad and dressing and omit the rolls. Serve crabs on top of the greens, with dressing dolloped on the side.

This is the perfect soup if you don’t have much time. The whole thing’s made in the microwave, and it’s delicious.

This is great over salad greens and excellent with fish; you can also use it as a light veggie dip. I recommend roasting fresh red bell peppers, but if time doesn’t allow, substitute a 14-ounce jar of roasted red peppers, drained, adding 1 teaspoon of sugar to ensure sweetness.