Side

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 recipe is based on a popular bistro salad. The goat cheese disks can be prepared through step two up to a day ahead. Cover with plastic wrap, and keep in the refrigerator. Brush the disks with olive oil just before broiling.

From the Friuli region of Italy, the Parmesan wafers known as frico add a crisp and salty counterpoint to the salad.

This salad works best with baby spinach; if you want to substitute regular spinach, tear it into small pieces before tossing with other ingredients. You can use tart or sweet cherries.

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.

I’ve always loved pot stickers, but I was skeptical when we decided to try a vegetarian version. We got it right on the first try, and that doesn’t happen often. Your meat-eating friends won’t even care that these are vegetarian, because they’re pretty darn good dumplings, if I do say so myself.

I stole this version of potato skins from one of my favorite bars near my university. They use green chiles and serve them with ranch dressing. I decided a variation using avocado would be even better, and it is. Don’t get me wrong, I love ranch dressing, but this cheese, potato, and avocado combination can’t be beat!

Lentils get a bad reputation, largely because they can look like lumpy mud, even though they taste really good. This lentil and potato salad is delicious, and because we used yellow lentils, it actually looks pretty, too. This is great to take to a potluck to share with friends.

Okay, this salad is really dinner-for-one-and-lunch-the-next-day. I got the recipe from my host sister in Germany, who says that the longer the salad is in the fridge, the better it tastes. I told her that I don’t think we can tell that to college students in the U.S., because some of them will end up with science experiments! Still, you could even make a double or triple batch and keep it in the fridge for a quick lunch or to bring along to a barbecue.