Pasta

Crisp julienned vegetables add crunchy texture to wheat-free pasta. To prep them fast, try the Oxo Julienne Peeler ($10, Oxo.com).

Indulgent, seasonal, easy, and vegetarian—what more could you ask for?

Couscous Israélien au Citron et aux Pistaches Every year in Menton, a city near Nice that's on the border of Italy, there's a festival celebrating the famed Menton lemons. Plump and irregularly shaped, they're seasonally available in Paris markets, with their leaves still attached. They are prized by chefs and cooks for their intense lemony flavor (without the harshness of commercial lemons), and their not-too-bitter pith, which makes them perfect for preserving. This nutty, lemony salad makes good use of preserved lemons, which you can easily buy or make yourself (see my website for a recipe). I keep a jar on hand at all times. They take a few weeks to mellow and soften, so don't save making them for the last minute. Their flavor is incomparable, and a jar will last for months in your refrigerator. Chopped-up bits can be tossed with olives for a quick apéro, and they also add an assertive citrus flavor to this dish made with pistachios and Israeli couscous. Israeli couscous are little pearls of pasta, elsewhere called pastina, which means "little pasta," and when toasted it's known as fregola sarda. Since they have more substance, I think they hold up a little better to North African-style braised meats, like the lamb shank tagine, than traditional couscous. (Orzo is a good substitute for the Israeli couscous.) To change things around a bit, you can vary the dried fruit or swap in fresh mint or cilantro for the parsley. Another nut, such as toasted hazelnuts or almonds or even pine nuts, could be used in place of the pistachios.

Gnocchis à la Parisienne This dish is considered humble fare, and one you would never see in a restaurant. Hence it's largely unknown to folks outside of France. Paule Caillat gave me her family recipe, to which I made a few changes (authorized, of course). The dumplings are made of pâte à choux dough, similar to that used for profiteroles. They're partially cooked by poaching them first, then baking, where they'll puff up gloriously before settling down, waiting to be scooped up from under a blanket of browned cheese. This is a pretty rich dish; serve it with a simple green salad.

This spicy, crunchy, and refreshing noodle salad will make any weeknight better, and is a great way to use up leftover roast chicken.

Almonds are the new breadcrumbs. Their toasty flavor and crunch add just the right contrast to pasta.

Ask anybody's nonna: Making Sunday sauce is not an exact science. You can use other meats—like thick pork chops or short ribs—in place of or in addition to the ones listed here.

As important as it is to develop feel and instinct when making dough, there is a metric formula for making pasta all'uovo. For every 100 grams of flour, use 1 (50- to 55-gram) egg, which corresponds to 1 USDA medium egg.

One whiff of this hearty, fragrant sauce bubbling on your stove and you'll think you've just parachuted into the Apennines right in front of a trattoria, in sheep country. The mountains of central Italy—notably in the Abruzzo and Molise regions—have always been populated by shepherds. Consequently, lamb is the basic meat, and the cheeses are made from sheep's milk. Shoulder would be our cut of choice, but really any lamb stew meat will do. Even though the recipe calls for boneless meat, if you have some lamb on the bone, throw it in. The bones will add flavor and will be easy to remove once the sauce is cooked. Lamb is fatty, so the sauce will benefit from overnight chilling and subsequent degreasing. But if you can't bear to throw away that yummy lamb fat, roast some potatoes Italian style—cut up in small pieces with lots of rosemary—and use the lamb fat instead of olive oil.

The best tagliatelle made in Bologna, as by Oretta's mentor, the legendary Sister Attilia, are transparent. In southern Italy, the sfoglia is a bit thicker, but the pasta is just as good.

Whole-wheat flour may be used if desired.

Use the best, freshest eggs you can find, and don't even think of making this dish with eggs from stressed-out battery chickens. You can taste the difference. If you can find real guanciale, so much the better. Once the eggs have been added to the pasta, do not let the pan touch the heat directly or you will wind up with scrambled eggs.

This simple but delicious sauce is named for the town of Amatrice, in the mountainous northeastern panhandle of Lazio, near Abruzzo and the Marche. It seems incredible for such an easy, humble sauce, but this is one of the dishes self-appointed purists (read fanatics) will fight over to the death, or at least death by boredom. You have to use spaghetti or bucatini, they say—nor is it that simple, since there are spaghetti-only and bucatini-only factions. No cheese but pecorino is permitted. And woe betide you if you use pancetta in place of guanciale. There is, however, some room for individual expression. Some cooks use onion and chile, some not. A few swear by a splash of white wine "to cut the fat." The pecorino should ideally be that made in Amatrice or Abruzzo or Sicily, milder and fattier than pecorino romano, but pecorino romano is certainly what you'll find used in Rome. (Pecorino romano is a kind of cheese from a large designated area that includes the entire Lazio and Sardegna regions and the province of Grosseto in Tuscany, not just Rome; it is widely available in the United States.) Parmigiano is not used in amatriciana; it's made with cow's milk, and Rome and its mountainous hinterland is traditionally a land of sheep, after all. The shepherds of yesteryear, who spent months in the hills with their flocks, would make this flavorful dish for themselves. You can imagine that they were not worried about someone calling the food police if they grabbed a piece of pancetta instead of guanciale or one kind of sheep cheese instead of another. But they would never have used smoked bacon, which is not part of their tradition. Like many rustic, simple sauces that have found immortality on trattoria menus throughout Italy (and beyond), this dish is only as good as its ingredients. Take the tomatoes. The rugged mountainous area of northeastern Lazio where Amatrice is located was never great tomato-growing territory, or at least not for most of the year, so it was normal to use canned or jarred tomatoes. But the most delicious amatriciana I've ever tasted was made by Oretta (of course) at her house about halfway between Rome and Amatrice with tomatoes from her garden. After her ecstatic guests had practically licked their plates, she announced with an air of regret that this delicious dish was "not really l'amatriciana" because she had used fresh tomatoes. She later revised the statement to the more reasonable pronouncement that if you have a basketful of gorgeous San Marzano tomatoes from your garden, of course you should peel and seed them and make the sauce, and handed me a jar of her home-canned tomatoes to use in the winter. Whether you use fresh or canned, the result is a red sauce studded with bits of lightly fried pork, but you don't want it too red. The pasta and guanciale should be coated with a thin mantle of sauce, not hidden. Don't let the gloppy, oversauced trattoria version be your model. The cheese is sharp and salty, but, again, don't use too much. Many people consider onion a deviation from the sacred original, but hardly anyone thinks it doesn't taste good. In fact, it is delicious. If you use it, add a small chopped onion to the guanciale fat and sauté until transparent, then add the tomato.

Spinach and lowfat ricotta make it hearty—and good for you.

Yogurt subs for heavy cream, so it's lowfat and only tastes splurgy.

Garrett McCord, coauthor with Stephanie Stiavetti of Melt: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese, created this recipe exclusively for Epicurious. A completely traditional take on the ultimate comfort food casserole, we think this is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Plus, it's a flexible recipe that can easily be tinkered with to suit your family's mac 'n' cheese preferences. If you really like the crunchy topping, go ahead and add more—use an additional 1/2 cup of panko, an extra 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter, and a slightly larger handful of shredded cheese. Want more assertive cheesiness? Experiment with different Cheddars, including aged versions. And of course, feel free to add your favorite extras like raw or roasted broccoli or cauliflower, or crisp cooked bacon. For more on mac 'n' cheese, including tips from McCord and more mix-in ideas, see Classic Recipes: Macaroni and Cheese.

Kabocha squash is made for purées.