Pasta

This pasta features a few flavors of the season—mint and peas—along with lemon and ever-popular salmon. It’s just the thing to hit the spot on a crisp spring evening.

Adding a bit of the pasta cooking water thins the goat cheese-and mustard-based sauce and helps it adhere to the fettuccine.

In this one-pot dish the spinach cooks alongside the pasta. Spoon ricotta and pine nuts onto each serving, and let your guests mix them into the pasta themselves.

This classic Italian combination is made light and bright with turkey sausage and yellow bell peppers. Arugula gives the dish a peppery taste.

Take a break from ordinary tomato sauce with this crowd-pleasing pasta dish. Leaf-Lettuce Salad with Parmesan Crisps (page 27) makes a perfect starter.

This is a very safe (and, of course, tasty) pasta dish guaranteed to please those less adventurous eaters. It is also good for you less-experienced cooks. It really is simple to make and almost impossible to ruin.

Here we came up with a new way to do ravioli with wonton wrappers. It’s quick and simple but looks impressive and tastes like what you’d get in a five-star restaurant. The ravioli are sautéed in butter and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. It does not get much better than that. Serve it with (what else?) green salad and some rustic Italian bread like ciabatta.

The first time I had gnocchi—sort of a cross between pasta and a dumpling— was in Venice, and it was great! So of course I had to try to make my own. Mine weren’t as spectacular, but after a few more tries, I got it. The key is to only add enough flour for the dough not to be sticky anymore; otherwise, they’ll be too heavy. When you boil them, you can tell whether the dough is okay. If the gnocchi start to feather and fall apart when you boil them, you need more flour. If they don’t float after 2 minutes, they have too much flour. This is another dish that works well with a nice green salad.

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.

This version of lasagna is really unbeatable, with lots of mushrooms, spinach, and cheese. Use no-cook (or no-boil) lasagna noodles so you don’t have to cook them beforehand—they absorb the liquid in the filling and cook as the lasagna bakes. If you’re having people over, you can assemble it in advance and keep it in the fridge until you’re ready bake it. Serve it with a big salad and garlic bread, and you can practically feed your whole neighborhood.

I love everything about stuffed shells—love to make them, love the aroma as they’re baking, and even love waiting for the cheese on top to get brown. And, of course, I love to eat them. Here’s the good news: other than the fact that it takes a while to stuff the shells, they’re super easy to make. Plus, you can freeze any leftovers for later.

This is one of my favorite salads in the whole book, despite what anyone says about the color. Soba noodles, which are made from buckwheat, are a kind of gray-brown color, so everyone thinks the salad looks a little bizarre or even unappetizing—until they try it and realize that it’s a delicious twist on pasta salad. The lime juice and fresh veggies make it refreshing and light.

This recipe is one of my personal favorites. Using milk instead of cream and cutting down on the Parmesan cheese makes a waistline-friendly alternative to alfredo sauce. I love lemon in just about anything, and together with the asparagus it makes for a light and refreshing pasta dish. The best part is how easy it is. You can do all of the other preparation in the time it takes to cook the pasta.

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

This pasta dish is pretty spectacular. It’s just a few ingredients that combine to make something fabulous—and that, in a nutshell, is the secret of Italian cooking. The roasted tomatoes and roasted garlic are rich and delicious, the beans add protein and texture, and the basil brings a fresh flavor.

We use dried herbs as much as possible because it’s easier to have them on hand and they’re cheaper. But this is one of the cases where dried herbs just won’t work. Not that the other ingredients in this salad aren’t good, but the fresh tarragon, which has a light licorice flavor, makes this dish what it is. Don’t even bother making it with dried tarragon.

Of all the dishes in this book, this was probably the favorite when we were testing recipes. Everyone we tried it on loved it. Although it takes a little time to caramelize the onions, it’s easy (they pretty much just sit in the pan and cook themselves), and you will not believe how sweet and delicious they end up.

I love all pesto, but when it’s homemade you absolutely can’t beat it. It’s so fresh and delicious that you really don’t need to mess with it. This pasta is fabulous hot, but—bonus—it’s also great cold. So you can have it for dinner one night and then take the leftovers for lunch the next day.

I made this one day when I was supposed to make dinner for my friends but didn’t have much time. They were totally impressed and begged for the recipe. It’s really fast to make because it uses premade tortellini. That may seem like a cop-out, but who has time to make tortellini from scratch? Plus, the sauce is super creamy and wonderful!

This is probably one of the easiest things you will ever make; plus, it gives you an opportunity to try new vegetables. If there are certain vegetables in season or on sale, just substitute those or include them along with the vegetables in the recipe.