Pizza

(with Caramelized Onions and Gorgonzola Cheese)

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Lovely for lunch or with a salad for dinner.

Most cookware stores carry baker's peels (wooden, paddle-like implements used to slide pizza into ovens) and pizza stones; these tools make it easy to create a crust with character, but good crusts also require a very hot oven. In our experience, the most common flaw in home-made pizza is mozzarella overdose: Too much of it smothers the rest of the pie, causing what's below to steam into softness. The following pie is made without any mozzarella at all. Needless to say, the roster of toppings is flexible.

These quick and easy pizzas make great use of store-bought pizza dough, which is available in your grocer's freezer.

Start this meal with garlicky potato soup; serve the pizzas with marinated beets and red onions; and end with orange slices drizzled with Marsala, and biscotti.

Uncork a bottle of hearty Chianti to go with the great Italian flavors in this new twist on a traditional tomato-sauced pizza.

A lovely start to this spring supper would be mugs of green pea soup sprinkled with chives. Accompany the pizza with an arugula, radicchio and endive salad dressed with balsamic vinaigrette. Offer gelato for dessert.

This pizza's topping is inspired by the traditional Swedish casserole known as Jansson's Temptation. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

The classic combination of tomatoes, basil and cheese is unbeatable, especially with the addition of prosciutto. Pair the pizza with a salad of radicchio and romaine in an oil and vinegar dressing. Follow up with cannoli and espresso.

Healthy bonus: Bone-building magnesium and calcium from arugula

You’ll need to purchase a 1-pound package of frozen pizza dough, even though only a quarter of that is called for here. Refreeze the remainder for another use.

Ciro Verde of Da Ciro restaurant in New York makes great thin, crispy-crust pizzas. One Saturday at i Trulli restaurant Ciro gave us a pizzamaking lesson. He told us how he had learned to make pizza in Naples and gave us pointers on how best to use a wood-burning oven and how to improve our technique. A highlight of this session was Ciro's recipe for this tasty pie stuffed with robiola cheese and drizzled with truffle oil, which he claims to have invented. First, the dough is flattened with a rolling pin to elminate air pockets. Then the dough is pierced with a docker, an instrument that punctures the dough and helps to prevent it from puffing up too much in the oven. The flattened disk of dough is baked without any topping. When it is partially done, it is removed from the oven, split in half, and spread with cheese, then baked a second time until brown. Just before serving, the pie is drizzled with truffle oil. Since it is so rich, we like it best cut into wedges as an appetizer. Robiola is creamy cow's milk cheese. Soft fresh goat cheese is a good substitute. If you don't have truffle oil, which is available at many gourmet shops, the pizza will taste great anyway.

Serve the Chunky Tomato and Black Olive Salad and some white wine with this crisp-crusted pizza. A nice ending would be coffee gelato-or regular coffee ice cream-and chocolate biscotti.

Tortillas form the crust of these layered pizzas, which are an irresistible hors d'oeuvre. Pour sangria throughout the party.

Antoinette Muto of Los Angeles, California, writes: "My business partner and I own a company that makes costumes for the film industry. When we are involved in a huge project — as we were with Minority Report and X2 — we work very long days, and sometimes even on weekends. So I don't have much time to cook or even to go out for lunch or dinner. That's when my no-fiddling cooking style comes in handy. I cut corners when I can — without sacrificing flavor. I prepare all-vegetarian meals, using the freshest ingredients from the farmers' market, and I really get a kick out of seeing people come over to my house and not miss the meat one bit." Look for soft lavash — a large, thin rectangular bread (about 18x12 inches) — in Middle Eastern markets or in the bread section of most supermarkets. Two 11- to 12-inch- diameter flour tortillas can be substituted.