Dairy

Pizza rustica looks nothing like the Neopolitan-style pizzas we know so well in this country. That's because pizza in Italian means pie and not all Italian pies are made with a bread dough. Pizza rusticas tend to be double-crusted affairs enclosing a mixture of cheese and nuggets of various cured meats and sausages. With its rich filling, pizza rustica is often served at Easter as a way to celebrate after the lean eating during Lent. In this version, author Gina Marie Miraglia Eriquez makes an open-faced pizza rustica.

Chef Nemo Bolin at Cook & Brown Public House in Providence, RI, turned us on to the technique for this streamlined, no-knead gnocchi dough.

Selling skeptics on the idea of a vegetarian dinner is easy when it's in pie form. Maitake mushrooms add heft.

A confection similar in flavor to caramelized white chocolate. Tangy buttermilk tempers the sweetness.

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.

Mary Fitzgerald, Wexford: Gardener and internet enthusiast Three generations of my family have eaten this dish: we used to make it to use up my father's seasonal harvest of spinach. I now grow spinach in my own garden, along with everything from sorrel and runner-beans to beetroot and rhubarb, and make this pie regularly.

Now you can easily make one of your favorite rice dishes from the Indian restaurant. And all it takes is 15 minutes!

Connie McEvoy, Louth: Retired farmer and craft expert As the eldest of ten, from the age of 12 I would make several cakes of this wheaten bread every Saturday based on my grandmother's recipe. We always mixed it by hand and I still measure it by hand, using four large fistfuls of wholemeal flour and two smaller fistfuls of plain flour.

Cabbage is my new favorite vegetable chip—especially sprinkled with toasted caraway and dipped in yogurt.

Blind-baking the crust is essential: It keeps it from getting soggy when the custardy filling is added.

Affordable leg of lamb is a great way to break out of the usual beef-chicken-pork rut, especially when used in a quick-cooking but complex-tasting dish like this.

Crunchy, toasty coconut chips transform a simple loaf cake.

Buttermilk lightens the traditional all-cream panna cotta base—without sacrificing lusciousness.

Yes, you could serve these crepes before they've been caramelized in sugar, but why deprive yourself?