Goat Cheese

Serve this hearty side dish with a pork or lamb roast.

Using purchased pizza dough to make one large calzone saves lots of time. lighten up: For a lower-calorie, lower-fat calzone, use part-skim mozzarella.

Editor's note: This recipe was included with two others from our roundup of great cookbooks for Dad. Tangy goat cheese pairs well with spicy salsa for a quick and delicious appetizer or vegetarian entrée. Serve these with extra salsa and guacamole.

Here's a kind of mac and cheese without any effort. Adding goat cheese gives American ricotta the tang it has when it comes from sheep's milk. I learned this trick from Sicilian cooking teacher Anna Tasca Lanza.

The syrup is also used to coat the apple wedges and grapes that garnish each plate.

Oven-drying the tomatoes before baking the tart concentrates their sweetness and prevents juices from softening the filling. This makes a great summer starter, light lunch, or supper. What to drink: A glass of dry rosé to echo the Provençal flavors of the tart, or a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

Marielle Ainsworth of Roswell, New Mexico, writes: "I'm a vegetarian, but my husband isn't, so I'm always looking for recipes that will make both of us happy. I came up with the goat cheese pizza because it combines things we both love —cheese and veggies. If you're not a fan of goat cheese, whole-milk mozzarella, Fontina, or Gorgonzola can also be used.

We prefer Nova salmon for this particular recipe because it's the mildest and least salty. Although Nova has become a general term for smoked salmon, it really describes the delicacy made from fish descended from wild Nova Scotia salmon.

Joe Dion of North Charleston, South Carolina, writes: "Because I work in a restaurant (I'm a chef at a place called Slightly North of Broad in Charleston), I don't let my cooking at home get too complicated. I'm at the restaurant five days a week and often work on weekends, but whenever I have the chance I enjoy getting together with friends and cooking for them." Fresh raspberries flavor the dressing and give this light salad its sweet tang; the pine nuts add crunch.

This dish is a take on the bistro classic frisée salad with lardons. We recommend removing the ribs from the dandelion greens; though it's a rather lengthy process, the result will be much more delicate.

Daryl Getman of New York City, NY, writes: "I'm a second-year theater student at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, so most days are more about running from class to rehearsal to a performance than they are about cooking. But since I moved out of the dorms last year, cooking has become my favorite distraction. And on the weekends, it's my idea of a break." Daryl likes to use top-notch applewood-smoked bacon for this salad.

Hearty ingredients make this a perfect dish for a cold night.