Mozzarella

This is a simple, pure version of cheese ravioli, without the eggs that are usually added to firm up the filling. Use fresh whole-milk ricotta with large curds and drain it thoroughly to get the best consistency. With creamy fillings such as this one, I feel that a slightly thicker dough provides more texture and is preferable to a very thin dough. If you roll your dough strips to get eighteen or twenty ravioli—following the guidelines below—that’s better than trying to stretch them to get twenty-four. All you need is enough sauce to coat the ravioli lightly. So those small portions of sauces you have saved in the freezer might be just enough to dress a batch.

Serve this colorful and delicious salad as a first course by itself, with other antipasti, or with grilled foods. You can use this low-fat method of preparing eggplant in other dishes too. I top it with shavings of ricotta salata (ricotta that has been salted and dried in a small round cheese form for about 4 weeks).

Ready for a grilled salad? This late-summer mix will end your wait. No meat, just fresh, tasty grilled vegetables over baby arugula, basil, and cherry tomatoes.

PAT I refer to this dish as “sophisticated cheese toast.” Gina and I actually got the idea from a famous Memphis restaurant, though in our version we make it with baguettes, because we are going to grill these puppies, and baguettes can withstand the heat. Now, you can use any cheese you like, but on my spicy grilled cheese bread, we must have Parmesan and mozzarella.

Don’t let these puppies fool you. We call them mini-pizzas, but there’s nothing all that little about them, in either size or flavor. It just makes us feel better, because you find yourself eating a lot of them before you know it!

GINA Forget calling up the delivery guy: making pizza is easier than you’d think, and this recipe is perfect for movie watching. I love this pizza because it has my favorite ingredients, chicken and spinach, right on top. You can slice large tomatoes if you like, but I prefer sweet and juicy red and yellow grape tomatoes. Not many people think of the yellow tomatoes, but they add extra color and taste great. PAT Most guys prefer any kind of pig on a pizza, including me, but Gina introduced me to this recipe, and that flavor blast of garlic and red pepper won me over. Make one of these and cuddle up on the couch together.

Baking pasta with cheese on top creates a chewy and crispy topping kids will love. You can assemble the dish ahead and refrigerate it, then bake it right before dinner.

In Italy, prosciutto and melon are combined in a traditional first course. Here, cool, silky bocconcini and torn mint leaves are added to make a refreshing salad—just the thing to begin a meal on a warm summer night.

A crisp salad dressed with oil, vinegar, and herbs is a light alternative to a side of pasta. The chicken makes wonderful leftovers. Reheat it for 10 minutes, and try it in a sandwich with a little extra sauce on the side.

Oh my gosh, this artichoke dip is so good! I know that everyone and their mom is making artichoke dip nowadays, but one bite of this and you’ll agree it’s something special. Even my mom, who doesn’t like the two main ingredients—cheese and artichokes—likes it. It’s actually a recipe I got from my cousin, with a couple of tweaks. She makes it for any get-together she has at her place and it’s always a hit.

Bruschetta is a version of garlic bread (garlic toast, really), which is good by me because I think garlic should be its own food group. It’s great in just about everything. Fresh mozzarella is the stuff that comes in little round tubs of brine, not the stuff that comes shrink-wrapped and that you put on pizza. It’s soft and creamy and tastes amazing with the crispy bread, garlic, tomatoes, and basil.

As a college student, you probably donate a large portion of your money to the local pizza chain, especially since it’s an easy vegetarian option when you don’t feel like cooking. Making your own pizza allows you to be a bit more creative and is way cheaper. This is a perfect version in my book, because you don’t have to wait for the crust to rise. Try some soy pepperoni and see if your nonveggie friends notice the difference, or just stick to vegetables.

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.

Eggplant Parmesan is incredibly delicious, but, in its standard form, pretty labor-intensive. This fun spin on eggplant Parmesan is a great dish to take to a party, or just to make for dinner with friends. Everyone who has ever tried this has asked for more, so you probably won’t have leftovers. But that’s okay in this case: it’s at its best when it’s freshly made.

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 called a casserole because when my grandmother makes it she sautés the vegetables, then puts them in a casserole dish and bakes them with the cheese on top. You can do that if you want, but I say why bother? It’s faster and easier to cook it all in one pan, and it tastes exactly the same. As for the breadcrumbs, any kind works, so we usually go with plain.

Every summer I have out-of-control basil growing in my garden, and it’s a serious challenge to come up with ways to use it all. It sometimes seems to grow faster than I can pick it. Then there is my garden arugula and several bountiful bushes of candy-sweet cherry tomatoes of varying colors. This salad guarantees that no cherry tomato or basil leaf goes to waste. For parties, I take a huge platter-size version of the salad, drizzle the pesto vinaigrette over the fresh mozzarella, and leave a small pitcher of the vinaigrette on the side for those who can never get enough of the deliciously pungent stuff.

The only liberties I’ve taken with the classic margherita is to let one of my favorite pizza cheeses, smoked mozzarella, provide that extra, haunting flavor, to echo the smoke from a wood-burning pizza oven. And, of course, there are the 12-Hour Tomatoes (page 2) that I hope you have in your fridge just waiting for this moment to shine. (If you don’t, substitute 1/3 cup canned diced tomatoes, preferably San Marzano, drained, plus a little salt and pepper to taste.)