Mozzarella

This simple tart, a little like a quiche, is perfect as a first course or snack. Add a salad to the menu and it can star as the main dish.

For pizza lovers, here are eight varieties to choose from. The basic dough makes two pizzas. The dough is easy to mix in the food processor.

You can use any dried lasagna noodles in this easy no-boil method, just be sure that the noodles themselves are completely covered with the filling and sauce.

Oven-drying concentrates the flavor and aroma of tomatoes, something I like to do especially in the winter, when fresh tomatoes are not always flavorful. In the convection oven, the tomatoes dry in about half the time of a conventional oven. You can store the dried tomatoes in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Otherwise, wrap them well and freeze them for later use. I love them served this way: Simply topped with fresh mozzarella and seasonings on a crisp crouton. They’re great in salads, or as an accompaniment for oven-grilled chicken breasts.

Serve these toasts hot out of the oven. They’re a real crowd-pleaser and the recipe is easy to multiply to serve lots of people. If you make three panfuls at a time, position the oven racks so that they are evenly spaced and bake all three at once.

Panino Muffuletta There are so many versions of the muffuletta sandwich around New Orleans, but it seems that Central Grocery in the French Quarter is the place to go. The store is charming enough, but at the back counter, seated on a stool with a muffuletta sandwich in front of you, is where you want to be. We sat down across from a man who told us he'd had his first muffuletta sandwich here fifty years ago and came back regularly for more. Next to him were a couple who have been coming to Central Grocery to enjoy the muffuletta sandwich for more than forty years. We ordered one without any hesitation. The large hamburger bun-like bread was soaked significantly with the olive-oil dressing of the olive salad; then layers and layers of the salad and col cuts were added. The sandwich was cut in four and wrapped in parchment paper. It was ten in the morning, one would say time for breakfast, but the two of us savored the muffuletta sandwich as did all the other customers.

Bastoncini di Mozzarella Fritta
This great, very tasty appetizer could also be turned into a vegetarian meal. The Italian title says it's "Roman," and that is how it has been named on most Italian American menus, but mozzarella and anchovies are a well-known combination in southern Italy. There are mozzarella-and- anchovy fritters; and zucchini flowers are stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies, then fried. In this recipe, the mozzarella is fried between layers of bread, and then topped with a puckery sauce of lemon, capers, and anchovy.

Highway 84 runs from Santa Fe to Colorado. About forty minutes north of Santa Fe, the highway cuts a paved path through Ohkay Owingeh, a Native American reservation, and the roadside becomes dense with fast-food outlets, outposts of national grocery chains, Walmart, and billboards for Ohkay Casino, Hutch and Norma Naranjo's sprawling midcentury home is set about fifty years back from the road, a shrine to the tug-of-war between new ways and traditional ones. In the backyward Mr. Naranjo built two hornos (behive-shaped adobe ovens). Inside the house, a handmade wreath of dried chiles hangs on one wall and a string of made-for-tourists ceramic peppers on another. A naïve painting of St. Francis hangs not far from a cluster of the dream catchers that the couple and their two grown children fashion from string, feathers, and yarn, just as their Pueblo ancestors did. "We go to church one Sunday and dance the traditional dances the next," said Mrs. Naranjo. A retired social worker, she gives cooking classes and does a little catering. But she spends most of her mornings working the two-acre minifarm where she grows vegetables from seeds that have been passed from one Pueblo generation to another for at least a thousand years. "The history of our people is in those seeds," she says. In the evenings, when her husband builds hornos on the terraces of hotels and McMansions, Mrs. Naranjo visits the elderly women in Ohkay Owingeh, who remember life and cooking when it was closer to the land, and collects their recipes and food stories. "Our history lives in our hands as well," she says. Mrs. Naranjo moves with the efficiency of a modern professional as she smooths cornmeal paste on damp cornhusks. Tiny white kernels from several ears of heirloom corn, and diced green chiles and squash, along with a thick, bloodred chile sauce and shredded fresh cheese, are lined up in small stainless-steel bowls at the head of her tamale assembly line. She notes that tamales were stuffed with rabbit, venison, pork—whatever people had. Vegetable tamales were a fine way to make use of the gardens' overflowing crops. She swathes the dough, sprinkles filling, folds, ties, and places the tamale bundles on a rack set over water in a big enameled pot. From time to time, she glances out the window to the backyard, where her husband is feeding small, dry sticks into this new four-by-four horno. Her smaller tamales are, she says, her only concession to modernity: "People love the little ones as snacks, and Hutch and I love them in these green chile stews we make in the horno."

"I love this meal. It's delicious, healthy and easy for me to prepare. There's not chef in my house!"

Smear the bread with mayo on both sides and then grill in butter for the ultimate golden-brown crunch.

Sesame oil and rice vinegar spin the caprese eastward.

Roll or stretch the dough as thin as possible to get a classic thin and crispy crust.

Pizza is a universal crowd-pleaser, and part of its charm is the doughy bed it rests on, along with gooey, wonderful cheese. You'll get no argument from me. I love pizza. But not all pizzas are created equally. This pizza is loaded with cheese, mushrooms, sausage, and peperoncini, but not calories. So for watching your weight, this pizza is a delicious solution. It's meaty, yet amazingly low in fat. You'll love the crust's wholesome taste.

Rather than making pizza dough from scratch, patting out biscuit dough for mini pizzas is a quick, fun shortcut that older kids, like our eleven-year-old niece Lauren, will enjoy joining in on. And the kids can top their own pizzas, too, if they like, piling on the cheese and pepperoni or, if you’ve got a strange kid who likes them like Bobby always did, with sliced olives.

The saucy mixture of Parmesan, cheddar, bell pepper, and sweet-tangy Peppadew peppers coats the pasta perfectly—and the panko topping adds just enough crunch.

This hearty, veggie-filled rigatoni recipe requires a little bit of work, but makes plenty for a group and is full of flavor.