Farfalle

Arugula replaces lettuce in this clever pasta dish. Serve with: Whole-wheat breadsticks and carrot sticks with blue cheese dip. Dessert: Cherry-vanilla ice cream cones.

In 1925 Wolff Brothers of Paterson, New Jersey, published a Yiddish English cook book with recipes culled from a kasha cooking contest run in all the Jewish newspapers throughout the country. "Recipes of thousands of Jewish dishes were sent us," they wrote modestly, "but we selected only the very best among them and these are listed here." The recipes included buckwheat blintzes, vegetarian buckwheat cutlets, and "a tasteful grits soup" made from their Health Food (merely unroasted buckwheat groats), green peas, and potatoes. The varnishke recipe was basically a kreplach-type noodle stuffed with kasha, buckwheat groats, and gribenes. Packaged bow-tie noodles,large and small, quickly replaced the flat homemade egg noodles in the American version of kasha varnishkes. The trick to a good kasha varnishke is to toast the whole-grain buckwheat groat well over a high heat for 2 to 4 minutes until you start smelling the aroma of the kasha. This will seal the groats so that there is a nutty, crunchy taste to them, a good foil to the soft taste of the noodles. When I make mine - a favorite in my family - I add fresh parsley and sometimes coriander. Although traditionalists use bow-tie noodles for this, try rigatoni, shells, or any other kind of noodle you like.

Accompany this dish with a salad of baby lettuces and sliced sweet onion- such as Vidalia or Maui- and some seeded breadsticks. End with chocolate frozen yogurt drizzled with coffee liqueur or chocolate sauce.

As in all of Italy, pasta is served as a first course (primo) in Tuscany.

This vegetarian entrée makes an elegant and easy lunch. Serve with: Italian Pinot Grigio • arugula with balsamic vinaigrette • warm ciabatta • vanilla gelato topped with fresh strawberries

Here's an all-new tuna-noodle casserole; just add a salad of arugula and sliced oranges. Dessert might be big spice cookies sandwiched with vanilla ice cream.

"I run a salon, and I’m an instructor at a cooking school," writes Sandy Ercolano of Ridgewood, New Jersey. "It seems that I’m always in the kitchen. At home I cook meals and come up with recipes for my classes. Of course, my family eagerly tries anything I make." To turn this main-course salad into a side dish or vegetarian entrée, omit the shrimp.

Start with pear slices wrapped in prosciutto; offer a radicchio and fennel salad and breadsticks alongside the pasta, and rich tiramisè to end the meal.

Serve with: Tomato salad and crusty semolina bread. Dessert: Amaretti cookies.

Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 30 min

When tossed with the warm pasta, the blue cheese melts into a silky sauce. A Côtes du Rhône is just the right accompaniment.

Reduced-fat cream cheese, low-fat milk and water-packed canned tuna are the secrets to this updated take on a 1950s favorite.

If you have leftover cooked chicken or turkey on hand, use it instead of the shrimp.

Bow tie-shaped pasta is mixed with Thai-flavored pesto sauce and tossed with cooked shrimp for a fast, colorful entrée.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.