Pasta

This recipe for a vivid, vegetarian pasta sauce, made from blanched kale leaves and loaded with good olive oil and grated cheese, comes from Joshua McFadden, the chef at Ava Gene’s in Portland, Ore., and was inspired by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers of The River Café in London. The technique is absurdly simple and quick from start to finish, but the result is luxurious and near-creamy.

Our pasta cacio e uova, or pasta with cheese and eggs, comes together quickly. We gently heated crushed garlic cloves in lard while the water for the pasta came to a boil. And while the fat became infused with the garlic's flavor, we stirred together Pecorino Romano, Parmesan, eggs, salt, pepper, and parsley. We drained the pasta and tossed it with the oil, which provided a subtly sweet, nutty toasted garlic flavor, as well as 1 tablespoon of the pasta cooking water and the egg-and-cheese mixture.

This one-pot pasta comes together in minutes, and requires zero prep and minimal cleanup. It builds on the classic combination of pasta, butter and cheese with a spoonful of miso paste for complexity. But you could experiment with using any other condiments or spices you have on hand, such as red pesto, curry paste or ground turmeric in place of the miso. To achieve a silky smooth pasta, you’ll need to put your cacio e pepe skills to work: Vigorously toss the pasta, grated cheese and pasta water together to achieve a properly emulsified sauce.

This recipe, inspired by Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese, delivers the best of all worlds: creamy, saucy comfort, with a consistency that’s slightly more set than a stovetop version, thanks to a final bake in the oven. It stays voluptuous and molten as a result of a higher ratio of sauce to noodles, which are cooked completely so they don’t soak up as much liquid. The Velveeta is necessary here, as it has sodium citrate, which prevents the sauce from separating in the oven. Elbow macaroni works fine, but cavatappi is an especially fun shape to eat with its telephone-cord bounciness.

In the time it takes to make boxed macaroni and cheese, you can have a homemade version that’s creamy with lots of sharp Cheddar, studded with broccoli and doesn’t require making a roux. Instead, the sauce is thickened by the pasta’s starch: As the noodles cook in milk, the milk thickens to the consistency of cream and the pasta absorbs the seasonings. Here, that’s garlic powder, but you could also use mustard powder, ground cayenne or grated nutmeg like in traditional mac and cheese.

Consider this a macaroni salad for the 21st century: Like the original, it’s a welcome accompaniment to picnic fare and pairs with virtually anything off the grill. But this version also happens to be bright, acidic and herbaceous. The traditional elements have been preserved — elbow macaroni, mayonnaise and a pinch of sugar are mandatory — but they’ve been bolstered by bright flavors: lemon zest, tangy capers and pickles, crunchy celery and tons of fresh herbs. It goes lighter on mayonnaise than the original, swapping in tangy buttermilk for a dressing that is more glossy than gloopy.

Traditional risotto is made with starchy medium-grain Italian rice. This “risotto,” modeled on a dish we had in Tel Aviv, uses pearl couscous (which actually is a pasta) and a cooking technique similar to the classic risotto method to produce “grains” with a rich, creamy consistency. The wheaty flavor of pearl couscous (sometimes called Israeli couscous) is nicely complemented by the salty, nutty notes of Parmesan cheese and the grassiness of fresh parsley.

Romans use the leaves that grow around heads of broccoli to make a flavorful sauce for pasta. In the United States, most of the leaves are stripped off before broccoli is sold. Our recipe instead uses the stems, which are equally flavorful and produce a silky sauce. Baby spinach maintains the color of the original recipe.

Undercooking the broccoli stems could throw the sauce off. We’re accustomed to cooking vegetables until crisp-tender, but the stems here should be cooked until fully tender.

For a roasted vegetable pasta recipe with sweet and complex vegetables, we sliced the vegetables to maximize the surface area available for browning; tossed them with oil, salt, pepper, and a little sugar to jump-start caramelization; and roasted them on a preheated baking sheet to cut cooking time and boost browning. For a sauce that would unite the components of our roasted vegetable pasta recipe, we liked the earthy sweetness of a roasted garlic vinaigrette.

These as-good-as-the-real-thing meatballs contain no beef or pork — and no fake meat either.

It was the lab-grown meat substitutes invading our lives that led me to beetballs. I knew corporate near-meat would double well for meatball meat (it works for burgers and chili), but I still don’t know what those products are like for our bodies.