Vegetarian

When you boil quinoa for a couple of minutes, then roast it in oil, it develops a crispness that's almost like nuts. Here the crisp‐roasted quinoa almost coats the potatoes, and you finish the whole thing off with melted cheese.

If you can find purple potatoes, use them here. With a simple green salad—and in summer, sliced ripe tomatoes—this is a perfect lunch or light supper. With scrambled eggs, warm tortillas, and salsa, it's weekend breakfast. Add any good bean dish and you have a satisfying dinner. Other grains you can use: amaranth, fine bulgur (#1). 

Modern Pasta Fagoili recipes use chicken or beef broth and a meat like pancetta or spicy sausage. I went the veggie route, using vegetable broth and 5 different types of vegetables: carrots, celery, onions, tomatoes and swiss chard. The beans make the soup hearty and filling regardless, so just use whatever you have on hand. My secret ingredient is Parmesan cheese rind, it gives the broth amazing flavor. Just add the rind of Parmesan cheese when cooking, then discard when serving. Unless of course you want to eat it, I always do, it tastes like a chewy cheese crouton. 

We wanted to create a whole wheat pasta sauce recipe that would provide just the right complement to the hearty flavor and firm texture of whole-wheat spaghetti. We found that a boldly flavored sauce made with sun-dried tomatoes and sautéed zucchini provides a nice counterpoint to the whole-wheat pasta’s hearty texture. Starch from some added pasta liquid thickens the sauce and helps it cling to the spaghetti. A sprinkling of freshly grated Pecorino Romano, which our tasters preferred to the more subtle Parmesan, adds a salty tang to a simply sauced whole-wheat spaghetti recipe. 

I’ve been making this pasta for a very long time, probably since the 1980s, since it’s derived from a Marcella Hazan recipe. It’s dead simple — one of the things that I love about it — and you can pre-cook the cauliflower a day ahead or so if you’d like. I usually do the whole thing at once: cook the cauliflower in water, scoop it out and then, later, cook the pasta in the same water. It’s already boiling, and you want the taste of the cauliflower anyway, so why not?

Stir-fry guru Grace Young suggests brown rice for vegetarian stir-fries, and she’s right: the rich nutty flavor and chewy texture make for a very satisfying meal. The trick to successful fried rice, whether you use brown or white rice, is to cook the rice a day ahead and refrigerate. Cold rice will not clump together.

Travel anywhere in the Mediterranean region, and you will find stuffed vegetables. In Provence, they tend to be filled with meat (a way to stretch leftover stews), but in the Middle East and Greece rice and grain fillings prevail. Regional cooks make abundant use of fresh herbs like parsley, dill and mint, and sweet spices like cinnamon and allspice.

This dish is based on a Turkish stuffing for vegetables, a delicate sweet-savory rice mixture seasoned with allspice, cinnamon, parsley, and dill or mint. I decided to use barley instead of rice for a heartier dish. Once stuffed, the vegetables are gently cooked in a mixture of water and oil.

Lemon risottos of any kind always delight guests. The lemon juice and zest are added to this comforting mixture at the end of cooking.

The key to fresh tomato flavor in our creamy gazpacho Andaluz recipe was salting the tomatoes and letting them sit to release more flavor. We then followed the same process with the other vegetables—cucumber, bell pepper, and onion—and soaked the bread, which we used to thicken the soup, in the exuded vegetable juices. A final dash of olive oil and sherry vinegar further brightened the flavor of our gazpacho, and a diced-vegetable garnish made our creamy gazpacho recipe look as fresh as it tasted.