Italian American

If you spend one afternoon in the kitchen, there will be cookies for everyone on your list. You'll need at least a four-quart bowl to mix the large amount of dough.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Kevin Graham, of Graham's in New Orleans, occasionally adds a Parmesan sauce to go with the tomato cream.

Pasta Fazool is slang for the classic Italian pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans). This recipe includes Italian sausage and beef along with kidney beans and pasta. It's all topped with Fontina.

Cafe Vesuvio in St. Charles offers an absolutely delicious dish of angel hair pasta topped with tuna. We'd like to know how to make it. Nancy and John Noble St. Charles, Illinois

This rich, slightly smoky sauce is cooked for only ten minutes.

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 45 min (includes cooling onion)

Here's a great-tasting, visually stunning treat that can be made up to a week ahead.

Chef Jody Adams of Rialto at The Charles Hotel in Cambridge is famous for this type of rustic dish. At the restaurant she serves the stew on mashed potatoes.

"While vacationing in northeastern Minnesota, I had dinner at the Cove Point Lodge in Beaver Bay. The highlight of my meal there was called Lucca pasta, a blend of fettuccine, chicken and vegetables in a creamy, slightly spicy sauce," says Debra Adam of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

An all-purpose red sauce that's ideal for pasta and meatballs, lasagna, cannelloni, etc.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less, but requires additional unattended time.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

A salad of baby greens and raspberry vinaigrette and some pencil-thin breadsticks go well with the pasta. End the dinner with orange sherbet, Swedish butter cookies and, perhaps, a shot of aquavit.