Italian

Great with soup or salad — or alongside Linguine with Spicy Leek and Tomato Sauce.

A dollop of cream gives rich contrast to this pink summer ice.

Silky zabaglione, warm from cooking but also imbued with deep heat from the wine, cloaks the vanilla-scented fruit with a heady richness. Though it's normally made with Marsala, this more subtle version gives the season's first apricots a chance to shine.

Roasted vegetables and Italian Fontina lend this lush-tasting lasagne a more intense flavor than than you'd get with the usual spinach and ricotta filling.

Fresh marinara sauce makes all the difference in these robust sandwiches. Look for it near the cheeses and fresh pasta at the supermarket.

Brie coats the rigatoni like a creamy pasta sauce.

These hearty cheese crisps, known as frico in Friuli, are a popular starter and snack. This recipe calls for Montasio, a hard cheese made from cow's milk. Ask to have the rind removed and the cheese grated (it's that hard). If you can't find Montasio, imported or domestic Asiago cheese is a good substitute.

Look to the frozen foods aisle for a quicker way to bring artichoke's spring flavor to buttery pasta.

This dish has been one of my family's favorites for years; the secret to its enduring popularity is the caramelized onions. I cook them long and slow until they are meltingly tender and deep golden brown. Their rich sweetness rounds out the earthy flavor of the lentils and kale.

The flavor of this pasta fagioli is so haunting and the texture so voluptuous that you'll wonder how such modest ingredients could conspire to create something so indulgent. And what makes it successful as a make-ahead main is that the pasta is cooked separately. I make vats of the bean soup ahead, then each time I reheat a portion, I boil up a fresh batch of dried pasta so the al dente texture balances the creaminess of the soup.

A semifreddo is a frozen, molded mousse. Here, we combine it with a walnut-shortbread crust for a tart that celebrates the coming of spring fruit.

Saltimbocca, an Italian classic, traditionally calls for veal — but tastes even better with chicken.

Cara Brunetti Hillyard of Hamilton, Virginia, writes: "I come from a long line of great cooks. My father owns an Italian market in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where my mother gets a lot of the ingredients she uses in her wonderful dishes. My mother-in-law is a recipe developer, and I've been known to sit next to my great-aunt Stella with a pen and paper as she details her amazing recipes. I live far from home now, but I reconnect with my family traditions every evening when I make dinner."

A drink that can also stand in for dessert.

Tender, faintly bitter escarole gives a unique, delicious earthiness to this double-crust pizza, which stands apart from its traditional saucy brethren.

Homemade ravioli are well worth the effort, and making them is the perfect task to share with a kitchen full of cooks (even novices can get in on the fun). Mixing the pasta dough is a breeze in the food processor, but if you don't have one, don't worry — we've given the method for making the dough by hand as well. A brown-butter pine-nut sauce is light enough to let your efforts on the pasta really shine through.