Canned Tomato

Choose any or all of the toppers for your chili.

Easier than lasagna, because it’s not lasagna, this pasta, meat sauce, and ricotta toss-up is just as hearty and comforting as the layered Italian fave, but it’s ready in a fraction of the time and with much less effort. Serve with a simple green salad dressed with oil and vinegar.

When I made my annual Christmas Pasta for the holiday this year we discovered that both my mom and I had shopped for the ingredients, so we had lots of leftover hot and sweet sausage and ground beef in the fridge. The next day, this recipe was born.

I make this one when I watch GoodFellas. Shave the garlic nice and thin, like Paulie would, but don’t use a razor blade like he does in the movie. A sharp knife is fine.

Italian-style Sloppy Joes—get it? Hah! I kill me! Funny! Well, I thought so, anyway . . .

Rich, but not heavy, this dish is delish.

This is one of my mom’s recipes so it’s better than good . . . it’s the best.

French bread pizza from Stouffer’s was my favorite frozen food as a kid. Now that I’m all grown up I make my own, because I can overstuff them. (My appetite grew, too.)

I loved and still miss Julia Child. She consumed life as robustly as she did a good, crispy skinned chicken. If I had ever had her over for lunch, I would have made her this simple stew.

Bacon, Leek, and Tomato Soup is a soup for all seasons! So easy and too delicious; you’ll make this one January or August, year after year. It is especially welcome on rainy nights.

This is a chop, drop, and open recipe. Place your cutting board next to the stove, heat up the pots, chop everything on the board, drop it into the pan, then open up your cans. As soon as the stoup bubbles, dinner is done.

Eat this meal in front of the TV. Invite Clint Eastwood and the cast of your favorite spaghetti western (mine’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly).

Pappa al Pomodoro is Tuscan stale bread soup. It is a favorite of my mom, Elsa. When we are both tired this is a good go-to recipe: pappa for my mama. Use a vegetable peeler to curl off nice big shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano to float on top of the soup.

Anchovies work magic here. Once they melt they will not taste fishy; they’ll taste more like salted nuts, really. Plus, anchovies in any seafood sauce I serve are the secret ingredient that makes the eaters go “Hmm, what is that?” (Don’t tell anyone my secret, k?)

Ceci are chickpeas. This is a classic, simple Italian dinner. Thousands of tired Romans will be eating it tonight; how about we join them? Greens dressed with vinegar and oil would make a good side dish.

Take a pizza Margerita, make it on a tortilla, then fold it like a quesadilla and you get a pizza-dilla!

I make this dinner every Christmas. I have included it in other books, but I cannot finish any year without it. I have made some small improvements in the recipe over the years, so it’s faster and easier to make than ever. You can eat it all year long as do I. For Italians, after all those fishes on Christmas Eve, this dish, with four different meats in it, is especially nice on Christmas night. This is the greatest gift I can give to myself and those I love: a big bowl of pasta with the works. Have a great year! Serve with tomato, basil, and mozzarella salad (the colors of the season and the Italian flag).

Caponata is an eggplant dish normally served as a relish or appetizer, but I am so fond of it that I keep reinventing ways to add it to each cookbook I write. I’ve topped polenta with it, tossed it with pasta, packed it into sub sandwiches, and now, here we go again . . .