Canned Tomato

We recommend using a sturdy food mill (available at cookware stores) to help produce a thick stew base from simmered vegetables and fish. Alternatively, you can use a large heavy-duty mesh sieve to strain the seafood broth. Then push through enough fish and vegetables to make 13 cups of stew base. Serve cioppino with sourdough toasts.

Piquant and full of spices, this chutney is an unexpected, pleasantly bright condiment for scrambled eggs. Active time: 45 minutes Start to finish: 1 week (includes allowing flavors to develop)

A few years ago, the editors of Bon Appétit magazine declared braised short ribs the recipe of the year, and they asked me to create the ultimate version. Combining elements from different short rib dishes I had enjoyed at restaurants, this is the result. I have since received an amazing amount of mail from cooks who have told me that this is the most awesome meat dish they have ever encountered.

Serve this dish with French bread to get all the delicious sauce.

This is enough sauce for two pounds of pasta; it's good with fusilli, orecchiette or linguine.

"I developed this recipe last winter and think it makes excellent cold-weather fare," says Lora Anderson of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Nearly every cook in Newberry County makes his or her own rendition of Dunbar macaroni. In Gourmet's kitchens, we combined some favorite additions to the basic recipe to come up with this version.

Green chilies and cilantro add some zip to this main course.

Culinary archaeologists Susan Lord and Danilo Baroncini named their cookbook Pani Caliatu (available from Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York), for the traditional Aeolian twice-dried bread. For this recipe, the people of the Aeolian Islands use totani (flying squid). The recipe works just as well with squid found in the U.S. Since squid is often sold cleaned and in parts, be sure to get one set of tentacles per squid body to ensure that there will be enough stuffing. Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 1 1/4 hr

Butternut squash and a variety of beans give this vegetarian dish its hearty texture.

This version of a tagine, the classic Moroccan stew, calls for dark meat because it stays moist when braised. If you prefer white meat, reduce the cooking time by 15 minutes.

Meriel MacDonald of London, England, writes: "Having grown up at Kinloch Lodge, my family's hotel on the Isle of Skye, I truly understand what it means to be too busy to cook. There were always guests to attend to, telephones ringing, and other interruptions. Still, my mother found the time to cook while overseeing the hotel's day-to-day business. Today, she continues to run Kinloch Lodge, and over the years she has shared with me many of her recipes and cooking tips, which have helped me in my job as catering manager for a large advertising agency. For work events, I often rely on family recipes, because they're dependable and delicious. I also use many of those same recipes for simple home suppers during the workweek."

This easy-to-make lasagne evolved from a pasta dish that one of us enjoyed on a trip to Portofino, Italy, some 30 years ago. Our version is even quicker, using won ton skins, which cook in a flash. Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 45 min

At the restaurant, the gnocchi are shaped in a time-honored manner that includes pressing each short dough piece against the tines of a fork. Home cooks may find it simpler to roll the dough along the wires of a whisk, as outlined here. Also, if you can't get ground chuck, buy a boneless chuck roast, and ask the butcher to grind it for you.