Make Ahead

(PASTA PICCANTE CON POMODORI E RUCOLA) Fresh-tasting, easy to make and perfect for weekday entertaining.

Here's a tasty crust for a number of pies. Like any butter crust, chill the dough well before rolling out, or it will be difficult to work.

(Deep-Fried Potato Croquettes)

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Fudge is a holiday favorite throughout the South — some versions are creamy and others are granular. This recipe makes a deliciously dense, grainy fudge.

The following recipe produces a coarse-crumbed cake; for ease of slicing, dip you knife in hot water before cutting each serving.

Couscous, the basis of many North African dishes, is shaped like a grain but is actually a pasta made of semolina wheat. In fact couscous was incorporated into Italian cuisine when Arabs occupied Sicily six centuries ago. And so to flavor the following couscous we've used classic ingredients common to Sicily rather than North Africa-olives, peppers, capers, currants, and pine nuts.

These cookies are rolled in confectioners' sugar while warm, which gives them a thin buttery frosting.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Active time: 1 hr Start to finish: 4 hr (includes cooling)

Nowhere are vegetables as important as they are in Sicily, and few vegetables are as popular-or have as long a history-as the eggplant. There are said to be hundreds of ways to prepare it. Peppers and artichokes are almost as well loved and common. A country cook often gets produce from a small kitchen garden called an "urtu".