Vegetarian

Make a batch of these easy, fast pickled red onions, and use them the whole week (or two) on everything you’re eating.

Michael Lindley, Public House, Chattanooga: "Cucumbers are great in picnic food, something you can take with you anywhere."

Be gentle when washing new potatoes; their tender skins scrub off easily.

"Nobody thinks to cook cucumbers, but I treat them as I would any vegetable"

This creamy, smoky filling of roasted poblano chiles and charred onions will make your vegetarian—and carnivorous—friends happy.

The classic Middle Eastern salad shifts from bulgur wheat to quinoa. The tiny nutritional powerhouse is loaded with protein, making this dish both a delicious vegetarian main course and a summer-suitable side.

This classic Mexican topping can be made with or without jalapeños. Keep in mind that adding the seeds ups the heat.

Use this orange-tinted sauce on sandwiches with salmon or cucumbers.

Create endless riffs on this salad by using the bright herb dressing with your favorite grains and vegetables.

Serve this chunky, all-purpose tomato sauce with fish, chicken, pasta, or disks of polenta (shown here).

Toasted seeds and nuts add bite to this nutrition-packed salad. We use dried sprouted legumes, which are even more healthful than ordinary beans and more convenient than sprouting your own. (Cooked lentils and mung beans work well, too.) A vibrant chive vinaigrette brings it all together.

Mixing visually striking black barley with raw and cooked vegetables creates lots of flavors and textures. Feel free to substitute the more readily available pearl barley instead.

Toasting the dried chiles first brings out their deep flavor.

This is a gem from my mother's notebook of Nonna Mary's recipes. I remember Nonna Mary serving these tomatoes along with assorted grilled meats during the summer in Cesenatico. They are also a perfect accompaniment to veal cutlets, and together they make a great sandwich, one of my favorite lunches that my mother would pack for me to take to school.

When I was growing up in New York, from third grade through high school, I was blessed with the opportunity to spend my summers in Italy. I would stay with my grandmother in Cesenatico, hang out at the beach with my friends, and eat the wonderful food my grandmother cooked. I have never become accustomed to the traditional American breakfast of eggs and fried pork products, or even cereal. Some fresh bread with butter and jam and caffèlatte is my preferred breakfast, with the proportion of coffee to milk increasing as I have gotten older, from just a drop in a large cup of milk when I was little, to mostly coffee with a splash of milk as an adult. But even better than bread and butter is a breakfast sweet such as my grandmother's ciambella. She always seemed to have some on hand. It's very easy to make and keeps wonderfully on the kitchen counter for as long as a week. It may well keep even longer, but I've never been able to resist eating it for long enough to find out. The classic shape of a ciambella is a ring; in fact, there is a saying for when something doesn't work out: non tutte le ciambelle riescono col buco, which means, "not all ciambelle come out with a hole." My grandmother always made hers in the shape of a loaf—it was no less delicious for it, and that is how I still prefer to make it.

Soft, creamy risotto topped with warm roasted vegetables makes a complete meal in a bowl. If you don't like the idea of standing at the stove and stirring risotto to a perfect consistency, this is the method for you. Thirty minutes in the oven and this risotto comes out cooked to perfection while you and your beloved wind down from your day. If you've made Roasted Winter Vegetables earlier in the week, you can reheat leftovers as a topping here. If not, roast a favorite combination {mine is winter squash, yellow onion, and tomato} in the oven with your risotto.