Vegetarian

This is a wonderful side dish for pan-fried fish.

Homemade hummus is very easy to make. If you don’t have any tahini (a paste made from sesame seeds), a chickpea purée without it is still quite delicious. Just add more olive oil.

A mixture of fresh green beans (haricots verts, yellow wax beans, romano beans, or Blue Lake beans) makes this dish both beautiful and tasty. Each variety cooks in a different amount of time, so cook them separately. The same water can be used. Cook yellow wax beans first, to preserve their color. A variety of shell beans can be used as well, but once again, be sure to cook different beans separately.

For an overview and more detailed instructions for making risotto, see page 103.

The combination of artichokes, green garlic, colorful spring onions, and flowering thyme makes a delectable braise.

Green beans are beans harvested while the pods are still tender and edible and the seeds within are immature. There are many, many delicious varieties: Blue Lake and Kentucky Wonder beans, wide romano beans (both yellow and green), yellow wax beans, purple and cream-colored Dragon’s Tongue beans, and the tender little French beans called haricots verts, to name only a few. Choose fresh, bright, crisp beans. They should snap quickly when bent and should have only the tiniest of seeds inside. Use the beans quickly to enjoy their best flavor. To prepare them, give them a rinse, and then snap or cut off Large flat romano beans are one of the summer vegetables I most look forward to for their irresistible beany flavor. Don’t hold back on the marjoram; the fresh pungent flavor of the herb is a wonderful complement to the beans.

Quesadillas, cheese-filled tortillas cooked until crisp and melted, are a simple quick pick-me-up. They are a standby for hungry kids after school. Served with rice, beans, and salsa, they make a complete lunch or dinner.

This pie makes a good picnic breakfast.

I love a dinner of make-it-yourself sushi. I put a large bowl of sushi rice on the table with squares of toasted nori, thinly sliced fish and vegetables, and some pickled ginger and wasabi. Everyone rolls his own and eats them out of hand.

Farro is a delicious, nutty-tasting whole grain with a flavor like a cross between wheat berries and barley. It cooks quickly (almost as fast as rice) and can be served boiled, plain, or marinated in a salad; or it can be prepared in the same way as a risotto. I usually cook 1 1/2 cups of farro at a time. I serve half of it warm as a side dish and the other half the next day as a salad.

Soda bread is the national bread of Ireland and is made with baking soda for leavening instead of yeast. It is traditionally baked on a hearthstone or in a Dutch oven in the embers of a fire. From beginning to end, this recipe takes no more than an hour.

Cream biscuits are melt-in-your-mouth delicious on their own for breakfast, served with Fried Chicken (page 347) and savory stews, for desserts baked in a cobbler with juicy fruit (see page 178), or in the classic Strawberry Shortcake (page 365).

For different flavors, use different flours; they can be mixed and matched at will, as long as half of the flour is whole-wheat pastry flour, to keep them light.

You can put this dough together in just a few minutes. These scones are surprisingly light and are delicious as an after-school snack or with afternoon tea.

This gratin (macaroni and cheese by another name) is good to make when you find yourself with the ends of several types of cheeses. Almost any cheese works, except mozzarella, which gets a little stringy, and blue cheeses, which can take over the dish. I love Gruyère for macaroni and cheese, and cheddar, Jack, and Cantal are all good, too.

This recipe is for a simple filling that works equally well as a stuffing for cannelloni or squash blossoms. The stuffed blossoms can be poached or baked.

The difference between good lasagna and divine lasagna is making it with silky, fresh pasta.