Vegetarian

You might think of this as winter pesto, with a higher percentage of walnuts and the always-available parsley filling in for summer’s basil—though if you can find good basil, by all means use it.

There are pasta sauces you can make in the time it takes the pasta-cooking water to come to a boil, and there are those that are really fast—those that can be made in the eight to ten minutes it takes to actually cook the pasta. This is one of the latter, one that boasts just a couple of main ingredients and a supporting cast of two staples.

This dish which has zucchini as its focus—is simply amazing when made in midsummer with tender, crisp squash, but it isn’t half bad even when made in midwinter with a limp vegetable that’s traveled halfway around the world to get to your table. Either way, it is an unusual use for zucchini, which here substitutes for meat in a kind of vegetarian spaghetti carbonara, the rich pasta dish featuring eggs, bacon, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Made with zucchini instead of bacon, the dish becomes a little less fat-laden, obviously, but it is still rich and delicious.

It is pasta’s nature to be simple. I’ve long made a vegetable sauce by poaching greens such as spinach in the pasta water, then removing them and adding the pasta, a neat trick. But my friend Jack Bishop, author of Vegetarian Italian Cooking, mentioned that he’d gone one step further, cooking the greens right in with the pasta and adding seasonings at the last minute. The method relies on the fact that there is a period of two or three minutes between the moment when the pasta’s last traces of chalkiness disappear and the point where it begins to become mushy. If, just before the pasta is done, you add the greens, whose tough stems have been removed, greens and pasta will finish cooking at the same time. When making this dish and others like it, you must adhere to the often ignored canon of allowing at least a gallon of water per pound of pasta, because you need a pot large enough to accommodate the greens and because they cannot be allowed to slow down the cooking too much

This dish is a minimalist’s take on the northern Italian autumn staple of tortelli filled with zucca, a pumpkinlike vegetable whose flesh, like that of butternut or acorn squash, is dense, orange, and somewhat sweet. The flavor and essential nature of that dish can be captured in a thirty-minute preparation that turns the classic inside out, using the squash as a sauce and sparing you the hours it would take to stuff the tortelli.

Since olive oil is the backbone of this dish, use the best you can lay your hands on and be sure to keep the heat under the oil medium-low, because you want to avoid browning the garlic at all costs. (Well, not at all costs. If you brown the garlic, you’ll have a different, more strongly flavored kind of dish, but one that is still worth eating.) Garnish with a good handful of chopped parsley. For thirty seconds’ work, this makes an almost unbelievable difference.

This Bread Casserole is a major upgrade from stuffing. Like most puddings and custards, it should be removed from the oven when it still appears slightly underdone, because its retained heat will firm it up just fine. Use good-quality white bread—torn from a loaf, not presliced—and the pudding will be much better.

People can never seem to get enough pizza, and how many a pizza will serve depends on the heartiness of the toppings, the thickness of the crust, and whether you’re serving anything along with it. But I’ve found generally that this dough recipe will make two twelve- or thirteen-inch pizzas and that pizzas made with the following toppings will serve at least four people.

A crouton is not only a little cube of bread you use in salads or for stuffing, but a perfectly toasted slice that makes a wonderful side dish and a sensational way to use stale bread.

Corn Bread is a quick bread—that is, risen with baking powder, not yeast—and the most useful one of all. Everyone loves it, too.

These are simpler than traditional scallion pancakes, which are made from a breadlike dough, and they taste more like scallions, because the “liquid” is scallion puree. The flavor is great, the preparation time is cut to about twenty minutes, and the texture is that of a vegetable fritter.

The spanish tortilla has nothing in common with the Mexican tortilla except its name, which comes from the Latin torta—a round cake. In its most basic form, the Spanish tortilla is a potato-and-egg frittata, or omelet, which derives most of its flavor from olive oil. Although the ingredients are simple and minimal, when made correctly—and there is a straightforward but very definite series of techniques involved—this tortilla is wonderfully juicy. And because it is better at room temperature than hot, it can and in fact should be made in advance. (How much in advance is up to you. It can be fifteen minutes or a few hours.)

I won’t claim that this is the best bread you’ve ever eaten, but it’s the fastest yeast bread imaginable, and it’s better than anything you can buy at many supermarkets. It requires little effort, less attention, and rounds out most simple dishes into filling meals.

There are a number of ways to make simple dishes of greens more appealing. Among my favorites is to prepare a topping of crisp-fried shallots. By themselves, these are irresistible; when combined with tender greens they create an alluring contrast in flavor and texture. Furthermore, the oil in which the shallots have been fried is a great addition to the greens and, in the days following, to many other dishes.

Given that tofu itself does not add much body to a dish, you need a substantial sauce, like one with canned coconut milk as its base, to make up for the tofu’s blandness. Like heavy cream, coconut milk will thicken a sauce, making it luxurious in almost no time. The onion must be browned carefully and thoroughly: keep the heat high enough so that this happens in a timely fashion—it should take about ten minutes and in no case more than fifteen—but not so high that the onion burns. I call this level of heat “medium-high,” but all stoves are different; the oil should be bubbling but not smoking, and you must stir the onion every minute or so.

Treat new potatoes simply, using what little work you need to do to highlight their fresh and full potato flavor. I like to use heartier herbs, like rosemary, lavender, or thyme, to flavor roasted potatoes. This preparation is classic and easy, as long as you remember it’s better to overcook the potatoes than undercook them.

This is a fast method for producing a delicious potato gratin. I discovered it accidentally, and it’s since become a personal favorite.