Tomato

This bottomless bowl of meat sauce is the stuff of dreams—the American Dream, in particular. In Italy, ragù would have been flavored with a small piece of pork, but because meat was so readily available in the United States, immigrants included beef braciole, meatballs, sweet and hot sausage, and pork shoulder and ribs. This dish requires hours on the stovetop to make the meat tender and juicy and the sauce thick and intense, but it's well worth waiting for.

This no-cook quickie dinner is less than 18 percent fat. Dig in!

Wake up your taste buds with this lowfat recipe. It is sure to satisfy — and provide a spicy kick!

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from I Like Food, Food Tastes Good: In the Kitchen with Your Favorite Bands by Kara Zuaro. The Violent Femmes
from Brian Ritchie If adolescence had an official soundtrack, it would be provided by the Violent Femmes. They're not quite indie rock, but if you haven't got their self-titled debut CD in your neatly alphabetized record collection, nestled somewhere between the Velvet Teen and Weezer, then your roommate must have stolen it. Brian Ritchie's acoustic bass line has no doubt rocked your teenage dance parties, and now he's going to up the ante at your next dinner soirée. "My strategy is to eat food at a restaurant and then try to guess how they made it. Then I add my own ideas," Brian explains. "I used to live in Italy, and this is my version of something I had in Florence. This recipe is as good as what you'd get there." I picked up some wild boar from New York's Citarella Fine Foods, but I had to place an order a few days in advance, and the smallest amount they would sell me was a whopping five pounds of meat. Fortunately, this deeply flavorful stew is something I'll be happy to make again (half the boar is still in my freezer) — but if you don't have easy access to wild boar, try another type of meat, as Brian suggests below. "Ragù is a winter dish characterized by meat and tomatoes. It is traditional to cook it all day, adding more liquid if it starts to dry out. Italians use fresh tomatoes in the summer and canned in winter. "Making a ragù is like playing jazz. You have to be creative, tasteful, and able to adapt to the circumstances. The beauty of ragù is that everybody is free to develop their own. Aside from meat and tomatoes, you can basically add whichever other spices and ingredients appeal to you. If you don't want wild boar, substitute any other meat you like — lamb, pork, veal, beef, or venison. I have made this dish with all of those depending on availability and what looks good at the butcher. "Note: I do not use a recipe or exact quantities when I cook. These quantities are just to give you a rough idea. Adjust to your own taste." —Brian Ritchie

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from Jamie Oliver's book Jamie's Italy. Pasta con acchiughe e pomodoro This is a poor people's pasta from Palermo in Sicily. You could use tagliatelle or spaghetti, but if you can find margherita pasta it's great — it looks thicker than spaghetti, and it's frilly down one edge. This sauce has great flavor and is very Sicilian with the raisins and pine nuts. P.S., I'd like to thank my mate John Hamilton, the incredible art director on this book, who made this dish with me in Sicily. He made it with such care and concentrated so hard staring at it that I thought it might turn to stone! As you can see from the picture, it goes to show that even a Glaswegian geezer can produce a pretty and delicate dish.

The resulting dish is brothy but thick; it can be thinned with stock for a more traditional soup.

A bacon Swiss burger embellished with ripe tomato and avocado: delectable! In this burger, I've spiced up the meat with thyme and Worcestershire sauce, which hint at the Mediterranean and at the steak house. In this case, a soft white bun is the best choice—any other type of bun and the burger might become too huge to eat. But of course, that's what helps to make it delectable. Serve your favorite condiments alongside.

While reminiscent of a marinara sauce, red bell pepper, cognac, and jalapeño add hints of newness to this luscious, traditional favorite lobster dish.

This recipe originally accompanied Mushroom and Thyme Risotto Cakes with Roasted Tomato and Arugula Salad . If you're not keeping kosher or serving this salad with meat, you could top it with crumbled blue cheese.

This recipe originally accompanied Jalapeño Popper Fritters with Tomato Salsa .

Few can resist this soup-stew of tender cannellini beans, silken pork shoulder, tomatoes, and herbs. We give the cherry tomatoes a little extra love in the oven to boost their flavor before we stir them into the beans. Rosemary is a natural in this dish, but it’s the generous amount of parsley added at the end that’s the real revelation. The herb adds a zesty top note to the beans. Simple side dishes—garlic bread, a green salad—complete the picture.

This soup is inspired by one that food editor Paul Grimes's Russian grandmother used to make. Dark and woodsy porcini mushrooms add potent aroma and depth and are enlivened by the acidity of tomatoes and the lovely brightness of fresh herbs.

Shake up your casserole rotation with a Greek pastitsio. Layers of ziti, meaty tomato sauce fragrant with spices, and silky béchamel come together in this deeply satisfying yet simple meal.

Far from being a culinary museum piece, the pressure cooker deserves a place in the 21st-century kitchen. One reason: You can make this hearty Italian meal of incredibly tender lamb with vegetables and saucy beans in about an hour.

Brisket is commonly used to make corned beef, but I find that it lends itself well to other preparations. And once it's in the oven, you can forget about it for hours—it's that easy to prepare. This brisket with a south-of-the-border kick is one of my very favorites. The meat actually tastes better to me when it sits overnight so all the flavors have more time to marry. It will hold well for a few days. While good reheated the next day, the meat served cold in a sandwich is a delicious alternative to leftovers. I serve the brisket alone or alongside a grilled steak, as it emphasizes steak's meaty flavor.

In Turkish cookery there's a distinctive group of dishes known as güveç, which take their name from the earthenware pot in which they are cooked—in the same way that the tagine does in Morocco. In rural Anatolia the cooking pots may be sealed and buried in the ashes of a fire to cook slowly overnight—or, only slightly less romantically, in the local baker's oven. If you don't have a clay pot, a heavy-based cast-iron casserole dish will serve almost as well. Güveç dishes encompass all sorts of meat or poultry cooked with legumes, vegetables and fruits. My addition of star anise is not remotely Turkish, but it adds a wonderful layer of aniseed flavor. This güveç is spicy with a lingering sweetness, so serve it with a light salad or braised wild greens. A dollop of yogurt would also be delicious. Sucuk is a spicy Turkish sausage and can be found in Turkish or Middle Eastern butchers and some specialist delis.

With all the amazing fresh produce available at this time of year, we always find ourselves facing the same dilemma: Which delicious, sun-warmed vegetable shall we choose tonight? But when food editor Ian Knauer threw the whole farm stand into a cornmeal crust, it took us only one bite to realize that he had solved the problem once and for all.