Pasta

On a weekday, accompany this main course with breadsticks and marinated vegetables from the deli. Wrap up with grapes and cookies. For a festive occasion, start with an antipasto of olives and roasted vegetables, then serve an arugula, radicchio and toasted walnut salad dressed with lemon vinaigrette. Finish with an Italian fruit crostata.

Add chicken or pork to turn this side dish into a satisfying main course. Chopped roasted peanuts are a nice garnish.

Roasted peppers, marinated olives and artichoke hearts make good antipasti. Afterward, sprinkle melon slices with chopped fresh mint, and pass amaretti cookies.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Couscous is a staple of the Moroccan table. This dessert version is similar to rice pudding. Cream of coconut adds extra flavor.

A sprinkling of cinnamon brings even more depth of flavor to the caramelized onions that garnish this exotic dish.

From Daniel Boulud and Alex Lee, the former executive chef at Daniel in New York.

Imported from Italy early in the decade, sun-dried tomatoes seduced the nation. Two other obsessions were pasta and pesto. All those ingredients combine here in a dish that doesn’t age.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. This spicy pasta dish is a real treat for mushroom lovers. Use as many different varieties as you can find.

Start with pear slices wrapped in prosciutto; offer a radicchio and fennel salad and breadsticks alongside the pasta, and rich tiramisè to end the meal.

"I come from a big family, so I learned how to cook to help my mother feed all of those hungry mouths," says Molly Shannon Daum, Evergreen Park, Illinois. "Dad loved whatever I made, and he would always tell me that I should have my own restaurant named Molly's Marvelous Makings. But despite Dad's suggestion, I decided to study nursing. Nowadays I usually don't get home until seven o'clock at night, which means that dinner has to be quick. Sometimes my husband, Tom, helps out in the kitchen, but mostly it's up to me to get something delicious on the table fast. Since the opportunity to prepare challenging meals doesn't come up often, I save the complex cooking for the times when we entertain. That’s when I get to use the recipes that might have appeared on my menu if I'd taken Dad's advice." Molly also uses the dressing on salads.

Pasta e Fagioli Venetians prize a soup made thick by using mashed beans. This recipe is based on the preparations at Venice's Fiaschetteria Toscana and Osteria alla Bomba. A tablespoon of salt may sound like a lot, but it is needed to bring out the beans' flavor.

Puttanesca sauce is normally cooked, but we developed a quick and easy version that doesn't require cooking.

Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 25 min The flavor of fresh sage can be intense. You may want to start by adding 3 tablespoons of sage to the pesto, then taste after processing and add another tablespoon if you'd like a stronger flavor.