Quinoa salad with pistachios and cranberries is an ideal holiday salad or side dish. The salad can be made ahead as the quinoa will remain fluffy.

This Asian noodle salad with peanut dressing is a mix of sweet and spicy. The noodles are tossed with tofu and sprouts and topped with the peanut dressing.

This refreshing seafood lasagna, filled with fish, shrimp and lots of pesto, is kind the lasagna recipe to serve year round–just change the seafood.

These pearl-like couscous are cooked in chicken stock for extra flavor and tossed with peas, mint, parsley, and lemon zest. A simple, easy sider dish.

Fusili pasta, bell peppers, celery, onions, olives, and pickles are tossed in a tangy dressing made from Greek yogurt. A perfect summer pasta salad.

Paper thin slices of curried beef and stir-fried onions and salsify sit on top of a pile of udon noodles. A rich fish broth completely the picture.

Pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries are spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and maple syrup. It’s trail mix, a morning snack, an afternoon pick-me-up.

At heart, this custard is a rice pudding, but here it’s given the creme brulee treat. Studding it with dried cherries puts it into a luxe dessert category.

For this Greek recipe, ground beef in a spiced tomato sauce is topped with pasta mixed with cheese and yolks, drizzled with a white sauce, and then baked.

This recipe is from Dan Kraan, one of our recipe testers. He adds tomatoes, onions, and sometimes garlic to his macaroni and cheese. Honest comfort food.

Dinner couldn’t be simpler. Pasta is cooked then tossed in a sauce filled with green and red peppers, mushrooms, and spiked with a touch of sherry vinegar.

This Christmas and Thanksgiving dish of wild rice is combined with freshly roasted chestnuts, cranberries, and apricots then baked in the oven. The sweet and savory notes hit just the right spot with guests.

Bucatini with nettle-pecan pesto is tricky, mostly because nettles bite back. But follow Jess Thomson’s advice, and you’ll have an uncommonly good dish.

Rich eggplant serves as the crust for this timbale, or stuffed dish, filled with pasta, beef, sausage, mozzarella cheese, peas, and a lusty tomato sauce.

This is a complete winter’s meal. It’s hearty and vegetarian, rife with fat beans, fennel, and plum tomatoes sitting on top of creamy, cheesy polenta.

This is rice pilaf with cherries and pistachios is perfect side dish for poultry dishes. The pistachios add a bit of crunch and the cherries sweetness.

Make this rich, vegetarian walnut sauce with stuffed pasta for the ultimate comfort meal. The nut flavored sauce is thickened with Italian bread.

The warm lentil salad, filled with the earthy flavor of lentils, slab bacon, onions, and shallots, is tossed with a walnut oil dressing. A great side.

Bulgur is the heart of this vegetarian chile, giving it body, but other grains such as wheat, rye, kamut, spelt, hominy, and millet could be used.

For something different, try these Udon noodles cooked in green tea broth. A quick, easy to make vegetarian dish, the recipe includes garnish suggestions.

Cavatelli with turkey sausage gets flavor boosts form tomato and broccoli rabe. The cavatelli can be made in minutes, so have the family at the table.

This baked kibbeh is an easier-to-make cousin of the work-intensive classic. The ground lamb base is crowned with a savory onion and pine nut topping.

Paella, the classic Spanish dish, is given the full treatment here. You don’t need a paella pan to make this paella recipe, either. A Dutch oven will do.

by Ted Allen
from The Food You Want to Eat
(Clarkson Potter, 2005)
Serves 4
This is a real favorite in my house. I’ve adapted it from a recipe in one of my favorite collections, The New Basics Cookbook, by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins, my copy of which has a broken spine and is so stained it’s hard [...]

For a quick, satisfying dinner, make this pasta salad with strips of seared sirloin ahead of time. Refrigerated or fresh, any flavor of tortellini will do.