Penne

Roasted butternut squash shines in this hearty, family-friendly fall pasta dinner.

Grilling the tomatoes concentrates their flavor slightly while still leaving them fresh enough to make a light, juicy sauce. Studded with cubes of fresh mozzarella, this dish is a summery crowd-pleaser.

Native to Catalonia, Spain, Garrotxa is a throaty, goaty cheese that imparts an almost cheddar-like tanginess. A gray mold blankets this pasteurized flavor titan, which gets its smooth earthiness from the lush coastal grasses that feed the goats raised to make it. Cutting away the rind on this firm cheese is easy, and a sharp knife run down the sides will shave off the moldy exterior without sacrificing much of the Garrotxa beneath. Here, Garrotxa coalesces with two other signature Spanish ingredients, sun-dried tomatoes and Serrano ham, to create an ethereal cheese gratin polished with just a touch of butter, milk, and crème fraîche. This recipe isn't your typical melty, creamy macaroni and cheese; rather, it's a drier dish that allows the ingredients to mingle coyly while remaining somewhat independent.

The rich flavors of sausage and broccoli rabe stand up beautifully to the earthy taste of whole wheat pasta. Broccoli rabe is one of my favorite vegetables, but it has a bitter taste that isn't for everyone. Feel free to substitute regular broccoli in this recipe if you prefer.

After many rounds of tweaking and perfecting, Epicurious member Robert Belden landed on a quick and easy formula for creamy and comforting Alfredo sauce. Although bathing fresh shrimp in a velvety blanket of cream and butter is a pairing that Belden says “is tough to beat,” he admits to occasionally substituting seared scallops or grilled chicken for the shrimp. Alongside crisp homemade garlic bread, this pasta dish makes a satisfying dinner to share with a friend or keep all to yourself.

Arrabbiata (Italian for “angry”) sauce is a heated-up version of your classic marinara, made from garlic, tomatoes, red chiles, and olive oil. What makes this a “faux” arrabbiata is the ever-so-slightly unorthodox addition of basil, lemon, and balsamic vinegar, which add sweetness to the sauce. Cookbook author and Epicurious member Serena Bass notes, “Mince the lemon with a sharp knife rather than grate, as it is nice to get little pieces of zest to bite on. And don’t be tempted to cook this for longer than 10 minutes, as it will lose its fresh TKO punch. I like this sauce with penne or spaghettini.”

Here’s a restaurant-quality sauce that is rich and luxurious but easy enough to make at home. Professional cook and Epicurious member Thomas Campbell of New London, Connecticut, invented it, and his favorite part of the recipe is the bacon-flavored liquid; it adds a slightly sweet but smoky flavor to the sauce, and tastes even better after the flavors have time to mingle.

Tomatoes keep the fulfilling umami coming. We added almonds to up the slim-down factor: Dieters who ate the nuts daily lost 56 percent more fat than those who didn't, a study from Loma Linda University finds; the nuts' fiber may prevent fat absorption.

You can eat this dish right when you make it or serve it an hour or two later at room temperature; the heat of the pasta will warm up the sweet balsamic vinegar and wilt the arugula. It transports quite well, making it a good choice for picnics or buffet spreads.

Both the presentation and flavor of this subtle dish are quite elegant, so while it’s easy enough to make for a weeknight dinner, you can certainly serve it to company.

Many Sicilian dishes feature swordfish, since it is very plentiful in the waters surrounding the island. Eggplant is also found in many dishes from this area, but I prefer the texture and taste of Japanese eggplants over the larger ones because their seeds are so tiny; there is also no need to salt the cubed eggplant because they aren’t as bitter as the fully mature ones can be.

Here’s a great way to get all your veggies in, with tons of flavor. I used to make this often when I was a caterer as an alternative entrée for non-meat eaters because it’s an elegant dish with lots of colors and textures. It’s also quite convenient, because it can be prepared ahead of time, so if you have vegetarian guests at your next gathering, you can assemble this early and then just pop it in the oven while you’re making the rest of the dinner. But don’t think this is strictly for vegetarians; it’s a real crowd-pleaser all around.

Edamame contain as much protein per serving as eggs, milk, and meat, and are also a good source of iron, zinc, and B vitamins. Since the corn is not cooked, it’s imperative that you use the freshest you can find. Serve hot or cold as a speedy, summery pasta dish.

French green lentils, sometimes called lentilles du Puy, hold their shape well once cooked, making them particularly suited to salads and pasta dishes. Like other legumes, lentils are low in fat and are exceptional sources of folate, iron, and protein, plus other vitamins and minerals. Here, the lentils are combined with whole-wheat pasta shapes called chiocciole (snails), but you can substitute penne or any other short tubular shapes. If you like, grate or shave parmesan over the pasta just before serving.

If you like, grate some Parmesan cheese over the tossed pasta just before serving, or offer grated cheese on the side.

If you have trouble finding caciocavallo cheese, you can substitute grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Curry powder provides a Middle Eastern twist for homey tuna casserole. Using cornstarch and milk instead of a canned cream soup really cuts the sodium in this comfort-food dish.

A tiny place where once lived the paladins of Sardegna is Orgosolo. Only a decade or so ago did they think it prudent, finally, to wander about the steep, tortured alleyways of their mountain village unadorned with a rifle. Orgosolo is the historic lair of Sard banditismo—banditry. Perhaps the businesses of thieving and buccaneering seem more gainful in Calabria, for now, the only rapscallions left in Orgosolo are the political artists whose bullying, bitter-sermoned murals irritate walls, housefronts, mountain faces. Too, icons are chafed, gastronomically, in Orgosolo, as they are here in this dish, which asks for bottarga as well as pecorino, upsetting the proscription, for a moment, against the mingling of fish and cheese.

When Napoleon lifted up his brother-in-law Joachim Murat to the throne of Napoli in the early nineteenth century, he wittingly rubbed the gastronomic culture of the city to a high French polish. As the governor of Paris, Murat fixed for himself a popular reputation as gourmand, having conducted the business of his offices more often than not midst the ever-sumptuous, sometimes not-meant-to-be-eaten bas-relief of his banqueting tables. And trailing Murat to Napoli marched legions of French chefs. The great toques were an outlandish platoon, striding about the city’s marketplaces and food shops like so many swells among the rabble and answering only to the title monsieur. The irreverent Napoletani soon punished the word into monzù. But even without the genuflection of the masses, the French masters left rich, culinary impress. In the embrace of their hyperbole, there was nothing too spangled, their dishes mostly unredeemed paroxysms of the baroque in both component and construction. And one of their glory dishes was the timballo—the drum—recalling the high-sided round or oval forms in which the chefs built great, towering pies, as much for table architecture as for their eventual service as dinner. One version of the timballo asked for a deep mold upholstered in sweet short pastry, layered with pasta stuffed with veal sweetbreads, layered with the livers of game and whole fat, musky truffles, all of it robed in a salsa besciamella—béchamel—spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves. The timballo was roofed then in more pastry, painted with egg wash and baked golden as amber. Here follows a version less awkward to make, less fantastic, perhaps, but no less sublime for its relative restraint. When preparing any one of the cinque brasati di carne con pomodori (page 67), increase the amount so that some might be saved, then used to flavor the timballo.