Italy

Here's a subtle and delicious creamy white pasta sauce that is easy to prepare in just the time that it takes to cook the pasta. 

You want to use good pasta, because the flavors are not strong and a good pasta shines through. We used Garofalo pappardelli in this photo, but I think it would work fine with most types of pasta.

This is a good primo dish before chicken or fish main dishes.

Here's a light sweet blast of summery fresh flavor for long pasta, like the fat round bucatini shown here.

As with many Italian recipes, there are not many ingredients, and quality is paramount. In this case, the usual olive oil, garlic, and onion are accompanied by garden fresh red and yellow bell peppers, a little cream, and a pinch of fresh marjoram (or oregano if you can't get marjoram). 

Use farm-fresh peppers if you can; they have more flavor than the supermarket variety because they can be sold within a day or two of harvesting instead of spending a week in a refrigerated truck! 

I found this elegant recipe in the excellent Classic Food of Northern Italy by Anna del Conte. It's not hard to make, it cooks quickly, and it's fine enough to serve to guests as a course at a fancy dinner.

You have to use good saffron to get the full effect of this dish. The sauce is exquisite as it pairs with the delicate sole. 

Here's a simple, sturdy vegetable dish with what Americans might think of as a peculiar mix of flavors, but they go well together. I especially love how olives are transformed when they are cooked into a dish!

The original recipe calls for fresh beans and tomatoes. I tried it with frozen beans and canned tomatoes and it came out fine, and it was much less work!

The original recipe also called for quartering the olives, but I left them whole and didn't even pit them; as I said I really like cooked olives in a dish and I prefer the flavor blast of getting them whole (and it makes it easier for Lorna to pick them out!) 

This reheats well, so the next time I make it, I will double or triple it and have the leftovers with lunches, where I really should get more vegetables. 

This is a full-flavored fall dish, bursting with mushroomy goodness.

It's not as rich and decadent as Barolo and Porcini Risotto, so you don't have to save it for a special occasion. It's great with big beef dishes and hearty dry red wine from the Piedmont!

The best flavor here comes from a mix of mushrooms, both fresh and dried, with their soaking liquor. There's a real boom in mushroom cultivation now, so it's much easier to find good fresh mushrooms of interesting varieties than it was even a few years ago. 

This was an invention of necessity another time that Lorna bought (expensive) halibut hoping for the Halibut in an Orange Sauce, only to learn that we had no good oranges in the house. 

So I followed the same technique, but I used herbs and cherry tomatoes and used herby dry vermouth instead of the sweet simple syrup. The orange-gold color in the sauce comes from the tomatoes; I saw that a few had burst, so I helped the others along. It was pretty and tasty too!

This is an Italian recipe, Nasello al Forno con Patate, that calls for hake, but I can't always find hake in Plymouth. It's a flaky white fish that cooks a lot like cod and haddock, so they allow us to make these Italian recipes with the local white fish.

This dish has delicate flavors that would go well with a Vermentino or a Gavi di Gavi white wine. It's a great recipe to know because if you have a piece of haddock or cod (or hake), you probably have the few remaining ingredients already in your kitchen.

I adapted this from a recipe for Orata, which we don't get in New England waters, but for which Cod substitutes pretty well. 

It's light and summery, and it's really quick and simple to prepare, too. It's especially nice with a light pasta on the side, with no sauce except what's in the fish dish.