There is a middle ground between, "My kids eat the exact same meals we do! Pâté for all!" and "Plain pasta with butter, please." We have found that pasta dishes like the ones listed below—with chunks of healthy, delicious ingredients that can also be separated out, if necessary—are most successful in our house. Everyone eats, and we aren't cooking two meals. More

This is one of the first dishes I ever learned to make on my own. It was also the first that I stopped needing a recipe to cook, and the first that actually received compliments from my dinner companions. And it's still one of my standby recipes! This simple tomato sauce hits all the requirements for a weeknight dinner: easy, versatile, and ready in about thirty minutes. Oh, and lick-the-pot good. More

Okay, it's time to stop denying it, this is really happening: we're at that point where there's hardly any fresh, local, in-season produce in the markets to inspire wild innovation in the kitchen. It's time to stretch.

How do you honor the hearty ice-kissed greens and mighty squash of winter and not yawn over your dinner plate? This is a great problem to have and one that has made me a better cook than when I have all the produce I ever desired handed to me in a farmers' market tote. Stretch and you shall build muscle.

A few tips and they all start with b: break out the balsamic and bacon...

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Creamy carbs and bacon. Music to my ears. But lately I've been trying to transform dishes that I really love into lighter version of themselves. And thankfully, many other cooks and recipe developers seem to be thinking the same way.

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Have you ever caramelized fennel? Browning this vegetable in a skillet transforms it into something completely different from its crisp, raw state; all but a trace of the anise flavor melts away and the fennel becomes tender, mellow, and sweet. Caramelized fennel melds perfectly with the textures and flavors of nutty chickpeas, succulent olives, orange, and lemon – and spooned over couscous, it makes a quick-cooking, bright yet hearty dish. More

"Glorious" is truly the proper word to describe Domenica Marchetti's new collection of Italian pasta recipes, The Glorious Pasta of Italy. As Exhibit A, I present to you a fast vegetarian dish with all the luxury you would find in the best restaurant in town. It's a dish for any time of the year: linguine with a garlicky pesto of walnuts, Parmesan, and ricotta. More

I have a confession: Pasta Week is killing me. For medical reasons, I am not eating wheat for 30 days, and unfortunately this is only the third week of the new diet, so mac and cheese, fall vegetable orzo, and — my favorite — pappardelle topped with a rich, meaty tomato sauce are all off-limits. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the same long-simmered sauces I would normally eat over noodles. More

Have you ever thought to add fresh figs to your pasta? Well, why not? This combination of figs, freshly cooked pasta, and creamy goat cheese looks like the perfect way to celebrate the end of summer. More

I have been thinking about orzo this week, trying to figure out what to do with it. I love orzo — its plump, chewy grains so much like rice, but on a grander scale, and with the tenderness of pasta. But I don't cook with it often enough, which seems silly, given how fast it can be. So I mused over what I would really like to eat right now and came back up with all the fall vegetable flavors from last week — caramelized onions, garlic, mushrooms, sweet potato. Preferably dark and caramelized, which is the flavor profile of this whole dish, as it is built from the ground up in one big skillet, browning, caramelizing, and sautéeing until you're left with a big pile of chewy orzo and dark, delicious fall vegetables. More

Fettuccine alfredo is one of those dishes that is somehow more than the sum of its parts. Of course, when those parts are primarily butter, cream, cheese, and pasta, it's extremely hard to go wrong. More