From the book Everyday Food: Great Food Fast, here is a quick dish to make with seasonal asparagus and fresh dill. If you can boil water and cut vegetables, you can make this dish! If you don’t have fettuccine noodles, use another thick-stranded pasta such as linguini.

1/4 cup pine nuts
3/4 lb fettuccine
2 bunches asparagus, trimmed
4 oz creamy goat cheese, broken into pieces
2 tbsp grainy mustard
2 tbsp snipped fresh dill leaves

Halve asparagus length-wise and cut cross-wise into third. In a small skillet over medium heat, toast pine nuts, stirring often, until golden, about 3 minutes. Set aside.

In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the fettuccine until al dente (8-10 minutes), according to package directions. Add asparagus during the last 5 minutes of cooking. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water and drain the rest.

Return pasta, asparagus, and reserved pasta water to pot. Toss with the goat cheese, mustard, dill, and toasted pine nuts. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Shown below with Cucumber Onion Salad and home-grown tomatoes:

I’m back in the kitchen, shaking and baking! Here is another Jenn Original Recipe, enjoy!

3 cups cooked rice, white or brown
1 jar (14 oz) pizza sauce
1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese, divided
sliced pepperoni
1 can (4 oz) sliced mushrooms, drained well

Preheat oven to 350F

Combine cooked rice with pizza sauce and spread in the bottom of a greased baking dish. Top with 1 cup mozzarella cheese. Create a layer with pepperoni slices, allowing for some overlap. Place mushrooms in an even layer over pepperoni. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese on top.

Bake uncovered 15-20 minutes or until toppings are done. Let sit 5 minutes before serving. Cut into wedges or slices.

Additional toppings can be added or substituted, depending on what you like on your pizza!

Inspired by the recipe “Alessandro Giuntoli’s Pasta With Red Wine.”

1 lb spaghetti
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp basil
1 bottle dry red table wine
fresh ground black pepper
1 tbsp butter

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Place oil, garlic and basil in a large, deep skillet. When water begins to boil, add salt and pasta then turn heat under skillet to high. Cook pasta as usual, stirring. As soon as garlic begins to brown, sprinkle with pepper and add about 2 cups of wine (3/4 of the bottle), bring to a boil and maintain there (garlic will look bright pink at first, but don’t panic).

When pasta beings to bend, after about 5 minutes of cooking, drain it and add it to simmering wine mixture. Cook, stirring frequently to coat pasta, adding wine a little at a time if the mixture starts to dry out completely.

Test pasta every couple minutes. When it is done, tender but with a little bite to it, stir in the butter and turn off the heat. Pour into a warmed bowl.

Extra Credit: saute sliced mushrooms in remaining 1/4 bottle of wine and 1 tbsp of butter.

This is a quick and easy meal I found in a magazine I just happened to grab at the checkout counter. It’s actually pretty fun to make (though I’m not sure if it counts as “cooking”).

1 box packaged macaroni & cheese dinner (such as Kraft)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 jar or can (approx 14 oz) pizza sauce
40 pepperoni slices
1 1/2 to 2 cups mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 2 to 3 quart baking pan.

Prepare macaroni & cheese dinner according to packaged directions. Fold in eggs and spread into prepared baking pan.

Top macaroni evenly with pizza sauce the place pepperoni slices in an even layer. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese until covered.

Bake uncovered for 25-30 minutes or until bubbly and cheese starts to brown lightly. Let sit five minutes before serving.

Serve with garlic bread.

Optional: while dinner is baking, saute some mushrooms, peppers or other favorite pizza toppings to serve along side.

The appeal of this dish is that it takes only 5 ingredients (though if you count the butter and milk you need to make the mac & cheese, it’s actually 7). The flavor of the mac & cheese seemed to get lost after baking, on the next attempt I may try Velveeta Shells ‘n Cheese since it has a stronger flavor.

From Mario Batali of Food Network’s Iron Chef, this is a recipe James made for me for my birthday. He found it in Maxim magazine under the title “Six Ingredients to Seduction” (subtitle: cook her pants off). All eye rolling aside, this was a very tasty dish and it was quite sweet of him to make me dinner. All by himself. Well, almost…I supervised.

4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp hot chili flakes (or red pepper flakes)
1 lb heirloom tomatoes, chopped in 1/2 inch cubes, with all the juices
12 basil leaves, torn in half
1/2 lb spaghetti

Boil six quarts of water with 2 tbsp salt. Meanwhile, heat a 10- to 12-inch saute pan over medium heat and add the oil, garlic, and chili flakes. Cook until garlic is golden brown, about one minute.

Dump tomatoes in saute pan and bring to a splashy boil (about five minutes). Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper, and set aside.

Drop the pasta into the boiling water and cook one minute less than the package instructions suggest. Drain the pasta in a colander, toss into the pan with the tomato mixture, and place over medium-high heat.

Toss for 30 seconds, add basil, and toss again. Pour into a warmed salad bowl. Grate Parmigiano-Reggiano to taste, dim the lights, and serve with two forks.