For a quick and satisfying last-minute supper, it’s hard to beat a sweet potato zapped in the microwave. The fragrant filling of beans and tomato adds protein, making it a nutritionally complete entree. Be sure to eat the potato skin; it’s full of fiber.
This baked green rice casserole is adapted from a 1967 edition of "The Joy of Cooking." Instead of the original white rice called for, use brown. In place of parsley, add plenty of fresh spinach. Frozen, thawed spinach works just as well; in either case, thoroughly dry the spinach before using it (a salad spinner for fresh spinach and a sieve for thawed). With brown rice, there are few shortcuts. It takes 40 minutes to cook it until tender, and after you add spinach, eggs, milk, and cheese, the casserole bakes for up to an hour, so plan accordingly.
Good flour tortillas are made locally by Maria and Ricardo's tortilla company; they're at Harvest Co-op Markets and Whole Foods Markets. Or use the flour tortillas from Trader Joe's. For the hot sauce, Cholula is commonly available and a nice addition here.
Amherst cooking teacher and author Betty Rosbottom tosses pasta with a spicy tomato sauce, plain havarti and Parmesan cheeses, and tops the dish with slivered black olives. The dish appeared in one of her books, "American Favorites," and was on the cover of Bon Appetit magazine.
The twisted pasta called strozzapreti ("priest stranglers") particularly suits this simple ricotta, fontina, and egg mixture, which catches in the curves of each loop. The dish is layered with mozzarella and topped with crumbs, which brown during baking. The end result is lighter than most mac and cheeses.
Even right off their prolific vines, summer squash can be watery and sometimes bitter. Cook them slowly in plenty of olive oil and they turn sweet but stay moist and summery, so you can take advantage of the beautiful golden color. As you cook the sliced squash, mash the rounds against the sides of the skillet to break them up. Then toss the squash with rigatoni, leaves of fresh basil, and crumbled goat cheese. The bright yellow pieces of squash coat the tubular pasta and the mixture tastes as creamy as if you had added a white sauce.
At Rice Valley in Newton, cooks use silken tofu, which they steam with shreds of ginger and scallion. Then they bathe the cubes in hot soy sauce and chicken broth. You don’t need a wok or steamer. Use a deep 12-inch skillet and round cake rack. Serve with white or brown rice.