Dairy

"We dine at the Meridian Café whenever we're in Louisville. The portobello mushroom sandwich is our favorite," say Libby and Roys Ellinas of La Grange, Kentucky. "It has a tangy, creamy sauce that we would love to know how to make." Prepare this sandwich with any favorite bread — crusty country bread or artisan-style rolls would be especially good.

The fennel seeds add a nice dimension to these tender scones.

Raita, an Indian yogurt dish used as a condiment, is often made with cucumber or tomatoes. This version features mango. Serve it with the Tandoori Chicken Salad or alongside grilled pork or fish.

This recipe is an accompaniment for Mocha Custards with Buttermilk Doughnuts .

The pink-peppercorn garnish gives this chilled soup a pretty spring look.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Simmering cobs in the corn-broth mixture gives the soup extra flavor.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

The mild flavor of leeks adds a nice touch to the pasta's tomato-based sauce.

Try this cheese-laden side dish with roasted chicken or grilled lamb.

In the recipe below it is not necessary to soak the pasta squares because they are not cut or rolled.

The crust of this tart is tender and quite crumbly.

A mix of butternut and acorn squash makes this soup silky and flavorful. Keep it bubbling on the stove to warm up any roaming ghosts and goblins as they return home from their Halloween rounds.

Ciro Verde of Da Ciro restaurant in New York makes great thin, crispy-crust pizzas. One Saturday at i Trulli restaurant Ciro gave us a pizzamaking lesson. He told us how he had learned to make pizza in Naples and gave us pointers on how best to use a wood-burning oven and how to improve our technique. A highlight of this session was Ciro's recipe for this tasty pie stuffed with robiola cheese and drizzled with truffle oil, which he claims to have invented. First, the dough is flattened with a rolling pin to elminate air pockets. Then the dough is pierced with a docker, an instrument that punctures the dough and helps to prevent it from puffing up too much in the oven. The flattened disk of dough is baked without any topping. When it is partially done, it is removed from the oven, split in half, and spread with cheese, then baked a second time until brown. Just before serving, the pie is drizzled with truffle oil. Since it is so rich, we like it best cut into wedges as an appetizer. Robiola is creamy cow's milk cheese. Soft fresh goat cheese is a good substitute. If you don't have truffle oil, which is available at many gourmet shops, the pizza will taste great anyway.