Picnic season is here! We’re enjoying a lovely spring here in Kansas City. Our homegrown tomatoes won’t be ready for a while, but I’m sharing my favorite picnic sandwich with you since I can find great tomatoes at the store now.

This Caprese sandwich recipe is inspired by the classic Caprese salad. It features ripe red tomatoes and sliced fresh mozzarella with the most irresistible creamy basil sauce. For extra flavor, I also added a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar and a small handful of arugula.

Sandwich all of that inside a crusty loaf of French baguette, and you will have a perfectly portable sandwich for picnics or road trips. Or, enjoy it at home for a quick meal from now through the end of tomato season this fall.

This tomato and mozzarella sandwich is a terrific vegetarian sandwich that offers a surprising amount of protein, thanks to the cheese. This recipe is my homemade rendition of my go-to sandwich at our local French café. They’ve just added it back to the menu, so I’m excited that I can order it there or make one at home. Now you can, too.

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Broccoli, pesto, and green olives—believe it! This pasta recipe tastes so fresh. It’s perfectly suited for springtime dinners, though I think you’ll want to keep it in your repertoire for the rest of the year.

I wouldn’t have come up with this pasta combination myself, so I’m glad I found the recipe in my friend Kelly Senyei’s new cookbook, The Secret Ingredient Cookbook. You might know Kelly from her blog, Just a Taste. Kelly is a delightful person, a professionally trained chef and a hard-working mom to three boys, all under the age of five.

Kelly’s new cookbook offers 125 family-friendly recipes with fun secret ingredient twists. I don’t want to spoil all the surprises, but I’m looking forward to trying the Caesar pasta salad (with avocado), Greek chopped salad (with halloumi cheese), 30-minute mac and cheese (with pumpkin) and mushroom ravioli with brown butter sauce (with goat cheese, and made entirely from scratch). And good gracious, wait until you see the desserts.

This broccoli pesto pasta recipe includes green olives as the secret ingredient. They offer a delicious briny olive flavor and cover up the flavor of the broccoli. She says her boys absolutely love this dish, so this dish is designed for the whole family. I found some ricotta in my fridge and really enjoyed a few dollops over my bowl. Serve it as you please!

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Make this easy red pizza sauce recipe for your homemade pizzas! It comes together with basic pantry ingredients in about five minutes, no cooking required. It’s like magic.

This recipe yields classic Italian pizza sauce for your home-baked pizza pies. Despite its quick preparation, this sauce tastes rich and full of flavor, which further develops during the pizza’s blast in a high-heat oven.

I like my sauce to have a bit of texture to it, and this sauce strikes the perfect balance. Many pizza sauces are either thick and dull or watery and flavorless. Not this one.

I originally developed this sauce recipe for a pizza recipe in my cookbook, Love Real Food. Since I just re-shared my favorite pizza dough recipe, I’m providing my go-to pizza sauce to go along with it.

Both the dough and the sauce come together very quickly, so you can enjoy homemade pizza with minimal fuss. How about pizza tonight?

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As a vegetarian for over a decade, I’ve eaten quite a few veggie pizzas. Truly fantastic veggie pizzas are few and far between. So, I combined all of the elements I’ve enjoyed over the years to create my own “ultimate” veggie pizza recipe. This is the best homemade veggie pizza I’ve ever had, and I hope you’ll say the same!

This vegetarian pizza recipe will delight vegetarians and carnivores alike. It’s fresh and full of flavor, featuring cherry tomatoes, artichoke, bell pepper, olives, red onion and some hidden (and optional) baby spinach. You’ll find a base of rich tomato sauce and golden, bubbling mozzarella underneath, of course.

The trick with loaded veggie pizzas, as many pizza shops seem to forget, is that they require a few extra minutes in the oven to develop full flavor and structure. Don’t stop baking until the cheese is deeply golden in spots. Otherwise, you might end up with floppy pizza that doesn’t live up to its true potential.

Start with my easy whole wheat pizza dough, and this recipe is ready in about 45 minutes, start to finish. This vegetable pizza is quicker and healthier than delivery!

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How about pizza tonight? Homemade pizza nights should be fun and easy, and that’s where this pizza dough recipe comes into play. It’s ready in 15 minutes, start to finish. That’s a lot faster than delivery!

This quick whole wheat pizza dough recipe yields a crust of medium thickness. It’s crisp across the bottom and a little chewy in the middle. It has a lovely, yeasty flavor with just a hint of whole wheat. I love this dough so much that I shared it in my cookbook, Love Real Food.

This dough doesn’t have the elusive, stretchy, chewy, sourdough texture that I crave in authentic brick oven pizza. This homemade dough is fantastic, though. A few reasons to love this recipe:

• It’s made from scratch with basic, wholesome ingredients.
• You can make it in your food processor (or by hand).
• This dough requires zero proofing time. You can make your pizzas right away.
• The dough requires minimal effort—just a couple of kneads and a few rolls with a rolling pin.

Let’s make some pizzas!

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We’re going back to Sicily! Pasta alla Norma is a delicious Sicilian pasta dish with eggplant, marinara and basil. I’m excited to introduce you to this dish because it is a completely satisfying vegetarian dinner. If you enjoy eggplant Parmesan, you’re going to love pasta alla Norma. I’m craving a bowl as I type.

Most pasta alla Norma recipes are made with fried eggplant, but this recipe features roasted eggplant. Eggplant really absorbs oil like a sponge, so this lightens up the dish. Another plus? Roasting eggplant is easier and less messy.

I further lightened this classic recipe by using more eggplant and less pasta, so this dish won’t put you to sleep. It’s nice and saucy, just the way I like it.

I don’t speak Italian, so I first assumed that “norma” meant eggplant. Not the case! Norma is capitalized because she’s a lady. Or an opera, depending on how you look at it.

Here’s the backstory: Pasta alla Norma comes from Catania, a city on the eastern coast of Sicily. Catania is the hometown of Vincenzo Bellini, an Italian opera composer who lived in the early 1800s. One of Bellini’s most famous operas, Norma, is named after its lead character.

Folklore has it that playwright Nino Martoglio, after his first bite of this pasta dish, exclaimed, “Chista è ‘na vera Norma!” (“This is a true Norma!”) That’s quite a compliment.

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Let’s make homemade caponata! This classic Sicilian appetizer or side dish is perfect for late summer meals. This recipe combines roasted (not fried) eggplant with sautéed bell pepper, celery, tomatoes, olives and capers. Red wine vinegar and honey make it irresistibly tangy and sweet. If you generally enjoy these bold flavors, you’re going to love caponata.

Since international travel is largely off the table, I’ve been traveling vicariously through my food. This caponata is the perfect example. I’ve yet to make my way to Sicily to sample authentic caponata, but learning to make this dish has deepened my desire to explore the island. Mark my words, I’ll get there someday.

Caponata recipes vary from region to region and household to household. This recipe is where I landed. I took some cooking cues from my ratatouille recipe, which also features roasted eggplant stirred into a simmering tomato sauce. Caponata’s flavors are even deeper and more complex largely due to the intense agrodolce factor, or the interplay between sweet (honey and raisins) and sour (vinegar and capers).

I can’t claim this recipe is entirely authentic, but I hope it offers you a little taste of Sicily.

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Who doesn’t love golden, crisp crostini? Crostini is crusty bread brushed with olive oil, toasted in the oven or in the grill to perfection. I love how it shatters between my teeth, offering the perfect contrast to a creamy spread or dip.

The word crostini means “little crusts” in Italian. I typically associate crostini with party appetizers and cheese plates, but you don’t have to throw a party to enjoy these little toasts.

For example, you can resuscitate a stale baguette by turning it into crostini. You can whip together a fun lunch or snack in no time with crostini and condiments from your fridge. Or you can make an everyday dinner more festive by starting with a round of crostini and a creamy spread. Crostini is the answer!

I recently baked up some crostini to accompany my upcoming caponata recipe. As I consulted my bruschetta recipe for guidance, I realized that I must not be the only person wondering how to make crostini. So here I am, waxing poetic about Italian toasts. Did you know that the singular form of crostini is crostino?

Today, I’m sharing all my best crostini topping suggestions and a simple, foolproof recipe for homemade crostini. Do tell me how you enjoy your crostini in the comments!

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My grandma Virginia makes the best garlic bread. It’s soft and buttery in the middle, irresistibly garlicky, and we all love it. Amongst a family of picky kids, the garlic bread was always a winner.

This garlic bread recipe brings back warm memories, although it’s quite a bit different. This bread is crisp and crusty with deep roasted garlic flavor. Since roasted garlic is inherently buttery in flavor and texture, I was able to cut the amount of butter in half.

I’ve had this recipe in my back pocket since sharing my tutorial on how to roast garlic. I second-guessed publishing it, since this recipe takes longer to make than your average garlic bread. On the other hand, it’s a simple, comforting side dish that goes well with many homemade meals.

If you’re making some saucy pasta tonight, how about a side of garlic bread? I’m working hard on a pantry resource guide for you and will be back soon.

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Spring is here! It switched on like a light bulb about a week ago in Kansas City. The daffodils are on their way up, the birds are chirping, and Cookie and I are thrilled. I’m literally humming, “The hills are alive,” on our walks around the neighborhood.

Today, I wanted to share a shockingly green pasta dish with you. It’s easy to make, nourishing and comforting, which is exactly what we need right now. I wouldn’t blame you if you find the color off-putting, but I promise it’s so tasty!

The cool thing about this dish is that we use the same pot of water to cook the kale (including the kale stems), pasta and peas. You’ll need to set a few timers. It’s not complicated, but maybe wait to pour another glass of wine until you’re sitting down to eat.

Once it all comes together, this dish almost tastes like deconstructed ravioli. It’s bright green and punctuated with tender peas and creamy ricotta. Make some for dinner tonight?

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