Michael Lomonaco

The small potatoes known as fingerlings have a sweet, buttery flavor. Small redskinned potatoes would work well, too.

Japanese horseradish gives these a bit of heat. Great with steak or prime rib, too.

Over-the-top delicious.

These will add a southwestern-style kick to your Thanksgiving menu.

There's no tomato or mozzarella on this flatbread. Instead, we have sausage, sweet bell peppers, and Asiago cheese, just one example of how you can devise a simple but original pizza by drawing on just a handful of ingredients.

Harmony is achieved in a dish when contrasting flavors combine to create balance. In this dish, the black pepper and bourbon add a real jolt of flavor that's miraculously mellowed by the cream and butter.

The simplicity of this pasta dish lets the escarole shine. Excellent as an entrée or as a first course served before roasted chicken or beef.

A little blanching and sautéing is all it takes to tenderize the collard greens for this easy Moroccan-inspired dish.

We all have memories either of great or terrible meatloaf meals from childhood. My mom's meatloaf is a fond food memory. It was always moist and juicy, with a touch of Italy from the tomatoes and pecorino Romano cheese. It also passed the test of any respectable meatloaf: it made good sandwiches the next day.

One of my favorite classic bistro dishes is steak Diane, a paragon of quick cooking that finds steak swathed in a cream sauce mightily seasoned with mustard and enhanced with cognac. The next time you feel yourself feeling those bistro pangs, try my take on steak Diane, made with chicken instead of beef, and my version of the traditional sauce with shallots and mustard. Roasted garlic mashed potatoes is a perfect accompaniment; the potatoes will soak up the sauce. Or serve it with fries and an ice-cold Belgian beer.

Here's a very simple trick for making pasta dishes as delicious as possible: cook them in the classic Italian fashion by adding almost-cooked, drained pasta to the pan or pot with the sauce and let it finish cooking there. Instead of swelling with more salted water during the final minutes, it'll drink in as much flavor as possible, in this case, the potent essence of sautéed mushrooms, red onion, cream, and herbs.