Martha Holmberg

Don't have a clue what to fix for dinner tonight? This dish is always a great solution to that problem. The tomatoes and parsley are the only fresh ingredients you need; everything else is probably in your fridge or pantry. For a splurge, use Spanish tuna in olive oil; for a bargain, try Genova brand, also in olive oil but half the price.

I'm a big fan of cherry tomatoes because you can find reliably flavorful ones even in wintertime. I think the best selection for this sauce is a mix of fruity and sweet orange Sun Golds (my favorite tomato; I plant about a dozen bushes every year) and a basic red cherry. You could make this sauce with chunks of larger tomatoes, too, but only if they're brightly acidic, the way even ho-hum cherry tomatoes tend to be. This sauce is a pleasure simply tossed with penne and a handful of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. But it's also delicious on grilled polenta or grilled fish. My favorite destination for this sauce is this angel hair dish.

Lemon curd whizzed in a food processor for a minute or so becomes a lighter-than-air, creamy sauce for these sweet and tangy dessert crepes, which were created by pastry chef and cookbook author Kir Jensen of The Sugar Cube food cart in Portland, Oregon. If you're using fresh rhubarb, pick out the darkest red stalks you can find—they have the best flavor and color.

Kir Jensen, a pastry chef and owner of The Sugar Cube food cart in Portland, Oregon, created these crepes to go with the roasted rhubarb and lemon cream recipes. But these nutty crepes would be great in many of the sweet recipes in this book, or eaten on their own with just a smear of butter and a drizzle of honey. Look for almond paste and almond meal in the baking section of your local supermarket. (When choosing almond paste, avoid marzipan, which is not the same thing.) Almond meal is very finely ground almonds; it's like a coarse flour.