Wine and potatoes may seem like a strange combination, but this is one way to make your mashed potatoes taste really interesting. Serve with wilted greens tossed with a little red wine, or a fresh green salad dressed with the sherry vinaigrette. These potatoes also complement fresh salmon steaks or fillets.

• In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the wine, shallots, garlic, and freshly ground black pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the volume is reduced to about onefourth the amount you started with, 30–40 minutes. Stir in the cream and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens slightly, about 10 more minutes.
•  Mash the potatoes by hand or put them through a foodmill. Stir in the wine–cream mixture and season with salt and pepper.
•  Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil. Sear the tuna on both sides, leaving it medium-rare—about 3 minutes on each side. Remove from the pan and serve with the mashed potatoes.

Braises are dishes in which meat or poultry is cooked for a long time in liquid. They are the perfect opportunity for using wine because the wine gives the braise an added complexity, but the whole dish cooks for so long that all the alcohol cooks out. If you can’t find or don’t want to use rabbit, you can substitute a whole chicken instead.

• Preheat the oven to 325°F. Heat a large ovenproof skillet with a cover over medium-high heat. Add 11⁄2 tablespoons olive oil to the skillet.
• Season the rabbit or chicken pieces with salt and pepper and lightly dredge them in flour. Sear the seasoned meat in the skillet until golden on all sides. Remove from the skillet and set aside.
• Melt the butter in the skillet. Add the onions, celery, and carrots. Cook, stirring, until the vegetables are lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 2–3 more minutes. Add the tomato puree and stir. Cook 3 more minutes.
•  Add the white wine and bring the whole mixture to a boil. Lower the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is reduced in volume by about half, about 15 minutes. Add the stock, browned meat, olives and their brine, rosemary, tomatoes, and bay leaves.
• Bring the entire mixture back up to a boil, then lower the heat to medium to simmer. Cover the pan and place in the oven for 2 hours, or until the meat is fork-tender.
• Remove from the oven and take the meat out of the sauce. Put it on a plate and set aside. Skim any fat off the sauce. Remove the bay leaves. Serve the meat on a platter over linguine with the sauce ladled on top.

Calmari or squid, isn’t a seafood commonly consumed in the United States except in its deep-fat fried form in restaurants. It is much more popular in the Mediterranean, where you can get it fresh from the sea. It really is delicious, so if you have access to fresh calamari where you live, try this delectable dish.

• Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil over high heat in a large pot or Dutch oven. Add the 1 tablespoon salt, then the spaghetti. Cook 8 minutes, or until al dente. Drain and set aside.
• Meanwhile, heat the olive oil on medium-high in a medium sauce pot. Add the onions, red bell peppers, and jalapeño peppers.
• Cook until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook 2 more minutes.
•  Add the whole peeled tomatoes and pickled peppers and cook another 15–20 minutes. Add the parsley and oregano and check the seasoning, adding salt and pepper if necessary or some of the vinegar from the cherry peppers if you want a piquant sauce.
•  Using a tomato or potato masher, crush the tomatoes and peppers together. If you don’t have a masher, use a food processor or a blender, but pulse only. You don’t want a smooth puree.
•  Add the calamari to the sauce and heat it through, about 3 minutes.
• Add the pasta to the sauce. Toss to coat. Serve hot, garnished with grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, accompanied by a crusty baguette and red wine.

This dinner is easy to make but very impressive, so it’s a fun meal to serve to friends or on special occasions. Kids will love using the mini pumpkins as bowls.

FOR THE COUSCOUS

• Place the couscous in a bowl. Stir in the curry powder, then add the hot water. Set aside and let the couscous “bloom” (swell until it has absorbed all the water). This should take about 15 minutes.
•  When the couscous has bloomed, add the carrots and currants and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.

FOR THE PUMPKINS

 

•  Cut the tops off of the pumpkins to expose the seeds. Scoop out the seeds.
• Place the pumpkins and tops in a large pot with the remaining ingredients, except for the shrimp and garnishes, over high heat. Heat to a boil.
•  Turn the heat down to medium-low and simmer the pumpkins until they are tender but not falling apart, about 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and strain the broth. Set the broth aside.
•  Preheat the oven to 400°F. Stuff three shrimp into each pumpkin. Place the pumpkins in a shallow casserole and add 1⁄2 cup of the broth to the casserole. Bake until the shrimp are done, about 10 minutes.
• To serve, mound the couscous into four shallow bowls. Place a pumpkin on top. Replace the tops on the pumpkins. Pour the broth around. Garnish with chopped cilantro and toasted pumpkin seeds.

This classic Italian dish is perfect for Sunday dinner when you have time to spend preparing something really special. The meat is braised in a rich concoction of high-flavor summer vegetables and olives. If you don’t want to try rabbit or it’s not available, you can easily substitute chicken legs.

• In a large bowl, combine the mustard seeds, peppercorns, tarragon, garlic, and white wine. Add the rabbit or chicken legs and turn to coat in the marinade. Let them marinate at room temperature for 3 hours or in the refrigerator overnight.
• Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the olive oil. Take the rabbit or chicken legs out of the marinade and season with salt and pepper. Reserve the marinade. Dredge the meat in flour (shake off excess). Place the rabbit or chicken in the skillet and brown on all sides. Do not overcrowd the pan.
• Preheat the oven to 325°F. Put the meat in a casserole dish. Keep the skillet ready.
• Add the onions, celery, carrots, and olives to the skillet. Cook until the vegetables are browned, about 10 minutes. Add half the garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Add the tomato puree and crushed tomatoes and brown carefully without scorching, about 5 minutes.
•  In a separate small saucepan, heat the marinade you used for the meat over medium-high heat until it is reduced by half, about 15 minutes. Add the marinade to the tomato mixture along with the stock, scraping up any browned bits.
• Pour the tomato mixture over the rabbit or chicken in the casserole dish and top with the whole rosemary sprigs and bay leaves. Cover and bake for 2 hours. The meat should be falling off the bone. If it isn’t, keep baking and check every 15 minutes.
•  Put the meat on a platter and pull it off the bones. Set the meat aside. Remove the rosemary sprigs and bay leaves, and puree the sauce with an immersion blender, or in small batches (carefully!) in a blender or food processor. Strain the sauce through a fine-mesh strainer, pushing on it with a spoon to get as much sauce as possible. Set aside.
• Heat the skillet again over medium heat. Add the butter.
• When the butter begins to foam, add the mushrooms and cook until they soften, about 5 minutes. Add the rest of the garlic and the plum tomatoes and cook 2 more minutes. Add the vegetable sauce, the chopped rosemary, and the thyme. Add the rabbit or chicken meat and bring the whole mixture to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes, then ladle over hot pasta or gnocchi and toss to coat. If you wish, you can serve on a base of wilted greens.

THE FRENCH AND THE AMERICANS may be proud of their steaks but, for me, the Italians win hands down. Nothing can compare to a tagliata (pronounced “tallyata”) in its full glory: a vast, juicy, rare steak, big enough for a tableful of people, cut into thin slices (tagliare simply means to cut) and served most often over arugula and with some Parmesan shaved on top. I’ve given recipes for just such a dish before, but it seemed to me that it might be possible to downsize a little, making this a more easily accomplished dish for a midweek meat feast.

• Heat a grill pan, or cast-iron or heavy non-stick frying pan.
• In a small dish that can take the steak snugly later, combine the extra-virgin olive oil, red pepper flakes, dried oregano, salt, and red wine vinegar.
• Oil the steak lightly and put it in the hot pan and cook for 2 minutes on each side, then remove it to the dish of spicy marinade and sit the cooked steak for 2 minutes a side in the dish. Your steak will be rare, but that’s the way it’s meant to be—although if you want to cook it for longer, I won’t stop you.
• Remove the steeped steak to a board, ready for slicing, and while it sits there, arrange the cherry tomatoes, cut-side down, in the marinade dish. Cut the steak into thin slices on the diagonal and arrange on a serving dish or 2 dinner plates.
• Smoosh the tomatoes around in the marinade, then pour them, and the marinade, over the ribbons of meat. Add a few leaves of fresh oregano, if you can get them, and serve immediately.

ITALIANS ARE VERY GOOD AT FINDING WAYS of elevating the less costly cuts of meat in their cooking. Although beef pizzaiola emanates from Naples, you’ll find it (and, more commonly, veal as well as fish steaks cooked this way) throughout Italy. It’s a cheerful, punchy little number, taking its name, as is self-explanatory, from the fact that it tastes rather like a pizza topping. Tomatoes, oregano, and garlic are pretty much always in evidence, with frequent sightings of olives and capers; I like to add anchovies and a sprinkle of crushed red pepper flakes, too.

• Warm the garlic-flavored oil in a non-stick frying pan that will contain all 4 steaks or escalopes snugly; I use one with a diameter of 11 inches.
• When the oil is hot, fry the steaks or escalopes over a high heat for 30 seconds a side (for medium-rare, longer if you must), then take the pan off the heat, transfer the steaks to a large piece of aluminum foil and make a loose but tightly sealed package. I don’t salt the meat at this stage, as I would do normally, since the oil-cured olives are intensely salty. If using regular pitted olives, add a pinch of salt to each steak.
• Put the pan back on the heat and add the anchovy fillets, stirring and squishing them down with a wooden spoon or similar until they start to dissolve into the oil. Stir in the dried oregano and red pepper flakes.
• Now tumble in the halved tomatoes along with the olives and capers and the red vermouth, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the water and cook for 1 further minute.
• Acting fast, while the sauce is cooking, unwrap the steaks, slice and arrange them on a platter, pouring the juices that have collected in the foil into the pan. Now pour the contents of the pan over and sprinkle with the parsley.
• Serve immediately, and if you want to feed 4 rather than 2, I’d simply add more than one side dish, remembering that the piquancy of the sauce already helps it to go further

It’s certainly a simple recipe to do. And that’s why it’s here, despite the fact that it needs about 1¼ hours to cook. The thing about this is that it is quick to stuff and roll and then you’ve got nothing to do, which means it is perfect for keeping you calm and your guests contented when you have people over for dinner.

• Preheat the oven to 400°F. Open up the loin of pork, ready for stuffing, by laying it out in front of you vertically so that the thick part is on the left (I’m right-handed). Now, starting at the top, cut through this thick part of the loin, all the way down, so that you can open it out to the left like a book. This will give you a larger surface area to lay the filling on.
• Grate or mince the garlic cloves, and spread the pungent purée all over the meat. Then take the leaves from a few sprigs of oregano and dot them about too; keep the stalks.
• Lay the pieces of ham horizontally over the pork loin; this way it will roll up more easily as the roll will follow the long length of the ham slices.
• Sprinkle the red pepper flakes over the ham and then roll up the loin, starting from the opened end side, keeping as tight a roll as you can. Secure the meat with string at 1¼- to 1½-inch intervals, knotting the lengths of string firmly. If you’re using stationer’s string rather than cook’s twine, dampen it first. I wish I could instruct you as to how to tie proper knots, but I do very bad knots myself. If you have the offer of a friendly hand—or rather finger—to hold the knot down as you tie it, take it gratefully.
• Cut the onion into thick slices without peeling it, and sit them in the bottom of a roasting pan to make the flavor platform for the pork. Add the reserved stalks from the oregano, sit the loin on top and drizzle with the oil.
• Cook for 1¼ hours; when it’s cooked, the juices must run clear when you put a skewer into the center and a meat thermometer should read 160°F.
• Transfer the pan to a heatproof kitchen surface, immediately pour the vermouth and boiling water into the pan, and scrape all around the bottom of the pan so any oniony, meaty stuck-on bits dissolve into this instant gravy. You can let the meat rest in this sauce for 15 minutes or so.
• When you are ready to slice the pork, remove it to a board and warm the gravy (removing the onion bits) if it’s cooled. Cut the meat into approximately ¾-inch slices; in other words, thick enough for the slices to keep their shape and hold the filling. Discard the string as you go. This size cut should give you 10 good slices plus the misshapen end pieces.
• Arrange these sturdy slices on a bed of arugula with the gravy served separately in a little jug, or just sit them on a warm platter and pour over them a little gravy or any extra juices the meat has made. Take some more oregano leaves and strew them over the pork slices before serving.

This spicy sausage originated in North Africa but is also popular in France. Shaped into small patties, merguez makes a good appetizer or can be part of a meze platter. For a meal, serve this with couscous, pita wedges, and a crisp green salad or stuff them into pita bread halves topped with cucumbers, scallions, lettuce, and plain yogurt or Mint Yogurt.

•  Combine all the ingredients in a stand mixer with a paddle or with your hands. Add more or less water to get a consistency you can easily form into patties.
•  Form the meat into small patties, about 2 inches in diameter.
•  Heat a cast iron skillet or heavy sauté pan over medium heat. Cook the patties in batches until done, about 5 minutes on each side. Serve warm.

Farro is such an overlooked grain, and so delicious, especially the farro produced by Anson Mills. This salad has the classic Mediterranean sweet-and-sour flavor called agrodolce. It is wonderful served at room temperature with hot dishes like lamb or grilled fish, or served cold as part of an antipasto. I often eat a bowl of this for lunch.

• Cover the farro with cold water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil over high heat. When it boils, remove it from the heat and strain off the cooking liquid. Repeat this process again with more water, but when the farro comes to a boil, lower the heat to medium and simmer until the farro is tender, about 10 minutes. Drain the farro.
• Add the pine nuts, scallions, plumped raisins, thyme, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Serve at room temperature or chilled.