Mozzarella

A delicious take on lasagne, made with tube-shaped pasta instead of long noodles.

A satisfying, easy dish that's also versatile: Accompany with sliced melon and some assorted pastries for brunch, or with a green salad and warm focaccia for dinner.

Saturday night is typically pizza-making night for my family, and one of the standard features of these evenings is pizza with pesto and fresh tomatoes. I use a good store-bought pesto, and, although I once made the dough in my bread machine, I now purchase excellent dough at our local Bertucci's restaurant and keep plenty on hand in the freezer. The dinner is simple and delicious. A pizza stone is a worthwhile investment if you're partial to pizza with a crisp crust that doesn’t droop. For this recipe we used a large pizza stone (about 14 inches across). But don’t despair if you don't have one; we also achieved good results when we baked the pizza on a baking sheet.

Purchased Boboli crusts make these pizzas a snap to prepare. Offer prosciutto and melon as another appetizer.

This pie uses pizza toppings as a filling. Serve it with a tossed green salad.

Although we give directions on how to stack the vegetables in these napoleons, feel free to arrange the vegetables and cheeses any way you wish.

These small pizzas from Indigo in Honolulu feature sweet caramelized onions, spicy chicken, and mozzarella, Swiss and provolone cheeses. Refrigerated pizza dough is used here to simplify the recipe. Chili-garlic sauce can be substituted for the Thai chili sauce if necessary.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

The deep hollow created by emptying the bread is filled with lots of goodies, and this becomes a deep-dish pizza.