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Indulgent, seasonal, easy, and vegetarian—what more could you ask for?

"Spicy, vibrant watermelon radishes need little more than lemon and herbs to make magic with salty burrata." –Alison Roman, senior associate food editor

Take care with these little shrimp: They'll cook through quickly.

You can substitute whitefish or hot-smoked salmon for the trout.

Homey and comforting, this lovely pie comes together without much fuss. Thin egg noodles are layered with ham, cheese, and mushrooms; tiny peas scattered between the layers add a green burst of flavor. The dish is baked until beautifully golden, sliced like pie, and eaten at room temperature. This is traditionally baked on the day before Easter, to be eaten as part of the family picnics enjoyed on Angel's Monday, Italy's national holiday the day after Easter.

Chef Pairing: The Galvin Brothers with Craig Sandler (WAHR Chefs) and Cara Stadler (JBF Chef)

Adaptions to the original recipe: Prepare any store-bought risotto Fold in a little celery root pureé(vegetable stock and diced celery root cooked until tender, then blended smooth with a little butter added) at the end of cooking would be great. Then omit the more difficult things to make like the distilled apple juice.

Spicy arugula, slightly bitter endive, and sweet fennel come together in a salad with the briny help of coarsely chopped olives in the lemony dressing.

Italian wheat pies—filled with a rich ricotta custard studded with tender wheat berries—are associated with Easter celebrations, but according to author Gina Marie Miraglia Eriquez, rice pies are just as classic and in her estimation, taste better. Eriquez had been making wheat pies for years when she had some extra dough a while back and used it to make a rice pie. "My family went berserk. They went crazy for it!" said Eriquez with a laugh. "Rice is more tender. It has a nicer taste than wheat," she explained. "If you give my family a choice, they're going to ask for the rice before the wheat." The pastry dough, pasta frolla, is delicate and tears easily, so if it softens, quickly chill it in the freezer for a few minutes. And don't worry about the tears; they patch easily.

Pizza rustica looks nothing like the Neopolitan-style pizzas we know so well in this country. That's because pizza in Italian means pie and not all Italian pies are made with a bread dough. Pizza rusticas tend to be double-crusted affairs enclosing a mixture of cheese and nuggets of various cured meats and sausages. With its rich filling, pizza rustica is often served at Easter as a way to celebrate after the lean eating during Lent. In this version, author Gina Marie Miraglia Eriquez makes an open-faced pizza rustica.

There's an entire chicken in this soup, and then some. Not a mistake. You'll pull out the breast early on and use the white meat to garnish the finished bowls, but everything else stays and simmers for hours, enriching the stock with concentrated flavor and lip-smacking body.

Okay, so maybe you don't live across the street from a blooming locust tree—you can still make a killer butter sauce.

One of the most popular items on the Tanoreen menu, this tower of crispy pesto-marinated eggplant slices spread with smoky baba ghanouj, just might be the dish that inspired me to write this cookbook. It draws on the flavors of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, but the truth is, I created it to encourage my son to eat eggplant. He always loved fried zucchini sticks, so I cut eggplant in the same shape and he was none the wiser (although here they're cut in rounds). This is a good example of how I have taken advantage of ingredients that are available to me in the States and married them with the classic preparations from my childhood.

Look for pea shoots at the farmers' market or at Asian markets (though any tender green will work in a pinch).