Sauce

Spinach and walnuts go well together and make a great pesto to dress pasta. This recipe is ideal for a quick meal; sometimes I like to add a few tablespoons of fresh ricotta to the pasta.

Everybody loves a quick and tasty pasta dressing, and there is nothing better than a pesto. All you need is a blender. Combine all the ingredients, and—voilà—you have a sauce. Everybody by now is familiar with pesto made with basil and pinoli nuts, but during one of my visits to Sicily, I enjoyed a pleasant pesto surprise: the pinoli were replaced with pistachios. Although Sicily is known for its delicious pistachios, 98 percent of the pistachios eaten in the United States come from California. So do try this pesto rendition.

This is one of those “I have nothing in the refrigerator” dishes. Well, look in the cupboard. Capers, the small unopened buds of the caper bush, have been used for thousands of years. They are mentioned as an ingredient in Gilgamesh, possibly the oldest written story known, which describes events dating back to about 2000 B.C., found on ancient Sumerian clay tablets.

This sauce is wonderful on pound cake, ice cream, and many other desserts.

This sauce makes something special out of plain cake or vanilla ice cream.

To make a tasty cheese sauce for vegetables, add 1/2 cup shredded cheese.