Eating healthfully doesn't have to be tasteless or predictable (aka the ubiquitous boneless, skinless chicken breast...zzz! ). You can jazz up any low-fat meat or fish with a flavorful side like this offering from Melissa Clark of the NYT Cooking section. It's a riff on Spanakorizo, a classic Greek spinach-rice dish. Made with orzo pasta instead of rice, this meatless recipe is loaded with chopped baby spinach (so much that at first you'll think it's too much, but it’s not)

Pasta Fagioli is a hearty Italian soup made with pasta and beans. It was once eaten only by the poor, but it was also Dean Martin's favorite Italian dish. He even sang about it in his hit song, "That's Amore." He called it Pasta Fazool. On a recent snowy day, I made a big pot of Pasta Fazool. Due in part to the frigid weather, I would describe it simply as a "bowl of comfort." Actually, the warm temperature of soup sends signals to our brains that trigger a calming response.

This delightful shrimp pasta is perfect for late summer dining. I like to keep a bag of large frozen shrimp from Costco in my freezer so...

Shrimp Saganaki is a classic Greek dish of shrimp, tomato sauce and feta cheese, cooked in a small frying pan (saganaki). It's often...

This classic marinara recipe in the NYT cooking section is adapted from famous TV chef and cookbook author Lidia Bastianich. She is also...

Here's a healthy suggestion for your summer BBQ sides. In lieu of traditional mayonnaise-laden and calorie-packed macaroni and potato...

This easy-to-make lasagna uses no-boil noodles and a jar of your favorite marinara sauce. The original recipe, from Martha Rose Shulman’s...

This recipe for Italian-inspired turkey meatballs is a sacrilege to traditional Italian cooks because these meatballs are not fried in...

In this delightful recipe adapted from Skinnytaste.com, broccoli florets are cooked together in the same pot with orzo pasta resulting in a rich risotto-like texture. The broccoli florets partially melt into the pasta to give it a green tint. It’s then topped with a low-fat shrimp scampi (achieved with less butter and lots of lemon juice). You can use another small pasta such as orecchiette (Italian for “little ear.”) Any small pasta will do, but orzo best resembles risotto w

I am a bona fide lover of ratatouille, the classic French provincial dish of eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers and tomatoes. Every time I...