Italian lunch/8 recipes

A very clean and fresh traditional middle-eastern salad.

Refreshing and packed with goodness. This easy sandwich is a great breakfast to start up a new day or a quick-fixing lunch.

Chock full of Italian inspired ingredients. This pasta salad is sure to please.

A hearty and warm choice for those cold winter nights.

Fresh cherry tomatoes, basil, and toasted almonds make this fresh pesto that highlights the fresh ingredients. A very quick, easy and delicious dish! Originates from the Italian village of Trapani on the tip of Sicily.

This delicious garden spaghetti sauce is packed with goodness and yumminess. It's thick, tasty and goes deliciously well with any recipe that calls for spaghetti sauce.

I love cooking with tofu because of its versatilities. Borrowed the idea from chicken cacciatore, but instead I used tofu, and it actually came out delicious.

Using cooked short-grain brown rice makes this super quick and tasty Asian risotto, it can be an appetizer or a simply delicious meal!

Fresh summer vegetables that are easy to find in the store or easily grow in your garden make this delicious and succulent spaghetti sauce.

Refrigerated biscuit dough is used in this recipe. Fill with your favorite jam or preserves, if you like.

The recipe was given to me a dozen years ago at a soccer game. It is a delicious version of a famous Italian soup.

I loved the mixture of the parmesan and swiss cheeses in this. I didn't realize I was almost out of rice so I ended up using 1.5c cooked rice and 0.5c cooked couscous. That turned out wonderful! I thought this would be more "tomato-y", and I used 1.5 cups of tomatoes, but it was still tasty. Also, I didn't bother to peel or seed the tomatoes.

It's hard to go wrong with a combination of bacon and cheddar, especially when it comes down to twice baked potatoes.

A refreshing, tasty and light salad is made with crunchy lotus roots, carrot, celery and wood ears, tossed with a flavorful soy-ginger dressing. Make it a day ahead, keep in the refrigerator overnight.

A refreshing twist on classic Salisbury steaks. The added sweet red bell pepper, scallions and ginger really boost the flavor of the steak. The watercress gives a nutritional boost. This recipe could work equally as well served on a bed of mashed potatoes with gravy instead of the watercress.

There are lots of good-for-you stuff in this stew, and it's also very tasty. A deliciously warm stew is perfect on a cool fall day.