With slightly bitter kale and radicchio, crispy-salty pancetta, tart apples and sweet maple syrup, this hearty winter salad hits all the right taste buttons. It's also just a beautiful salad. Be sure your apples aren't too sour, especially if using Granny Smith—you'll need a little sweetness to balance out the tartness of the vinaigrette. More

This BLT Bucatini from Domenica Marchetti's The Glorious Pasta of Italy is another fantastically quick pasta to add to your weeknight dinner artillery. The "B" here is really more like a "P," crisp slices pancetta, the "L" is peppery arugula, and the "T," tomatoes of course, and in this case, sweetly roasted cherry tomatoes tossed with olive oil. More

When Bobby Flay decided to tackle mac and cheese for one of his Throwdown! challenges, he set off for Philadelphia to go head-to-head with soul food queen Delilah Widner, of Delilah's. Instead of going the traditional mac route, Flay decided to add a few ingredients from an equally starchy, rich dish, pasta alla carbonara. More

Pumpkin is on everyone's mind (and porch) today, but while there are many great recipes for pumpkin pies, cakes and waffles, there are fewwe great savory pumpkin recipes. The inherent issue with pumpkin is that it's rather sweet, and can tend towards mushy or even slimy if prepared wrong. Tempering the sweetness of the pumpkin with dense Yukon gold potatoes and salty pancetta turns a fantastic ingredient once relegated to soups and sweets into the star of brunch. More

I'm a sucker for quail eggs. Doesn't matter where I am, or what I have planned for dinner, for some reason whenever I run into the cute little eggs I have to buy them. Perhaps it's because they're so cute. Thing is, I really only have one recipe for them, which usually means I am left with a half-filled carton of quail eggs sitting in my fridge (at all times). More

The Lentils with Pancetta have been one of my favorite vegetable antipasti at Otto for ages. On paper, room temperature lentils don't sound like the most exciting prelude to a meal but these little legumes have an intensity of flavor that belies their humble appearance. For a long time I have been trying to figure out what it is that gives them their distinct tang and brightness. More

This Pork Agnolotti with Tomato Marmellata and Crisp Pancetta adapted from the menu that Carbone contributed to Coco was inspired by a BLT, especially the B and T. More

I hardly ever cook with sun-dried tomatoes, mostly because they always seemed like a food fad. I have memories of picking them out of all kinds of things as a kid—salads, pastas—and no great fondness to return to them. Yet it was hard to pass up this recipe, where they work perfectly in a delicious stew of crisp pancetta and soft, caramelized red onions. They melt into the sauce and balance it with a nice acidity and brightness. More

[Photograph: Tara Mataraza Desmond] Even though I've had this Pumpkin Pancetta Soup on my Thanksgiving menu for weeks, and I'm only just getting to it now in the midst of the Great Pumpkin Shortage panic of 2009, I remain undaunted... More