I have so many favorite pasta recipes that they are a bit like shoes or sweaters; sometimes you will forget about one for years and years and then it becomes your favorite again. Or perhaps there are just certain ones that you always pull out for certain occasions.

When I have someone special over for the first time or a good friend that I haven’t seen in a while, I make gnocchi from scratch. When I am in a hurry, I make super simple tomato sauce with an interestingly shaped pasta or angel hair with white wine and cherry tomatoes.

But I realized the other day that I had simply not made pasta – at all – for quite a while. Fall was hitting hard (in fact, I think it may have set in mid-August this year), and it was time for warm, delicious comfort food. Which, to me, means pasta of course.

For a recent dinner with some wonderful new friends in attendance, I made a few of my favorite pastas. I hope that you enjoy them as well!

• Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Sage Brown Butter Sauce
• Pasta alla Siciliana
• Cappellini with White Wine and Cherry Tomato Sauce