Easier Italian Favorites

• recipe

  Hearty Minestrone

  Italians rely on garden-ripe vegetables, but most of us need to make do with supermarket pickings. Is a soup with fresh, bright flavors still possible?

• recipe

  Almost Hands-Free Risotto with Parmesan and Herbs

  Classic risotto can demand half an hour of stovetop tedium for the best creamy results. Our goal was five minutes of stirring, tops.

• equipment

  Cleaning Robots

  There’s nothing like relaxing while someone else works. And when the “someone else” is a robot, there’s not even any guilt attached.