A lot of the cuisine of Italy can be intimidating, with multiple techniques used to produce a dish, expensive ingredients and complex construction. Many new cooks take a look at some of the more classic “gourmet” Italian recipes and decide such cooking is better left to Olive Garden or Macaroni Grill. This is a mistake, as there are plenty of easy Italian recipes around.

In every ethnic cuisine, the basic cooking is simple. Remember that for most of human history cooking tools were very simple and the availability of complex cooking tools was unknown. There was only heat, a simple pan or two and some basic ingredients.

Take, for example, Shrimp Scampi, one of the most popular Italian restaurant dishes. Done right, it is a marvel of balance, with the richness of butter and the taste of garlic, green onions and white wine. Actually, it’s a very, very simple dish! You just sauté the garlic and onions in olive oil; add the wine, then the butter, then and the shrimp. It’s not hard at all, and the results are fantastic.

Lasagna, believe it or not, is another amazingly simple dish. The layers can look intimidating in the finished product, but it’s basically just a matter of making simple meat and cheese mixtures, then ladling them into a dish in layers separated by noodles. The great thing about lasagna is that it’s fairly foolproof. Get your layers out of order? Forget to put the cheese in one layer? It really won’t matter all that much once everything’s baked together.

And, for dessert, don’t forget the cannoli (hey, it was good enough for “The Godfather,” right?) You can buy cannoli shells at most bakeries, which removes what for most people is the tough part. The filling is simply a mixture of cheeses and flavorings, which is then piped into the shells and decorated. You won’t believe how simple it can be!

There are hundreds of easy Italian recipes out there. All you have to do is get cooking.