This is my main question as well. When you turn off everything that shows under the "recommended" section, that section should automatically be removed and the "pinned" section should expand. I'm not sure why they have it set up to display the blank section, but it makes no sense... it's a poor use of space.
If anyone finds a way to manually remove the recommended section so that the pinned section occupies the whole menu, please let us know. Thanks for the help.