Blender

Strawberries and kiwi wedges are threaded onto lemongrass skewers for a fun garnish. To make the skewers, cut a four-inch piece from the tough end of a lemongrass stalk, then peel away the outer layers until only a 1/4-inch-diameter skewer remains. (Look for lemongrass in the produce section of some supermarkets and at Asian markets.)

This recipe combines the cool taste of cucumber with the flavors of a Bloody Mary. You'll have to prepare 2 batches for 12 drinks. If you have a small blender, you may have to make smaller batches.

You'll have some leftover creamy ginger soy dressing for salad later in the week.

Pair this surf-and-turf dish with white rice to soak up the delicious rock-shrimp sauce — a quick and easy variation on Marcella Hazan's pink shrimp sauce (from "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking"), which she serves over pasta.

Adobo is the spicy tomato sauce that comes in the can with chipotle chiles. Look for canned chipotles at supermarkets, specialty foods stores, and Latin markets.

In this recipe, a long marinating time allows many powerful ingredients to penetrate the skirt steak: the acid in balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce doesn't just flavor the meat; it also breaks down connective tissues, making the meat tender. Serve this with tabbouleh salad or stewed tomatoes.

Editor's note: This recipe is adapted from Gabrielle Carbone, coproprietor of The Bent Spoon ice cream parlor in Princeton, New Jersey. My husband Matt and I created this recipe long before we opened The Bent Spoon. We have such special memories of picking baskets full of strawberries and making them into this bright reddish-pink sorbet, which captures their fresh-picked essence. We now use it in the top layer in our red, white, and blue cake. Because it's such a simple recipe, it's important to get fresh, organic berries picked at the height of their flavor. At the shop, we don't strain them — we like to keep the fruit as close to its natural state as possible. But if you dislike bits of seeds in your sorbet, feel free to strain the base before chilling it. The quality of the water is important as well — if your water has a bad aftertaste, so will your sorbet — so we recommend using bottled. The optional egg white helps to stabilize, emulsify, and preserve the texture of the sorbet if you are going to keep it in your freezer for a few days.

Editor's note: This recipe is adapted from Gabrielle Carbone, coproprietor of The Bent Spoon ice cream parlor in Princeton, New Jersey. This recipe makes a luscious, blue-purple sorbet that's perfect for our red, white, and blue cake. It's a pretty simple recipe — the quality comes from fresh, organic berries picked at the height of their flavor. The quality of the water is important as well — if your water has a bad aftertaste, so will your sorbet — so we recommend using bottled. The optional egg white helps to stabilize, emulsify, and preserve the texture of the sorbet if you are going to keep it in your freezer for a few days. Also optional is straining. At the shop, we don't strain — we like to keep the fruit as close to its natural state as possible. But if you dislike bits of seeds in your sorbet, feel free to strain the base before chilling it.

You can find the Neufchâtel cheese called for here next to the cream cheese at your supermarket. Don't be alarmed by the holes in your coeur à la crème molds — they allow liquid to drain out of the bottom so the hearts will be firm enough to hold their shape.

This creamy chilled soup will make you hope for an abundance of zucchini in your garden this year. Thin-sliced zucchini blossoms, available at produce markets and specialty foods shops, add a beautiful hint of color while lending texture to the soup's smoothness.

The mildly bitter flavor of yu choy plays nicely against the sweet curry sauce and kabocha squash. Chinese broccoli or broccoli rabe (rapini) can be used instead. Serve with white rice.

Alexis Watson of Irvine, California, writes: "You could say I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to cooking. Often I'll take a particular recipe and spend months perfecting it, as I've done with the Caesar salad here. My wife wanted an easy do-ahead dressing that was creamy but didn't use egg yolks. Now we make this salad several times a week, so it was certainly well worth the effort."