Blender

Turn a serving of your favorite fruit into a delectable dessert with an extra-easy sauce reminiscent of cheesecake.

Blend sweet strawberries with white grape juice and a bit of wine for a fruity drink or a refreshing ice.

Serve this brilliantly colored salad of mixed salad greens, blueberries, mandarin oranges, and pears with Grilled Sirloin with Honey-Mustard Marinade (page 176).

Soup’s on! This colorful and creamy soup is a delicious way to eat your veggies.

Serve this chilled fruit soup as a light summer appetizer or with your favorite sandwich or salad.

This sparkling drink is ideal as a refreshing spritzer for brunch or on a hot summer day.

With their slightly caramelized flavor, roasted vegetables make a wonderful spread. Serve with pieces of toasted whole-grain pita rounds or baked tortilla chips.

You can enjoy this protein- and fiber-packed, easy-to-prepare dip on baked tortilla chips or in Vegetarian Taco Salad (page 94).

When looking for the perfect banana for a smoothie, you want to choose one that is not green but also not overly ripe (a few brown spots are great, but you don’t want it to be brown). Green bananas are difficult to blend smoothly in the blender and won’t give you the nice sweetness ripe bananas will. But, if they’re overly ripe, the flavor will be overpowering. If you’re a big fan of smoothies, it’s best to buy bananas in bulk when they’re on sale. When they are the perfect ripeness, peel them and store them in resealable freezer bags in the freezer so they’re ready for you whenever the craving strikes.

Though this shake isn’t as thick as some, it’s still incredibly rich and really satisfies that chocolate craving. In the evening, I love to add Triple Sec or orange liqueur to make it even more indulgent. The liqueur really adds even more depth and makes the shake something special. But either way, I’m sure you’ll find it delicious!

This is a great recipe if you have a craving for something sweet but don’t want to indulge in an overly caloric dessert. With each serving having only 85 calories and 2 grams of fat, you can save yourself the trip and the cost of going to a coffee shop with a friend and indulge right in your own kitchen.

Juice bar smoothies have justifiably gotten a bad rap because they’re often chock-full of added sugar and calories. This twist on traditional raspberry lemonade uses only 1 teaspoon of honey, and the rest of the sweetness comes from real fruit. Note that it’s important to use frozen fruit in smoothies because if you use too many ice cubes to try to get that thick consistency, you’ll end up with a watery, not-as-good-as-the-juice-bar’s smoothie in minutes.

My weakness for ice cream is well known, and the name of this drink says it all.

Pat: When Gina and I are on a fitness kick and determined to lose a few pounds, I love having healthy, vibrant vegetable soups on hand. The soups help us fight the flab without sacrificing taste. And they fill us up, too! We often serve soup as a nourishing lunch or first course, and this carrot soup is one of my favorites. It has a velvety texture and an orange color that pops, and it includes a secret ingredient (sweet potato) and warm spices like cumin, coriander, and cayenne to give it depth and an irresistible aroma. Puréeing this soup in a blender instead of a food processor makes it especially silky. It’s great hot, but it’s also good chilled, topped with a swirl of plain yogurt or sour cream, during our sultry Memphis summers.

The texture of the chocolate-amaretto custard is very delicate, so be sure to slice the pears very thin, so you can eat the dessert with a spoon.