Chive

When you want to put on the "dog" but not the fat, try this colorful salad.

These can be made one day ahead, then drizzled with the vinaigrette just before serving.

A delicious and much lighter version of a favorite dish. Serve this gratin with roast chicken, pork, or beef.

This classic Swiss potato pancake and the Green Bean and Red Onion Salad are great together. Serve dry Champagne throughout the meal.

An elegant appetizer from Fleur de Lys in San Francisco.

Three classic heartland ingredients — corn, smoked sausage and wild rice — combine to give this appealing first-course soup its sweet-spicy flavor and interesting texture.

Making this at least a day ahead will allow the flavors to blend.

The slightly sweet sauce is a nice complement to the delicate fish. Serve it with stir-fried green beans and steamed rice.

"I spend as much time as I can cooking," writes Brigette Lyons of Allendale, New Jersey, "and I'm equally comfortable feeding two or two hundred. I thoroughly enjoy giving sit-down meals, including an annual Christmas luncheon I do for about twenty guests. I just like to cook, period. Cooking for two hundred may be different from making weeknight dinners for myself and my husband, John, but organization is the key to both. I try to keep things on hand that are simple and easy to prepare." These rich and creamy mashed potatoes (thanks to sour cream and cream cheese) can be prepared ahead of time.

This sophisticated appetizer from Aqua in San Francisco is nice for a special occasion.

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 25 min Chuck blade steaks are a wonderful cut — luxurious flavor at a bargain price. They may appear under different names — flatiron or book steaks, for instance — in your butcher case, but they're easy to spot: Neat ovals that are slightly larger than your palm and bisected by a slender white ribbon — of gristle.

Look for the black sesame seeds in the Asian foods section of a specialty market; they add a dramatic touch to this simple side dish. If you can't find them, just use all white seeds instead.