Green Bean

Serve rice with this dish from Le Colonial, a Vietnamese restaurant in West Hollywood.

An overnight pickling tames the red onions.

Offer this spirited dip with green beans, baby corn, radishes and French bread.

The vegetables can be prepared ahead and finished up to the middle of step 3. Heat for 5 minutes before serving.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional unattended time.

Serve with: Unoaked California Chardonnay • wild rice with spring herbs • watercress with orange juice vinaigrette • lemon curd tart with strawberry sauce

Boiling away the butter and seasonings from the leftover vegetables allows the flavors of the marinade to shine through. (If you don't have any leftover veggies, simply steam a mix of your favorites.)

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Try this with ciabatta or whole wheat bread.

"I recently had lunch at Café Boulud here in New York," says Shelli Rafkin of New York, New York. "My entrée, blanquette de veau, had the most incredible sauce I've ever tasted. The whole dish, in fact, was sensational." In this variation on the classic stew, the veal and the vegetables are cooked separately and combined at the end, when they're topped with a rich white sauce.

When buying green beans, look for the skinniest ones—they have the best texture. Offer plenty of crusty bread, and open a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to go with this hearty main-course salad.

Serve this dish with brown rice.

Wilt the vegetables over low heat, stirring often so they do not burn.

Add rice or soft oriental noodles, and this becomes a quick supper. Look for wasabi powder and sesame oil in the Asian foods section of the supermarket.

While staying at the Hotel Villa Flori, which overlooks Italy's Lake Como, I had an outstanding pasta with a chunky pesto sauce," says Patty Owens of Walnut Creek, California. "Is there any chance the chef would share the recipe?" This pesto sauce includes walnuts, a variation on the classic recipe. To give the dish a creamy quality, add some of the pasta cooking water to the sauce.

Lemongrass lends a delicate flavor to this simple roast chicken from Market. Begin marinating the chicken one day ahead.