Spring

We seasoned this salad — based on the Middle Eastern bread salad called fattoush — with za'atar, a mixture of salt, sumac, sesame, and thyme.

Some thickly sliced tomatoes and hot corn bread would be good with this country-style dish. A great choice for dessert is rustic stewed rhubarb with dollops of sour cream.

Any extras are great cold for breakfast. As an alternative to the vanilla ice cream, top with sour cream or lowfat yogurt for a lighter interpretation.

This modern take on a classic French dessert saves time by using frozen puff pastry.

Fool is a classic English dessert made by combining fruit puree with whipped cream. Here it is spooned into small crisp tartlet shells and garnished with a strawberry. Any leftover fool would make a nice treat with afternoon tea.

Here's a classic spring dessert from Commander's Palace.

This is a rich yet exquisitely simple dish that can be at its best only if every ingredient is of top quality. The asparagus must be fresh and in season, brightly colored, and crisp, with almost a glow in the center of the stalk. If you can buy butter from Normandy, use it; for Parmesan, use only Parmigiano-Reggiano, with its full, ripe flavor. The asparagus is not actually rôtie, or roasted, but rather sautéed in butter until it has a gilded, roasted appearance. The sprinkling of chopped raw asparagus at the end adds crunch and a slightly nutty taste to a dish of silken textures and flavors.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Use fresh peaches when available - six peaches should do it.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Made with a mixture of cooked and raw potatoes, boxty was created as a way to use a few readily available ingredients to produce different results. It can take shape as bread, pancakes or dumplings. The recipe has been popular for so long that one traditional rhyming song goes, "Boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan; if you can't make boxty, you'll never get a man." The households that didn't have a store-bought grater improvised by using nails to punch grating holes into a box or flattened tin can. Boxty is most often made as a griddle bread, served with bacon and eggs for a special breakfast treat.

Here's a great combination of colors and flavors that add up to a pretty and refreshing seasonal finale.