Avocado

For an attractive presentation, mound the salad on shredded lettuce and garnish with tortilla chips. Warm corn muffins and thickly sliced beefsteak tomatoes round out this substantial menu, and sliced fresh peaches and brown sugar wafers make a nice light dessert.

Paired with tortilla chips, this guacamole makes an excellent starter. Also offer chilled Mexican beer throughout the meal.

An easy-to-make sauce to accompany grilled chicken or to toss with pasta. Sprinkle the pasta with some crumbled feta cheese before serving, if desired. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

In the West Indies, salads are rarely leafy; rather they are often based on avocado and onion. We added hearts of palm for an additional tropical touch. Can be prepared in less that 45 minutes.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Margaritas, crisp Mexican beer or sangria would be perfect with this dinner.

This recipe is based on a technique to marinate shrimp with lemons, learned from Barry Morgenstern, a friend who trained at the famous Cordon Bleu in Paris. The marinade quickly infuses deeply into the hot shrimp, imparting bright flavors deep into each morsel. Once all the ingredients are assembled this is an extremely easy recipe, in which all the work can be done in advance.

Cooking chicken as described in the recipe below results in really crisp, almost transparent skin (like that on Peking duck) and moist flesh.

An easy version of the famous Cobb salad.

Jamaican jerk seasoning — a blend of chiles, thyme, garlic, onion, and spices — gives the grilled fish a reddish-brown finish. It's a supermarket staple now; look for it in the spice aisle. Serve with: Rice salad and grilled squash.

"My wife loves spinach salad, so one night I developed this recipe just for her," writes Jeff Edmunds of Yankton, South Dakota. "The crunchy apple slices and creamy avocado lend terrific texture and flavor." Add grilled chicken to this salad to make a main course.