Tomato

Chef Michael Schlow of Boston's Via Matta created this dish. Serve with Schlow's Crunchy Green Bean Salad.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Cal-a-Vie Living: Gourmet Spa Cuisine and is part of a healthy and delicious spa menu developed exclusively for Epicurious by Cal-a-Vie.

**Editor's note:**This recipe is reprinted from Rose Hammick's and Charlotte Packer's book Great Parties for Kids. For Hammick's and Packer's tips on throwing a kids' summer party, click here. Hummus and guacamole served with breadsticks and veggie sticks make great finger foods for toddlers. Older children love these too, but make sure you offer a selection of breadsticks, chips, and pita bread for those few kids who turn up their noses at the sight of raw vegetables, however sweet and juicy they are.

The pesto is also great on portobello mushroom burgers, chicken burgers, and turkey burgers.

If you can't find green garlic, just blanch a regular garlic clove in boiling water for two minutes to soften its bite.

Shrimp transforms a Middle Eastern salad into a light yet satisfying main course.

For variety, use both yellow and red watermelon in the salad.

Most salsas are too chunky and juicy to use as a dip. This one is finely puréed, with olive oil added to thicken it.

Chef Michael Mina created this dish for Epicurious's Wine.Dine.Donate program. He loves this multicomponent dish because it is the essence of summer.

Protein-packed lean shrimp really satisfies.

Accompanies Alambre de Camarones, Alambres de Camarones.

The beauty of this recipe is that each type of vegetable is cooked on its own skewer for even grilling. The tangy vinaigrette brings out the natural sweetness in the fresh summer vegetables.

A fresh summer catch from the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, bluefish has a rich, fine-textured flesh that makes it perfect for baking, broiling, or grilling.

The turbot is roasted on a thin cake of overlapping potato slices and then sauced with a simple pan sauce, garnished with tomatoes and black olives. Turbot is rarely available in the United States, but another flatfish such as a fluke or flounder makes a good substitute. You will need a mandoline or other vegetable slicer to slide the potatoes very thin. Ovenproof nonstick frying pans work best here, so the potato cakes don't stick, but if necessary you can use other 8-inch frying pans or cake pans; line them with rounds of parchment paper.

Improv: Substitute chopped red or yellow bell peppers for the tomatoes in the salad; try basil instead of cilantro in the dressing.

Why "soda jerk"? Because two kinds of pop lend the right dose of sweetness.

Susan Elizabeth Fallon of Boxford, Massachusetts writes: "I love to create new recipes to share with my husband, nine-year-old son, and friends. For me, that's the fun and adventure of cooking. I believe that eating well means using fresh, high-quality ingredients, so I'm choosy about what I buy and I grow many of my own herbs." Here's just what to do with all those tomatoes you have now. This versatile dish is great as a side, on toasted baguette slices, as a zesty omelet filling, or atop grilled fish.