Fruit

Serve the lamb with your favorite tzatziki (cucumber and yogurt sauce) and horta (sautéed greens tossed with red wine vinegar and honey).

The beauty of this basic recipe is that it can be tweaked in numerous ways. For a spicy version, add some sriracha sauce. Try swapping out the lemon juice for lime juice and use feta cheese instead of Parmesan and mix in some chopped fresh cilantro and chopped red onion or shallot. For a curried chickpea salad, leave out the Parmesan and add curry powder to taste, dried currants, sliced green onions, and shredded carrots.

Bright yellow mango sweetens the deal and adds a dose of vitamin A, which helps keep your skin glowing and clear.

Thai red curry paste, unsweetened coconut milk, and fish sauce are available in the Asian foods section of most supermarkets. Serve this curry over steamed jasmine rice.

Add any leftover grape puree to a glass of sparkling water or to a quick pan sauce for chicken or duck breast.

Crunchy and colorful, this is an ideal first-course salad. Be sure to grate the peel from the tangerines before cutting the fruit into slices.

Keep in mind that these waffles will cook a little bit faster than a flour waffle because of the honey in the batter. If you don't have a waffle iron, try using the batter for pancakes.

A staple of classic Japanese cooking, teriyaki is wonderful with not only seafood but also poultry, beef, vegetables, and tofu. Often, however, this versatile sauce can be quite sweet. My version uses fresh orange juice, which adds just a touch of natural sweetness as well as some acidity to temper the sweet mirin. Pouring some of the teriyaki sauce into the hot pan with the fish further reduces it so the sauce really coats the fish with a deep, caramel glaze that enhances the delectable moist, buttery, and tender qualities of black cod perfectly. Other good fish for this dish are Alaskan cod, true cod, sablefish, or wild salmon. Searing each side of the sticky rice cake gives a nutty flavor and crisp texture. I also like to serve these rice cakes with vegetable stir-fries in place of plain rice. If you have a rice cooker, use it to prepare the rice according to the manufacturer's directions. If not, follow the instructions in the recipe to prepare it in a saucepan.

Your neighbor saw your 5,000-watt crèche with the Light-Up Holy Family and raised you Three Luminous-Halo'd Wise Men. You countered by adding the Animated Waving Santa and Nodding Reindeer to your roof; he got the Ho! Ho! Hover-Over-the-House Motion-Sensored Santa Sleigh Track. Before contemplating your next move, relax with a sparkling, ginger-infused refresher and review the inconvenient truth of your kilowatt hours.

The addition of goat cheese, apricots, and pesto lends a Mediterranean flavor to chicken. The pesto is made with fresh mint and almonds, rather than the usual basil and pine nuts.

This crumbly shortbread is studded with dried currants, which are tiny raisins made from Zante grapes. The currants must be soaked overnight, so you'll need to plan your craving a day in advance.

Prime rib, or standing rib roast, has long been a mainstay at the holiday table (where it is often paired with Yorkshire pudding, a British specialty made from the pan juices and a simple batter of flour, eggs, and milk).

Delicious served warm or at room temperature, this is an elegant party dish that cooks quickly. The tart tomato-orange chutney can be made several hours in advance or the day before.

These blueberry muffins are the only ones that we've made every day since Foster's opened over a decade ago. That's over four thousand days of blueberry muffins! Our customers demand them; they're delicious plain or with butter. Adding finely chopped blueberries to the batter—in addition to whole berries—is the key to these moist, flavorful muffins. They freeze well, so make an extra batch for hurried mornings.

Better than any store-bought energy bars, these are great for breakfast-on-the-go, brown-bag lunches, and snacks. Make a batch on the weekend to get you through the work week.

This just might be my all-time favorite dessert. It's the simple essence of sweet apples and crisp pastry with no distractions. We've all collected several similar recipes over the years, but this is the best one I've ever made. If I need to make it even faster, I use defrosted frozen puff pastry instead of making the crust (see note), but you'll want to eat it an hour or two after it comes out of the oven.