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This recipe originally accompanied Frozen White Chocolate and Hazelnut Dacquoise .

Don’t bother peeling the shrimp for an everyday meal — just team them with cole-slaw and toasted bread (and napkins); follow it all with sliced bananas and pecan cookies. When it’s time for a party, peel the shrimp, and place them on angel hair pasta tossed with a colorful selection of roasted bell peppers. Vanilla bread pudding with brandy sauce is a special finale.

Excellent served cold in summer, the soup also makes a soothing hot starter during the colder months.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

A radicchio and fennel salad with red wine vinaigrette adds color and crunch, and warm focaccia rounds out the entrée. End the meal with poached pears and biscotti.

In this recipe we call for creamed honey, another name for the crystallized, or non-liquid, form of this sweetener.

This would also be delicious paired with chicken or shrimp. This recipe originally accompanied Sake-Marinated Sea Bass with Coconut-Curry Sauce.

Dark chocolate never goes out of fashion, but white chocolate was all the rage in the eighties. Foodies couldn't get enough, enjoying it in truffles, tarts and sumptuous ivory-colored mousses like this one.

A full-bodied Merlot would go well with this impressive Mediterranean-style dish. For an appetizer, offer melba toast spread with blue cheese; pass hot crusty bread with the shanks; and complete the supper with a simple green salad. Afterward, break out a lemon meringue pie from the bakery.

The truffle oil is not essential, but it's a nice indulgent touch. Since the oil's flavor dissipates with heat, add the oil to this first-course soup just before serving.

Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 15 minutes A simple ragout of shellfish and sausage, so easy to prepare it's almost a heat-and-serve dish. Cook the shallots and garlic, then the sausage, add the wine and rosemary, then the mussels, which will release their juices into the pan, and finish with the parsley and bread crumbs — a rustic, spicy, brothy dish to be eaten with good crusty bread.

Here's a delicious example of an Eastern spice used to complement a Western dish.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

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

Fresh fruit marinated in Scotch and sugar is a lovely topper for the purchased cake.

Dashi is a subtly flavored soup stock that is used throughout Japanese cooking.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. Although we call for canned black-eyed peas, you can use frozen peas or cook up a batch of dried ones.