Take time to make this delicious and beautiful Italian carrot tart and amaze your guests. Based on a recipe from the Italian magazine, La Cucina Italiana.

These Cornish pasties are sturdy pastries filled with meat, such as beef, plus lots of vegetables, including potatoes, onions, and carrots. Kids love them.

Pesto with green beans and potatoes is a classic dish. This recipe omits the pasta and substitutes almonds for pine nuts, making an incredible summer salad.

This salad mixes sweet tangerines, licorice-y fennel, peppery lettuce, almonds, green olives, and a salt cheese to make a great starter. A winning recipe.

Asian chile paste spices up these crabmeat wonton cups. A simple appetizer with minimal ingredients that looks attractive. Perfect for the holidays.

Hungry for a late night snack? Goat cheese and pesto filling is rolled up inside slices of eggplant. Eat them alone or use them as a sandwich filling.

The combination of apples, Parmesan, and walnuts makes for a light and delectable green salad. Splurge on the best Gala apples and Parmesan you can find.

This creamy salad can be made with any combination of seafood — lump crabmeat, octopus, shrimp, squid, scallops, mussels, conch are all appropriate.

These reinvented oysters Rockefeller are perched upon spinach that has been sauteed with red pepper flakes. On top is a buttery shallot-bacon sauce.

Inspired by the Amalfi Coast, this fried fish recipe uses a low frying temperature and olive and vegetable oils to make moist seafood with a crisp crust.

A perfect party starter, these salmon cakes are lightly coated in panko and crisped in olive oil. Chipolte and corn salsa complements the rich salmon.

Lentils, carrots, scallions, celery, and cucumber are tossed in a spiky vinaigrette dressing and served alongside goat cheese. A simple starter recipe.

This tomato pie is filled with dead-ripe tomatoes, herbs, Cheddar cheese, and mayo. The crust is textural foil to all the tomato goodness inside the pie.

This cornbread salad makes a great side or even a delicious first course by adding chicken or steak. The recipe calls for store-bought cornbread. Easy.

Plump figs are slathered with blue cheese and mascarpone cheese, wrapped in southern country ham, and grilled. A perfect finger food before the barbecue.

Forget the pan when you make this tart. The edges of the tart crust are folded around sweet caramelized onions, smoky bacon, and rich goat cheese.

Cheese and mushrooms taste great together and using a surface-ripened cheese enhances the mushroom flavor. Serve on crunchy sourdough bread.

Portuguese and Spanish ingredients–port wine, paprika, cilantro, and olive oil–flavor this tapas recipe. Serve these as nibbles or an appetizer.

For a taste of Martha’s Vineyard away from the coast make these stuffed quahogs – hard shell clams – to enjoy with an evening drink before dinner.

Mini veal meatballs are swathed in creamy, sweet caramelized onions. These mini meatballs are made with some pork for a deep flavor and can be prepared ahead. Definitely party food.