Tomato

We've given a twist to the traditional Greek salad, then tucked it into toasted pita bread to come up with a tasty lunchtime treat.

This salsa is chock-full of sun-loving ingredients like tomatoes, olives and capers. It's a splendid accompaniment to grilled halibut steaks, pork chops, sliced eggplant or sourdough bread.

Consider this delicious dish as a vegetarian main course, too.

A colorful, fresh-tasting dish that comes together in minutes. Serve this with a mixed green salad and some bread.

I find that littlenecks or tiny cockles are the best shellfish for this dish, because they are delicate. Tarragon complements them, as does parsley or dill.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional unattended time.

Named for the pan in which it is traditionally made, this stew is cooked over high heat in chicken broth and bacon drippings, which are then reduced to a thick sauce

This recipe originally accompanied Roast Beef, Basil, and Spicy Tomato Chutney Lavash Sandwiches.

There is this great bustling taverna in one of the northern Athenian suburbs near where we live, and this is the house special, so much so that the chef refused to give me a recipe for it. So, I deconstructed it myself only to re-create it pretty much intact. The tomatoes, cream, and ouzo make a great sauce. You could easily make a quantity and serve it over pasta. It would look and taste good with squid-ink linguine.

Offer this simple, hearty dish with a green salad, crusty garlic bread and a light red wine, like Beaujolais.

Fish from the Mediterranean waters is put to a variety of uses in Tunisian cuisine, and a simple soup such as this one of the most common. It's flavored with an appealing blend of herbs, spices and citrus.

Prepared pesto is widely available; here it brightens up quickly cooked clams. Offer some crusty bread for soaking up the broth and a salad of bagged Mediterranean greens dressed with balsamic vinaigrette. End with gelato and biscotti for an authentic Italian touch.

Two kinds of cornmeal are essential here: The fine cornmeal keeps the coating together, and the polenta makes it crisp.