Gourmet

This cake bakes for a long time at a moderate temperature, which helps keep the ripe fruit from bursting and releasing its juices. The easy-to-make pastry bakes up moist and crumbly, with a texture that's like a cross between a biscuit and a cake. A note from our cooks: We've received some letters from readers complaining about a burned crust when making the peach blueberry cake (August 2005 cover), so we ran through the recipe two more times. Baked in a standard light-colored metal pan, the cake was perfect; baked in a dark metal pan, however, it burned — be aware that the cake's high sugar content makes it more susceptible to burning at high heat. As you'll see in "Tips: A Guide to Using Gourmet's Recipes" (located on the recipe index page) we recommend always using light-colored metal pans for baking. Dark metal pans, including nonstick, will cause your baked goods to brown more quickly. Manufacturers suggest reducing the oven temperature by 25 degrees when using dark pans.

This combination is inspired by the creamy sauce for vitello tonnato, but uses sardines rather than tuna for a more lively fish flavor.

Smear on crackers for an hors d'oeuvre or on bread for a flavor-packed sandwich.

This dip is our version of a Catalan sauce that has many variations and tastes great with almost any type of grilled meat or fish. It's worth the extra trouble to use hazelnuts (which need peeling), as well as almonds. Even though 2 tablespoons of hazelnuts seems a small amount, they round out the flavor of the sauce.

These sweet-and-sour peaches perk up the flavor of ham and fried chicken; they are also very good with vanilla ice cream.

Pair this summery mixture with Italian bread for an easy, delightful sandwich.

Try this with your next roast beef or pork sandwich, on either pumpernickel or rye.

Chances are, your home stove isn't as powerful as the ones at your local Chinese restaurant, in which case a flat-bottomed wok will work best, as it has more contact with the heat than does a rounded one.

In Mexico, this breakfast dish is called huevos ahogados, meaning "drowned eggs," since the eggs are served in soup bowls with a lot of sauce.

In this perfect no-cook dish you can substitute crumbled bacon for the chicken or just omit the meat altogether.

Both the peach relish and the pork benefit from an overnight rest in the refrigerator; the relish mellows in flavor, and the pork becomes even more tender in the fiery marinade.

You'll have some leftover creamy ginger soy dressing for salad later in the week.

This recipe serves 4 as a main course if you set aside 2 chicken breasts for another meal. Otherwise, it serves 6.