Apricot

Here's a terrific light version of an American summer classic.

(Apricot Almond Cake) Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

LaVerl Daily, director of Le Panier cooking school in Houston, suggests supplementing this slightly tropical entrée with rice, black beans and buttered green beans sprinkled with chopped macadamia nuts. Finish with sweet potato pie or coconut cream pie.

The recipe below was based on the apricot soufflés served by Sally Darr at her former New York City restaurant, La Tulipe. This recipe calls for five large egg whites. When separating your eggs, serve the yolks for the accompanying crème anglaise.

These tiny turnovers have the same balance of filling to dough as my number one favorite cookie, rugelach, but they are easier to prepare because they aren't rolled. Rugelach means rolled; therefore, I have dubbed these "un-rugelach." The buttery cinnamon/walnut flavors fill your mouth with opulent pleasure, but despite their richness, they are easy to keep on eating because of the fresh tangyness from the apricot jam filling.

A lovely combination of apricots and cherries tops a tender crust in this great summertime treat. Serve it with lightly sweetened whipped cream.

A brandied custard filling makes a wonderful backdrop for ripe apricots.

When ripe, fresh apricots have a velvety-soft deep golden skin with a faint blush and the most delicate flavor. When picked before maturity, the flavor is less than exciting but baking surprisingly intensifies the flavor even of the pallid ones, bringing them more toward the piquancy of dried apricots. Since baked aprictos are so vivid, I always bake them entirely open-faced in a pie. Glazing them with strained apricot preserves adds extra flavor and makes them glisten.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Active time: 40 min Start to finish: 1 1/2 hr

If you don't have a 2 3/4-inch-diameter cookie cutter, the same size tin can (with top and bottom removed) works just as well.

A sweet-and-hot glaze dresses up purchased breakfast links. If you prefer extra spice, use the sausages labeled "hot and sweet links."

A delicious dessert version of a favorite New Orleans breakfast dish. Pain perdu translates as "lost bread," but you'll find that this is simply a type of French toast.

These sweet, tangy wings should appeal to even the pickiest kid. Eight pounds may sound like a lot, but no matter how many of these we made in our test kitchens, they always disappeared quickly. You may not have the oven space to cook the wings and the macaroni simultaneously. We found it best to do the wings first, then keep them warm under foil while baking the macaroni. Finally, because the wings tend to leave a mess to clean up, we like to make them in disposable foil roasting pans.

Serve this with sweetened whipped cream.

Diced apple, dried apricots and golden raisins accent this 30-minute entrée.