Lima Bean

Head north of Sunset, and you will happen upon this live-music supper club tucked away in the hills of tony Bel Air. The swank venue features a stage surrounded by tables where you can spy toe-tapping regulars such as Nicolette Sheridan and Virginia Madsen taking in the soulful jazz tunes. You can make a meal of chef Sharon Funt's delicious flatbread appetizer; each serving provides more than 8 grams of fiber.

Your butcher can butterfly the lamb for you. What to drink: Bordeaux-blend reds, such as Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon, are the perfect match.

The cooking water for these beans becomes a flavorful broth to serve them in.

This Indian-inspired salad can also be served warm as a side dish.

It may be corn season, but canned or frozen corn kernels work just as well as fresh in this corn salad. A mixed green salad rounds out the menu nicely.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Usually made of mashed potatoes, garlic and olive oil, skordalia is a thick sauce served with meats, fish, fritters or greens.

In place of the pasta commonly found in Italian bean soups we've used wheat berries — minimally processed whole grains — for the following recipe.

Dry-cured country ham can be substituted for the hickory-smoked ham called for here.

Giant beans in some form or another are never absent from Greek meze menus. The key to making this dish taste as good as possible is to use high-quality roasted sweet peppers preserved in extra virgin olive oil. I usually make my own oil, and have them on hand. All you need to do is roast the peppers whole under the broiler, let them cool, peel them, and store them in a container in the fridge covered with good olive oil. You can pour a few tablespoons of the pepper-infused oil into the baking dish for added flavor. As for the beans themselves, the trick is to get the texture right. Giant beans need first to be soaked, then boiled, and finally baked. Once done, they should be soft, almost buttery, without being baked to the point that they fall apart.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.