With summer approaching, here’s a starter that always has a place among my fresh salads - raw artichoke, sliced carpaccio-style and seasoned.

Arancini are crispy little balls on the outside and melty on the inside. They’re perfect if you have leftover risotto from the day before, but they’re so good you might make risotto just for this! Here’s a vegetarian version with pesto and mozzarella.

If like me you love fried eggplant but the thought of them swimming in oil makes you think twice, this oven-baked fried eggplant recipe is for you! Much less oil than deep-frying for a surprisingly similar result!

This white fish quiche is excellent and ideal when you only have a little fish in the freezer.

I really enjoy world cuisine, especially Asian and Indian food. I love organizing themed dinners, so here’s a complete homemade Indian meal featuring restaurant classics like naans, samosas, and chicken tikka masala. Pick and choose from these ideas to create your perfect Indian feast at home.

Here’s a recipe idea using phyllo sheets, this time without frying - crispy phyllo with merguez sausages! A quick and flavorful recipe.

Large meat-filled dumplings that are fun to make and so delicious you’ll want to keep eating them…

Wonton soup is very popular in the United States and quite traditional in Chinese meals. Here’s an easy recipe to make it at home.

Wontons are Chinese dumplings that can be enjoyed in a fragrant wonton soup or fried as an appetizer. Here’s an easy recipe to make them at home.

Essential to Sephardic Jewish holiday buffets, these are called banatages in Tunisia and pastels in Morocco. They’re potato croquettes with tuna or meat and a hidden egg in the center.

Crispy and tender shrimp (substitute) fritters, just like at your favorite Chinese restaurant.

Indian Naans. Like probably many of you, my favorite bread when eating Indian food. These are baked in the oven.

Here’s a quick and excellent recipe for crispy basil shrimp that will impress whether served as an appetizer, starter, or main course in a composed salad.

Here’s a quick cucumber salad you can serve as is or as a condiment with salmon, deli meats, or a green salad.

Pissaladière is a Niçoise tart made with thick, soft and crispy dough topped with onions, black olives and anchovies. Emblematic of Southern French cuisine with the taste of summer, perfect as an appetizer, for aperitif or a Mediterranean buffet, this homemade pissaladière is easy to prepare and full of flavor.

A blend of maki and spring rolls. Rice paper instead of nori seaweed, with lettuce, mint, salmon, and avocado.

Salmon maki is the simplest sushi to make when you’re getting started. A nori seaweed sheet rolled with sushi rice inside and a strip of salmon.

The salmon roll is a delightful and indulgent twist on the classic maki. The nori seaweed sheet is replaced with thin slices of salmon and a cream cheese center.

A variation of salmon makis, California rolls have the distinctive feature of having the nori seaweed on the inside instead of the outside. They’re fairly easy to make.

A kosher rice bowl (chirashi) with fresh salmon, avocado, cucumber, and sesame seeds.

Perfect in mini version for a themed buffet, pita bread is very easy to make, wonderfully soft, and freezes well! I’m sharing an oven-baked version here, though you can also cook them in a skillet.