Food

Zesty meat, beans, and peppers topped with sweet corn bread. A great, fast, family pleaser or potluck dish. Depending on the crowd you're trying to please, you may want to jazz it up: Bulk up the meat mixture with extra veggies, add Cheddar cheese, jalapeno peppers, or chili powder to the cornbread.

Cold black bean salad with a bite! It makes a great side dish for any Mexican or Southwestern dish. This recipe has become a healthy favorite in our family. Adjust the amount of serrano pepper to suit your spice tolerance.

Pineapple, peanuts and lots of chopped apples are folded into whipped topping and a nice, thick cooked pineapple juice dressing.

A lovely baby shrimp and chive salad tucked into avocado halves. The combination of flavors and textures - especially the creamy mayonnaise dressing spiked with Worcestershire and chili sauce - is sensational.

I invented this recipe and entered it into a contest held at my college. The texture is light as a cloud, though it is quite rich. It is prepared with the convenience of a microwave!

This pasta salad has all the standard ingredients of a deluxe pizza!

I began using sage on salmon during my college years, when I grew entirely too much of the herb, and put it in pretty much everything. It became my favorite herb, and lends a delicate and unexpected taste and scent to this dish.

This is my grandmothers pie recipe and is excellent for fresh pumpkin. I cut my pumpkins and bake them for an hour or so depending on the size of the pumpkin and them mash them through an old colander that has a pestle with it. Also passed down from my grandmother. I freeze 4 cups of processed pumpkin so that I always have the exact amount of pumpkin I need for a pie.

My family always complained that baked goods that were kosher for Passover tasted terrible, so I took my regular brownie recipe and created a flour and leavening-free version that tastes just as good as the non-Passover version!

By JIM ROMANOFF FOR AP Once you veer away from the classic red tomatosauce, finding a healthypasta sauceis not easy. The traditional selection of popular