Pineapple

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. This refreshing condiment is great with the ham, or try it with grilled fish or chicken.

Among favorite desserts of the decade were waffles, served with ice cream and syrup, as well as this easy cake's ancestor. The treat reached its maximum popularity with the increasing availability of canned pineapple and the marketing efforts of the Dole Company. Today's widely available fresh fruit-spiked with ginger, macadamia nuts and orange zest-gives a great result.

We found this recipe in Austin Leslie's cookbook. It is from his mother, Ruby — she was Aunt Helen's sister and assisted her at Chez Helene and its predecessor, Howard's Eatery. Although Leslie served the bread pudding with a rum hard sauce, we prefer it with a dollop of crème fraîche.

Active time: 5 min Start to finish: 50 min

A gift from Native American cooks, hominy is dried, hulled corn kernels. Sold rehydrated in cans, it also makes a great addition to soups, stews, and casseroles.

The word chutney comes from the Hindustani chatni, which means "strong spices." The sweet juiciness of golden pineapples — much more intensely flavored than ordinary pineapples — balances the spices with the lusciousness that only tropical foods possess. But you can substitute regular pineapple if you cannot find the golden variety, and the chutney will still be complementary. Serve it with Jerked Pork Chops or any grilled meat.

We don't recommend doubling the sauce ingredients if you're cooking for more than two people — the sauce will lose its intensity. Instead, you may want to make two batches. Active time: 35 min Start to finish: 1 1/4 hr

The best smoothies are made with very ripe fruit. Mango, pineapple and banana team up with light coconut milk in this one.

Pineapples are grown all over Thailand and are commonly eaten freshly sliced at the end of a meal. We wanted a worthy finish to this complex meal, so we decided to put a slightly different spin on this classic ingredient. Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 17 3/4 hr (includes chilling and freezing)

Bottled vinaigrette adds a tangy twist to the chicken. This stylish dish goes well with couscous. Molasses cookies and vanilla ice cream sprinkled with chopped crystallized ginger would be a lovely finish.

A mildly sweet and pungent dish. No soy sauce is used in the sauce, so it is lighter in color than other sweet and pungent dishes.

Before grilling the pineapple, be sure to preheat your grill rack and then clean it with a metal brush to remove any bits of previously grilled food, which can give an off flavor to the pineapple. This recipe makes great use of the Börner V-slicer*. Other adjustable-blade slicers also work well, but if you don't have one, you can use a sharp 10-inch chef's knife. The smooth-sided tart in our photo was made in a springform pan, but since the crust is very delicate, it's much easier and less likely to break when made in a round tart pan with a removable bottom as called for in the recipe below. Active time: 50 min Start to finish: 1 1/2 hr

Store-bought vanilla frozen yogurt acts as the luscious foil for oranges, pineapple, mango and bananas in a fat-free brown sugar-cinnamon sauce.

When sweet, succulent jumbo crabmeat comes into season, this is an incredibly simple, light, and refreshing first course that requires no cooking. It can also be used as a main course for a summer luncheon.

Terrific with a scoop of vanilla frozen yogurt.